The option to show live video is being turned on Thursday for everyone in the US with Facebook's app installed on an iPhone. The California company plans to extend the iPhone feature to all 1.6 billion of its worldwide users in the next few weeks.
(Also see: Facebook Testing Live Video Streaming on iOS)
The feature will enable Facebook users to share live video with friends and family. It's similar to the live video app called Periscope that Twitter introduced on its messaging service last year.
Facebook is still working on adding live video to its app for Android devices.
Earlier in the week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company's new Reactions feature will be rolled out globally "pretty soon". Zuckerberg didn't give a more concrete timetable while discussing the new feature with analysts in a conference call Wednesday following Facebook's latest quarterly earnings report.
The additional options will expand Facebook beyond the renowned thumbs-up 'Like' symbol that people click on to show they like a comment, photo or video posted on the social network.
"We want people to be able to share all of the things that are meaningful to them, not just the things that are happy and that people are going to like when they see it," Zuckerberg said Wednesday.
Facebook is hoping the additional choices will encourage people to share their thoughts more frequently and hang out on the social network for even longer periods than they already do.
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