Facebook is transcending beyond the usual likes, shares and comments its 1.5 billion users do that every day. They are now forging ahead to become the source for news and that is why they have been adding more tools to encourage content creators of all sectors to use Facebook as a platform to publish their content.
The “second screen” terminology is the new trend where people comment about they are watching on TV on social media using their mobile phone (hereby named second screen). Facebook said that 85% of people who reported visiting a social network while watching TV said they visited Facebook”.According to TechCrunch, in another move to lure more of the traditional media, they have launched 3 new tools that will help broadcasters capture the “second screen”
1. Facebook Custom Icons
Facebook has decided to ape Twitter’s hashflags where they will customize live TV events with their own icons which are to implore people to use them and in turn used by broadcasters to determine the visibility of the specific show
2. In app voting and polling
Facebook will roll out a Hashtag Voting API in which broadcasters will use to ask users to submit their opinions about a certain broadcast, especially award or contest shows. Also, there is a polling API that will enable broadcasters to create polls so that they can identify the sentiment from the users watching the specific broadcasts
3. Video and Photo Submissions
Thanks to another API, Facebook users will now be able to engage with broadcasters by submitting photos and videos to them. This would need a filter of sorts since people may decide to upload troll material to broadcasters which would degrade the usefulness of the functionality
Twitter should watch out as now Facebook is rolling out functionality to capture the live audience that use the second screen as a tool to describe what they are watching. It would be interesting to watch who will emerge the winner of the second screen when it comes to describing in the moment events.
