Media companies are swooning over the possibilities of posting live video to Facebook, a feature made widely available two months ago.

For years, companies have searched for ways to unlock three tough questions: How do you attract people to live online videos? How do you reach people on their mobile devices? And how do you get more out of Facebook’s 1.6 billion users, says The New York Times.

Live streaming could be the answer.

The feature, called Facebook Live, has largely lived under the radar so far. But it is one of the company’s highest-priority projects and a pet project of Mark Zuckerberg’s.

Facebook plans to announce a suite of new features and partners in early April and at F8, Facebook’s developer conference in San Francisco later in the month.

The Huffington Post has tested live video across many of its 79 Facebook pages, with broadcasts from the campaign trail, celebrity interviews and live music events.

But will it make money for media companies? Companies that spent much of last year producing original video for their Facebook pages have yet to see significant revenue, despite assurances from the company.

But one benefit is clear: Live broadcasts display higher in users’ feeds — a prioritization Facebook has acknowledged publicly. That’s good news for companies whose posts are lost in many users’ news feeds.

Facebook’s ability to convene large audiences will help Live compete with Twitter’s Periscope, an app that helped popularize mobile live streaming last year.

YouTube, the largest online video site, is in the early stages of making its own mobile live video app.

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