Ustream's BFF app live broadcasts to Facebook
Ustream is bringing a new product to the live streaming world -- an app that lets users simultaneously record and broadcast videos on Facebook via their smartphones.
Streaming company Ustream announced today that it is bringing live video to Facebook's news feed, according to The Verge.
The streaming will come via a new mobile app called BFF. No, it doesn't stand for Best Friends Forever, it means Broadcast For Friends. The idea is for people to simultaneously record and broadcast on Facebook without having to upload the video first. Apparently, Ustream's goal is that it be simple.
The way the app works is after loading it up, users can choose who in the Facebook world they want to view it, pick a camera filter, and then they're good to start recording. Once the stream gets going, people can like or comment on it within Facebook.
Ustream broadcasting was designed to be able to support multitudes of viewers at once. For example, more people watched the Mars rover landing on Ustream than on TV -- 3.2 million people to be exact. With this kind of back-end knowledge, Ustream appears well equipped to handle Facebook's millions of users without crashing the network.
The BFF app won't be a component of the iPhone and Android Ustream apps that already exist. Instead, it will be a standalone application. According to The Verge, the app for Android is on its way and the iPhone app is still waiting for Apple's approval, which is expected in September.
Here's a video demo of the app: