Australia: You can now go live on Instagram along with everybody else
Australia is finally able to livestream on almost every damn app out.
Following a U.S. launch in Dec. 2016, Instagram kicked off its live function in Instagram Stories locally on Wednesday. Australians have already been able to watch foreign livestreams on the app, but now they'll be able to make their own by toggling into live in the Stories camera.
Live videos appear in the app's Instagram Stories "explore" section, and occasionally users get notifications when one of their faves is livestreaming. Like on Facebook, users can comment and "heart" during the stream.
The news comes as the Facebook-owned company looks to commercialise the popularity of Instagram Stories.
In January, Instagram announced that Stories would no longer be commercial-free. Ads will be inserted into the Snapchat clone, which now boasts about 150 million daily users. Companies like Qantas and Airbnb were among the first clients.
According to company statistics, about 70 percent of users follow a business, which is a good look for potential advertisers.
"Everything that's available in the Facebook infrastructure will also be available on Stories with the benefit of these format, fully immersive, full screen," Vishal Shah, director of product management at Instagram, told Mashable at the time. "We think these combined, the format plus our advantage on the backend side are a really unmatched experience than what's in market today."
Topics Instagram
Ariel Bogle was an associate editor with Mashable in Australia covering technology. Previously, Ariel was associate editor at Future Tense in Washington DC, an editorial initiative between Slate and New America.
