Instagram Live Can Soon Become A Two-Person Show

There is no shortage of live streaming services these days, from popular ones like YouTube and Facebook to sometimes more niche services that very few know about. Most of these services, however, are mostly geared towards mass broadcasters or mass participation. Instagram Live, in contrast was conceived with only one person as the star. That, however, may no longer be true in the near future, with Instagram Live now testing the ability to add a co-host to your stream.

There could be many reasons why you'd want to see two faces in your Instagram Live video feed. Instagram itself paints a scenario where you need some backup to conquer your shyness. Of course it could be just as simple as two friends who want to drop a greeting for another one.

Whatever the use case, Instagram is making it easy to add another person to your live stream. Just tap on the two overlapping smiley at the bottom right of the screen and choose one of your Instagram contacts to add. The screen will be split in half, with you on top, though you can easily switch places with a single tap. You can also just as quickly switch to another "co-host" on the fly while you co-streamer can also leave at any time, even without warning (how rude!).

Other than that, nothing else really changes with this new two-person live stream. Viewers can react and comment as normal and you can choose to save your video to Stories or ditch them to remove all evidence forever (or so they say).

This new Instagram Live is, pardon the pun, not live yet for all. It's still undergoing limited testing among a few users but Instagram promises it will be available globally in the next few months. When it does, it could help give the Facebook-owned social network an edge over rivals like Snapchat or even Twitter.

SOURCE: Instagram