Mark Zuckerberg is “obsessed” about it 

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly made Live a priority for the company’s video-focused product and engineering teams.

Zuckerberg is Facebook’s de facto product chief, and while his blessing doesn’t guarantee success, anything he throws his weight behind is likely to receive significant attention, investment and promotion.

It also means Live is less likely to be abandoned, even if it encounters early challenges.

Facebook may pay celebrities big bucks to livestream

In an effort to drive adoption of Live, Facebook is courting celebrities who it hopes can help popularize livestreaming on its social network.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is personally involved in talent agency pitches and there are reports Facebook is offering to pay celebrities cash to use Live.

This is apparently the first time the company has offered compensation for adoption, reflecting just how important Live is.

Live videos are more likely to rank higher in the News Feed

Facebook says that users spend three times more time watching a Live video than a video that has been pre-recorded, so it has updated the algorithm that governs the News Feed to prioritize Live videos.

While the company calls this update “small” and notes that “we do not expect Pages to see significant changes as a result of this update,” marketers looking for ways to cut through the News Feed clutter now have a new tool that might help them do just that.

It’s shaking up the livestreaming market

Meerkat, the startup that helped spark today’s livestreaming trend, just announced that it’s pivoting away from livestreaming due in part to competition from larger social networks.

“The distribution advantages of Twitter/Periscope and Facebook Live drew more early users to them away from us and we were not able to grow as quickly alongside as we had planned,” Meerkat CEO Ben Rubin wrote in an email to the company’s investors.

Fortunately, marketers that jumped on Meerkat’s bandwagon should be able to apply some of the knowledge they gained to livestreaming on Facebook.