Today, Facebook began rolling out its much anticipated Watch Party feature that lets groups on the platform watch videos together and react in real time. This comes six months after the feature was originally debuted and entered testing.
According to the company, you’ll need to have a Group on Facebook in order to use Watch Party. Other entities like Pages won’t be able to utilize the feature. As long as you and your friends are in a Group, you can watch videos in real time with each other and react in the comment section. The “hosts” of the party can select which videos to watch, while those “attending” the part can suggest content. Videos in a Watch Party can be prerecorded or live.
Watch Party is a new way for people to watch videos on Facebook 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.
In the company’s announcement, Facebook says it’s exploring ways for friends outside of groups to start a Watch Party along with Pages. However, it isn’t clear when any of these actions will come to public fruition. We’ll keep you posted.
Facebook says all Groups on the platform across the globe can now host Watch Parties.
