, a live video streaming site, has announced a new feature which integrates its chat interface with Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. Site founder Justin Kan says the integration is aimed at leveraging users’ status updates on social networking sites to encourage a social viewing experience.
The new functionality lets viewers of any of Justin.tv’s 400,000 live streams log directly into their Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace accounts from the site. Once logged in, viewers can use a given site’s status updates to share what they’re watching with friends.
For example, a Twitter user can tweet straight from one of Justin.tv’s chat windows, as well as view tweets of other users watching the same video stream. Likewise, Facebook and MySpace users can now update their status from Justin.tv, while also inviting friends to join them in watching the video stream.
Although Justin.tv’s video streams still aren’t viewable offsite, Kan believes that the integration of real-time conversation from popular social platforms like Facebook can add a lot of value to the site’s streams. Ultimately, it will be up to the users to decide, but it seems like Kan is on the right path. CNN’s adopted a similar (and widely successful) approach with its real-time innaguration coverage on Facebook.
