Facebook has been aggressively courting media publications to use its Live video streaming feature. Today, Buzzfeed was supposed to host the first interview with President Obama using Facebook Live. Shortly before it was supposed to begin, Facebook Live failed and BuzzFeed turned to YouTube to stream the interview instead.
The interview by BuzzFeed’s legal editor focusing on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland was supposed to start at 2:50 PM. BuzzFeed began streaming with some opening remarks, but the feed cutout before President Obama arrived. As a result, BuzzFeed began directing Facebook watchers to YouTube and the interview went as planned.
YouTube advertised the livestream on its homepage and the banner is still present with a link to watch the full interview.
This was a rather public gaffe as Facebook tries to compete with the likes of YouTube and Twitter’s Periscope. YouTube has been hosting livestreams for a while and began allow 360-degree live streams last month.
Meanwhile, Facebook just recently began rolling out the Live feature to all mobile users after an initial rollout to celebrities and other verified users.
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