Facebook rolls out 'Watch Party' feature for groups

Facebook has launched a new feature called 'Watch Party' which will allow people sharing a mutual group to stream videos together in real time.

Once a Watch Party is started, participants can watch videos, live or recorded, and interact with one another around them in the same moment." We’ve been focused on building new ways to bring people together around video, create connections, and ignite conversations; Watch Party is the next step in bringing this vision to life," the social media giant announced in a blog post.

It also states that Facebook has been encouraged by feedback from groups using Watch Party as it has been testing and rolling out. Responses from group leaders that they’re excited to use Watch Party for things like: hosting Q&As around particular hobbies such as cooking or crafting, sharing behind the scenes details of a video, swapping tips and tricks for things like home improvement, decorating, or makeup tutorials with members in real time, learning new things like a workout technique or musical skills, and inviting special guests to join their Watch Party, have further accelerated the launch.

Key Features

Based on community feedback from the test, Facebook has rolled out two new feature:

• First, it is adding Co-hosting, which lets the host of a Watch Party designate other co-hosts who can add videos and keep the party going.
• Also adding Crowdsourcing, which lets anyone in a Watch Party suggest videos for the host to add to the Watch Party.

"In our testing, we’ve seen Watch Parties, both big and small, with highly engaged members often generating hundreds or even thousands of comments while watching videos together. There were even groups that dedicated more than 10 hours to a single Watch Party, with different members coming in and out throughout the day," mentions the blog post.

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Facebook is now starting to test the ability for people to start Watch Parties with friends outside of groups, too, and will explore Watch Parties for Pages in the future. The company believes that if people can start a Watch Party directly from their profile or from a video they’re watching, the experience of watching video on Facebook can become even more fun and social.