BuzzFeed's interview with Obama on Facebook Live goes blank

In a jolt to video live-streaming efforts on social media, news and entertainment company Buzzfeed's interview with US President Barack Obama suffered a technical glitch, leading to a black out within two minutes of its going live on Facebook Live.

According to adweek.com, nearly 35,000 Facebook viewers were on Monday left listening to BuzzFeed's legal editor Chris Geidner introductory lines as he was waiting for Obama to arrive before live streaming suffered a technical failure in less than two minutes into the broadcast.

Awkwardly, Buzzfeed had to direct Facebook Live viewers to YouTube -- Facebook's arch rival on the video streaming front -- where over 5,00,000 people had watched the interview without any glitch in less than nine hours of its release.

Buzzfeed's Geidner interviewed Obama on the Supreme Court nomination.

Facebook and YouTube are fighting to become the leader in online video streaming.

Facebook, during its quarterly earnings call recently, announced that its users watch 100 million hours of video each day and that 500 million people watch video daily on the social network.

Facebook has begun testing the ability to share live videos on the networking site for people across the world.

"Live lets you show the people what you're seeing in real time -- whether you're visiting a new place, cooking your favorite recipe, or just want to share some thoughts. No matter where you are, Live lets you bring your friends and family right next to you to experience what's happening together," a Facebook newsroom release said.

Facebook is also planning a new feature called "Slideshow" which will include music from Warner Music Group to help users create "soundtrack options".

Facebook, with 1.59 billion users worldwide, is exploring new ways to work in conjunction with the music industry, the New York Post reported.

The feature will serve as happy news for music labels at a time when they are downhearted with the volume of unlicensed user-generated content at YouTube.

--IANS

na/py/