Ustream, one of the web’s most high-powered streaming platforms, is about to launch an app that will allow users to set up their own live broadcasts on Facebook, for free. It’s called BFF – no, not Best Friends Forever, but Broadcast for Friends and it will turn anyone with an iPhone into a live reporter, documentarian, and concert streamer.
It’s a simple idea, really. All you have to do is open up the standalone BFF app, connect to your Facebook account, and find something worthy of broadcasting to your friends. You don’t even need a Ustream account to do it.
Once you decide to stream something to your friends, you can chose the distribution scale – whether you broadcast to everyone, just your friends, or just yourself. Once you start recording, the video will show up on your Timeline and on your friends’ news feeds, immediately. And in true Ustream fashion, the live video will be saved automatically and stored on your Timeline for future viewing.
The concept is pretty fun on its own, but Ustream wants to make it a little more playful with fliters.
“BFF not only has a high quality camera, we also have 10 Hollywood-inspired filters to make your video pop. Favorites around the office are Maltese (film noir style) and Vendetta (graphic novel style). We also have a “Curiosity” filter inspired by the recent expedition to Mars. You can change filters by swiping or by selecting a filter on the bottom,” they say.
There are a lot of possible use for the BFF app, but the first thing I thought of when I saw it was concerts. Strangely enough, it appears Ustream thought the same way.
Though I can see people getting in trouble with this…
Ustream unveiled and demoed the new app last night at an event in San Francisco. They say that it will be launching soon on iOS, and you can sign up to be notified when that happens here. For you Android users out there, a BFF app is coming, eventually.
