Facebook has started testing a new live streaming feature to compete with the likes of Twitter’s Periscope and Meerkat.

According to the social media site’s blog, the upgrade allows you to “bring the photos and videos you share on Facebook to life with live video and collages, to help friends and family feel like they’re in the moment with you”.

The roll-out of Live video, which commenced on 3 December, started with a small number of people in the US on iPhones.

Users are able to select the audience that they wish to connect with before going live and measure the number of live viewers plus their names, with a real-time stream of comments. The video will then be saved to the creator’s timeline to be watched later or deleted.

Users will be able to discover not only live videos from friends but also from public figures they follow in their newsfeed, with the option to ‘subscribe’ for notifications of the next live broadcast.

A new Collage function will group photos and videos taken together into a scrolling collection.

The new collage function is already available to iPhone users and will be rolled out in early 2016 for those with Android, while the release date for the live streaming function is yet to be announced.

However, Facebook does reveal in the blog that it is currently “reconsidering the process of sharing from mobile devices” with a new design being piloted at the moment, where users can tap a drop down menu to see all the different ways in which they can share.