Two New Facebook Live Features Just Launched To Use With Friends

Add in a friend to do a split-screen live video with, and make private chats on public videos.

Facebook live videos are super popular now – Facebook says that one out of every five videos watched on the site are live videos. Which is nuts!

And today, the company is adding two new features to make live videos better for both filming and watching.

1. Now you can make a private chat with just friends on a public Live video.

This means that on a popular live video, you can talk to just your friends without having all your comments swamped by hundreds of randos. Or, let's say that you're part of a niche community of veterinarians specializing in giraffe birth, and you want to be able to discuss the pregnancy of April the giraffe without all the riff-raff (this could happen, right?) This new feature would be perfect for that.

2. The next feature lets you do a joint live broadcast with a friend in a different location. It's basically like letting other people watch your Skype or Facetime with your BFF.

Facebook offered this feature to verified users last summer, but now everyone can do it. This solves a big problem with doing a live video yourself, which is like... doing it alone is kind of boring? And you might not have anything to say. Now, you can share the awkwardness of a live video and make it like your own mini talk show, even if your friend lives on the other side of the country.