Facebook adds live broadcasting to Messenger Rooms

Facebook has today announced a cool new update to Facebook Messenger Rooms, live broadcasting.

In a blog post today Facebook stated:

Today, we're introducing a new way to broadcast live to Facebook from Messenger Rooms. Turning your room into a Facebook Live broadcast makes it easy to go live with up to 50 people. Whether you're hosting a book club with friends, interviewing a panel of experts, teaching a fitness class, or broadcasting with your friends for fun, going live from a room lets you interact with audiences of any size.

Messenger Rooms are Facebook's answer to Zoom calls, joinable video group calls of up to 50 people. With this new feature, you'll be able to broadcast a call of up to 50 people live as it happens:

Create a room that can go live right from Facebook or Messenger web, and invite anyone to join, even if they don't have a Facebook account. As a room creator, you can broadcast your room to a Profile, Page or Group, and invite people to tune in. By bringing Messenger Rooms and Facebook Live together, we're unlocking new ways for people to connect and create content even while they're apart.

Broadcasting is controlled by the room creator, who also controls who is allowed onto the call. If a room goes live, everyone in the room has to opt-in to participate. As noted, the feature could have plenty of different uses, for example broadcasting an interview, a music event, a book club, an interview or a fitness class.

It is rolling out to Facebook and Messenger web from today in "some countries", but will soon expand to all countries where Messenger Rooms is available, as well as to Facebook and the Messenger mobile app, as well as Messenger's desktop app.