In a bid to take on Google's YouTube, social media giant Facebook on Wednesday launched a new feature called "Watch Party" that allows users of the social network groups to watch videos together in real time and also comment.
To make use of this new feature, members of any Facebook group need to search a video on the social platform and then invite others to join them. Those that join to watch the video will see a chat window that is open for them to have discussions."Once a Watch Party is started, participants can watch videos, live or recorded, and interact with one another around them in the same moment," A statement from Erin Connolly, Product Manager at Facebook read.
This Facebook Watch Party feature has been under test for six months before its launch on Wednesday. However, Facebook added another feature that wasn't there during the test phase.
The added feature lest the host of a Watch Party designate other co-hosts who can add video and keep the party going.
Another added feature is crowdsource. This feature allows group members of the Watch Party to suggest videos to the host(s) of the Watch party.
Though the Watch Party feature isn't available for pages on the social media network, Facebook has revealed plans to roll out the feature for pages in the feature.
"We are now starting to test the ability for people to start Watch Parties with friends outside of groups, too, and we'll explore Watch Parties for Pages in the future," Connolly said.
"We believe that if people can start a Watch Party directly from their profiles or from a videos they're watching, the experience of watching video on Facebook can become even more fun and social," Connolly added.