[creative_master]

Do you remember CNN’s live stream of the inauguration, or when TNT did a live stream webcast of the NBA All-Star Game? If you did happen to catch both of those online events at the respective websites, you would have noticed that Facebook played a large part in those particular events.

Each of these events integrated the Facebook Connect-enabled live stream widget. And now Facebook is making this available to all websites and developers who can now incorporate this technology on their sites.

This event now allows brands to consider using this Live Stream ‘Chat’ Box on their websites or applications. However, it is not only built to function around live events, but could be used simply for any reason on a website – but that is the point of it. And another great aspect of this client comes right from Facebook who said “the Live Stream Box can handle a very substantial load, supporting millions of simultaneous users.”


The one downside of the Live Stream Box is that the content posted to it will not be archived or accessible for any APIs. This client is to be utilized as a one-use chat room that can be thrown away at a later point.

However, the true benefit of this is the ability to increase the engagement level, and keep a user’s interest on your website, and increase the amount of time a user might engage on it.

The process is quite simple in how this client functions – a user comes to your site, and if they are already signed in through Facebook, they will be able to start chatting right away (if they are not, they will be asked to sign-in before taking part in the chat client), and each ‘chat message’ a user submits is posted back to their Facebook profile with a link to the website they just came from (Your Website!!). This in turn shows up on their news’ feeds, and so on – the viral propagation has begun.

Read the full post @ Overdrive Online Marketing Blog: Facebook Launches 'Live Stream' Widget for All Website Owners