Going live: what’s the best app for broadcasting live video?

Best for…self-destructing clips (Instagram Live Video)

Thought Snapchat was the place for self-destructing media? While that’s true for messaging, Instagram has done a Melania Trump and ‘borrowed’ its rival’s idea for a new Live Video feature.

These ephemeral videos, which can last up to 60 minutes and can’t be replayed by viewers, are an intriguing blend of Snapchat and Periscope. It’s best place for live video experimentalists to start, as any embarrassing fails won’t be recorded in the internet’s history books.

Once you’ve got the update (which is still being rolled out), swipe right Instagram to open the camera. At the bottom of the screen you’ll see a new ‘live’ option – choose this, then tap ‘Start Live Video’.

There’s the option to enable comments and your closest friends will receive notifications when you’re live, but otherwise it’s a very private, intimate affair compared to Periscope and even Facebook Live.

Unless you’re fame-hungry or fancy infiltrating Instagram’s public ‘Explore’ section, this makes it a good option for sharing quick clips of your holiday escapades, if not exactly becoming the next livestreaming megastar.

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Best for…a big audience (Facebook Live)

As the elder statesman of social media (and parent company of Instagram), Facebook fittingly takes the old-fashioned approach to live video. You press record, friends add their likes and emojis, and it gets saved on your timeline.

With the option of keeping or delete your videos, so you’re not destined to be haunted for life by ‘the incident’. But Facebook Live’s archiving powers make it the best choice for saving live videos for friends and far-flung banter merchants to enjoy again later.

To get going, press the ‘Live’ button that sits just below the app’s search bar and choose who you want to broadcast to. One option is to share only to one of your Facebook groups, which is handy if you don’t want that Warhammer reunion plastered across your whole feed.

You can also now broadcast in ‘full screen’ horizontal mode, which is a bit more cinematic than the traditional square format. Another plus for Facebook over its rivals are the bonus extras: Reactions is the best commenting system around, and in the pipeline are new Prisma-style video filters, a desktop mode and virtual waiting rooms.

Of course, with Facebook used by over a billion people, there’s also the possibility of saved videos spreading like wildfire, so anyone with privacy concerns might be better off with Instagram’s self-destructing clips.

But in the main Facebook Live is the gold standard for broadcasting live to your own social bubble.

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Best for…one-man TV channels (Periscope)

Looking to broadcast to the world rather than a bunch of people you met once through work? Periscope takes its lead from parent company Twitter and gives you a public soapbox that’s less personal than Facebook and Instagram, but better for broadcasting public events to new people.

As well as streaming in the app, Periscope lets you tweet a link to your footage and use hashtags to help strangers discover it.

Once a broadcast ends, you can choose whether to let others replay it, and your footage is automatically saved to your phone where you’re free to publish it elsewhere online.

Like Twitter, there’s a certain serendipitous charm to Periscope that can see viewers teleport between someone’s bar-hopping escapades to a secret Rolling Stones gig while on their commute home.

The flipside is that your own videos can get lost in the noise (particularly if you use lesser-known hashtags or lack a keen Twitter following), which makes Facebook Live a better bet for guaranteed views from friends and family.

Still, for citizen journos or anyone who likes the idea of being able to beam live videos into virtually any corner of the internet, it’s well worth adding to your armoury.

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