Facebook Live to support 360-degree videos by early 2017

Facebook is doing everything it can to beef up video content on its platform. The social networking giant that often says that video content is the future of the Internet is making yet another move to let people engage more with live-streaming broadcasts by rolling out the 360-degree video for Facebook Live users in early 2017.

“Live 360 video will be available to more Pages via the Live API in the coming months, and we look forward to rolling it out more broadly for all Pages and Profiles next year,” said Facebook product manager Supratik Lahiri and software engineer Chetan Gupta in a blog post.

Facebook had previously launched support for prerecorded 360 videos and widened out support for Facebook Live to all users earlier this year. Now, it’s pairing the two formats together with live 360 video support — promising to give users get a real-time, immersive video experience.

The company’s first partner for live 360 videos is cable network National Geographic, that used the feature on Tuesday for a broadcast as part of promoting its “Mars” space-travel series.

According to Facebook, it will make support for live 360 videos available to additional partners via the Facebook Live API in the coming months. The company plans to roll out live 360 for all Pages and Profiles in 2017.

Last month, Facebook started tests to add neural network trained artistic styles (Prisma) to Facebook Live videos.