Periscope

Facebook Live: The new tool for storytelling

When Philando Castile was shot dead by a police officer in Minnesota earlier this year, the world watched as his girlfriend broadcast the aftermath of the incident live on Facebook Live. The social media giant’s new live-video tool, has turned anyone with a smart­phone into a potential broadcaster.

Where users once only had the option to update their status with thrilling (or not so thrilling) written updates, live video now joins photos, recorded videos and emojis as a way to update friends and followers.

History man Dan Snow forges an online empire

"I’d rather have internet than running water," declares Dan Snow, broadcaster, historian and self-confessed digital obsessive. Not content with making history programmes for broadcasters on subjects as diverse as China’s Terracotta Army and the D-Day landings, Snow is now building an online empire. His new tools are apps, YouTube videos, Facebook, Twitter (where he has a whopping 100,000 followers) and, most recently, Periscope, the Twitter-owned live video app.