In the field of social media, the term "live media" refers to new media that use streaming media technologies for creating networks of live multimedia shared among people, companies and organizations. Many chat rooms also consist of emotes which is another way to communicate to the livestreamer. Platforms often include the ability to talk to the broadcaster or participate in conversations in chat. User interaction via chat rooms forms a major component of livestreaming. Live coverage of sporting events is a common application.
Sites such as Twitch have become popular outlets for watching people play video games, such as in esports, Let's Play-style gaming, or speedrunning, and is now broadening, with a category called "Just Chatting" usually having the most viewers. Platforms such as Facebook Live, Periscope, Kuaishou, Douyu, bilibili and 17 include the streaming of scheduled promotions and celebrity events as well as streaming between users, as in videotelephony.
Livestream services encompass a wide variety of topics, from social media to video games to professional sports. Non-live media such as video-on-demand, vlogs, and YouTube videos are technically streamed, but not live-streamed. It is often referred to simply as streaming, but this abbreviated term is ambiguous because "streaming" may refer to any media delivered and played back simultaneously without requiring a completely downloaded file. Livestreaming is online streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real-time. ( June 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)
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