Twitter Buys Live Streaming App Periscope | TechCrunch Twitter Buys Live Streaming App Periscope Posted Even With Delays, Building A 12.9-Inch iPad Could Be The Easy Part If you looked at this week’s sudden Meerkat phenomenon and thought “hey, Twitter should buy this,” then you’re on the right track. According to sources we’ve spoken with, Twitter has been in talks to purchase live streaming app Periscope , which many private beta users have compared to Meerkat. Update 3/13: Twitter today confirmed that it had acquired Periscope. Title updated to reflect the acquisition. Here’s our follow up story on how sources say Periscope works and how it’s different than Meerkat. The talks are in early stages, but it’s clear that Periscope and Meerkat are doing similar things in a similar space. One source pegs a possible deal at around $100M, another source says the deal is worth a fraction of that. Live streaming on the backbone of the Twitter user graph is certainly intriguing, as the uptake of Meerkat has proven. Periscope is a similar arrangement.

It allows people to fire up live video wherever they are and broadcast it to allow people to watch it. The design is more ‘polished’ than Meerkat, which resembles Snapchat in its minimal — even roughshod — aesthetic. But the general principles are very similar. It would be a natural fit for Twitter to acquire one of the apps in this space. It’s right in line with its real-time tentpole and feels inevitable. While much of Twitter’s efforts have been put toward ensuring that its bottom line benefits from users that don’t tweet, or even log into its service, offering core ‘creators’ a 1-to-many broadcast option a button away is certainly a no-brainer. In many ways, a product like Periscope aligns with something like Apple’s FaceTime. It’s just video chat, which had been around for ages — but it’s the lubrication of that process that has made it so popular. When it’s institutionalized, in a platform like Snapchat, Facebook or Twitter, it becomes just another sharing option. If you’re one tap away from sharing a cool live experience, won’t you be more likely to try it out?

Especially in a way that taps into the ephemerality and informality of Snapchat. Over the past week I used Meerkat to stream a live roller coaster ride to around 30 people, which was a very interesting feeling. It had the same feel as a Twitch broadcast, but instead of a game, it was your life you were commentating. Periscope and Meerkat face the same challenges as any live-streaming product. There is a narrow window of opportunity for a live event, and it’s completely synchronous — unable to be consumed out of line with its creation. That’s both compelling and limiting. Live video like this seems like it would be incredibly difficult to scale, but that’s not a problem if you already have scale and you just want to leverage it in a new way. Now is the right time for something like this to be a part of Twitter for a variety of reasons. High-bandwidth, mobile cellular networks are far more prevalent than ever before, as are powerful mobile devices with great cameras. There is also Twitter’s history of facilitating transparency in events like the Arab Spring, the Ferguson protests in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown and many others.

Live video streaming would be a boon to activists, reporters and documentarians. We have reached out to Twitter and Periscope and will update if we receive a response. This story updated with more pricing details and disclosure. Twitter’s Periscope App Lets You Livestream Your World | WIRED Time of Publication: 7:24 am. 7:24 am Twitter’s Periscope App Lets You Livestream Your World Periscopes Kayvon Beykpour, CEO & Co-Founder and Joe Bernstein, Co-Founder, photographed at their headquarters in San Francisco, CA, on March 25th, 2015. Christie Hemm Klok/WIRED On Monday morning, I watched the Today Show. Not on TV, though, and not standing and screaming alongside middle-aged Texans in the vicious cold outside the show’s Rockefeller Center digs. My view was from the middle of the set, between two hulking broadcast cameras, as the three anchors wrapped up a segment. I don’t remember what they were talking about, only that as soon as they threw to commercial, I was suddenly walking up to Al Roker, the show’s anchor and weatherman and all-around hilariously weird dude.

Just as he bent over to grab something from underneath the set’s table, a voice I couldn’t see said, “hey Al, say hi to Periscope.” Roker looked directly at me, and smiled. “Heyyy, Periscope. How ya doing, Periscope?” In a week of beta-testing Periscope , the live-streaming app that Twitter bought for a reported $100 million early this year and is officially launching today, I’ve seen a lot of crazy things. I’ve watched astronaut Chris Hadfield’s feet as he lay on the beach in Playa del Carmen. (He has a weird big toe.) I’ve gotten a tour of Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s operating room. I’ve watched venture capitalist Megan Quinn wander around Croatia and attempt to pronounce the name of its capital, Zagreb. I’ve seen Tim Ferriss, he of the four-hour workweek and various other crazy self-hacks, show off his screwed-up shoulder, then go through the long regimen he’s using to help it heal. I’ve lounged inside the pit of an orchestra as a french horn tooted away.

And I’ve absorbed hours of mundanity—the walking down the street, the dogs, the out-the-window shots of bridges and buildings—from the odd mix of Twitter employees, journalists, and celebrities (Tyra Banks!) allowed into the beta. Like any good citizen of an app designed to stream quick and simple moments in our lives, I’ve also turned my phone’s rear camera into a window to my world. I walked upstream through the throngs of people heading to work in downtown New York City. I asked for commiseration as I walked the two blocks and six flights of stairs that I trekked back and forth, from my apartment to the car, as my girlfriend and I prepared to move out of New York City. I watched a delightfully gruff old man fix a pair of shoes, and a couple of strangers watched with me. Periscope is consensual voyeurism. That’s not a new idea—millions use Twitch to watch other people play videogames, while YouTube, UStream, and a dozen others have tried to make businesses out of live-streaming video—but it feels like the right platform and the right time. We all have smartphones now, with good cameras and fast LTE connections.

And we’re desperate for more unmediated access to the people we care about. Any doubts about the demand for something like Periscope can be answered by looking at Meerkat, a live-streaming app that has, in the weeks since it launched, shown its users how cool it can be when people invite you into brief, almost always totally unstaged and unmediated moments in their lives. That’s what Periscope promises, too, plus the ability to put the viewer in the director’s chair and actually participate in the stream. It’s more immediate than Twitter, Instagram, even Snapchat. It’s life, right now, through anyone’s eyes I choose. It’s intoxicating. Watch this The idea for Periscope began in the summer of 2013, as Kayvon Beykpour was planning a trip to Istanbul. He’d quit his job at the education-tech giant Blackboard, which had acquired his startup more than four years earlier, and decided to travel the world. Just before Beykpour left, however, protests broke out in Taksim Square—near the hotel he was scheduled to check into—and quickly turned from peaceful to violent.

He dove into TV news and Twitter, trying to figure out if it was safe for him to go to Istanbul. But all he got were the craziest images, the most dramatic stories, not the answer to his real question: what’s actually going on outside my hotel? Is it safe? There are probably thousands of people with smartphones and high-speed connections in Taksim Square right now, he figured. Why couldn’t he see what they were seeing in real time? He eventually made it to Istanbul, and came back with an idea. He and co-founder Joe Bernstein began to build the app that would become Periscope. After experimenting with a prototype that involved dropping a pin on a map and hoping someone replied with photos, the pair settled on creating a live-streaming app that would let you broadcast what you were seeing to anyone in the world, in real time. Cooking lessons, live on Periscope The mechanics of Periscope are really simple: tap a button, and start streaming whatever your camera lens sees. Anyone who follows you gets a notification to tune in (you can also host a private broadcast for a few selected people), and they can watch in the app or any web browser.

Some streamers are silent, others prefer to narrate the action. Some streams are selfies, which makes onlookers feel like they’re in a Baby Bjorn attached to the broadcaster’s chest, watching them talk down into the camera. If that sounds a lot like Meerkat, that’s because it is, with a few key differences. Meerkat becomes useless as soon as a broadcast ends; there are no profiles, no timeline, no nothing outside of what’s live at this moment. Periscope is a much more complete experience. It’s better-looking, for one, with a super-clean interface, the Facebook to Meerkat’s flashing-neon MySpace. When you open up Periscope, you immediately see a grid of live broadcasts from people you’re following, and people Periscope thinks you might like to follow. Below the grid is a timeline of past broadcasts; one big advantage for Periscope over Meerkat is that it lets you save a stream for up to 24 hours when you’re finished, just like Snapchat Stories, so people won’t miss anything. User profiles don’t really exist right now, but Beykpour says Periscope is building them out.

He keeps using Beyonce as an example, like: how cool will it be to go catch up on Beyonce’s spontaneous streams and behind-the-scenes footage? As you’re watching someone stream, you can leave comments, which the Broadcaster (in Periscope parlance) can see and respond to. This, Beykpour says, is the app’s real secret sauce. “The magic moment of Periscope is not when you see video for the first time,” he says. “Because you’ve experienced that before, whether it’s YouTube or another live broadcasting tool. The magic moment for Periscope is when you as viewer say something and you end up influencing the broadcast.” With most streaming apps, from Meerkat to Livestream, there’s a long gap between when something is captured and when it actually appears on your screen. It makes for awkward, asynchronous interactions, because one of you is way behind. Meerkat’s commenting feature is crushed by that latency, which never goes below about ten seconds and often goes much higher; Periscope worked to get streaming latency down to as little as two seconds, which means you really can converse with the broadcaster in real time. That interaction isn’t just limited to text.

If you like a Periscope broadcast, you don’t drop a solitary fav or thumbs-up. You mete out your approval with hearts, and you can do it over and over and over. And over. In one five-minute broadcast, I got 34 hearts from one person. (I love you too, whoever you are.) A performance from the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus at Twitter’s offices received a constant stream of different-colored hearts on the bottom-right side of the screen throughout the whole performance. It’s a clever way to approximate cheering someone on, saying “you’re doing great!” while they perform. “The hearts were born out of an observation that being on stage is just really hard,” Beykpour says. “It’s anxiety-inducing.” There’s a dopamine hit that comes from seeing the hearts on the screen as you broadcast, enticing you to keep going or do it again. Periscope is all about the love: hearts are the service’s most visible number, measuring not just how many people like your broadcasts but how violently they like them. There’s even a list of the “Most Loved” users. #1 in the beta-tester group? Ryan Goodman, a design exec at Twitter.

Mark Cuban, Tony Hawk, and Felicia Day are all in the top ten. Coming to you live Beykpour says he had no interest in selling Periscope when it started, or even as talks began with Twitter. But the union actually makes perfect sense. Twitter’s always been about immediacy, and Periscope removes even the tiny frictions found in character limits and empty text boxes. You don’t need to explain it, or capture it—just let people see what you’re seeing. Starting a broadcast takes no time at all Beykpour assures me that Periscope is an independent entity within Twitter. It has its own team, its own app, even its own offices. The app does have some connection to its new parent, suggesting people for you to follow and (once it’s officially live) automatically tweeting to your followers whenever you start a stream. Then, whenever someone you follow starts broadcasting, you get a notification that they’re live.

When you’re watching a broadcast, you can also quickly invite a few or all of your followers to watch with you; it’s the digital version of “get over here, you gotta see this!” There will be nice-looking Twitter cards for live broadcasts, too—being part of the Flock does have its perks. Oddly, though, Periscope has fewer ties to Twitter than its main competitor. Before Twitter shut down its API access, Meerkat snagged huge growth by aping your entire network, following everyone in Meerkat you’ve followed on Twitter. Beykpour says Periscope intentionally doesn’t do that. “The visibility that you get is significant, but at the risk of being downright spammy,” he says. Push notifications are the whole reason an app like Periscope or Meerkat can work—they solve the synchronicity problem that killed apps like Justin.tv, because now I know immediately when you’re broadcasting—but if they’re not “a good push notification citizen,” Beykpour says, people will just turn them off. He’s not wrong: a lot of Meerkat users have already complained about its incredible notification spam. Periscope does have a bit of the same problem right now, though.

I only follow a couple dozen people, and my phone’s already dinging constantly with that weird Periscope-y chirp. Meerkat’s growth is hard to ignore: it was the darling of this year’s SXSW conference, and has raised $12 million to do exactly what Beykpour wants. Hell, their names even evoke the same thing: something sticking its funny-looking head up, looking around to see what’s going on. Periscope is in most ways a better app, but it does feel a bit a bit like déjà vu. Late last week, for instance, I watched Jimmy Fallon rehearse his Tonight Show monologue. I was a little late to the party: by the time I got a Meerkat notification on my phone and started watching, Fallon was already in full swing. He was talking about Kevin Pillar, the Toronto Blue Jays outfielder who apparently sneezed so hard he strained a muscle and couldn’t play. “When asked about the injury,” Fallon said, “he hiccuped and passed away.” I laughed, the audience laughed. The joke worked. And he’d say it again later, this time in a suit and in front of a big blue curtain, on the show.

I get a heads up from Meerkat about Fallon’s monologue rehearsal almost every day now, because that’s what he uses. And I tap it, because I want to watch it regardless of Fallon’s chosen app. Meerkat’s already caught on with some important people, and Periscope isn’t so obviously better that it will destroy the competition on impact. Especially not when the the competition has a slight head start. For now, having both Periscope and Meerkat on your phone is easy enough, and as people continue to learn about live-streaming in general, each probably benefits from the other. But eventually, as the apps try to build larger and more exclusive social networks, it’s hard to imagine two live-streaming apps both winning out. Beykpour wasn’t first, but he thinks Periscope can be the last one standing. He’s got time to figure it out. There’s a lot left to be perfected with the Periscope experience. The app has some basic content controls—you can block users, or report broadcasts for abuse—but it’s going to be an uphill battle to police live broadcasts that evaporate. And, at some point, it’s going to have to figure out how to make money.

Beykpour says that’s the furthest thing from his mind right now, but it can’t be long before we’re watching sponsored stream of someone eating Taco Bell, right? Well, at least—oh, hang on, sorry. This guy is singing in the subway station—he’s amazing, you gotta see this. I’ll be live in two seconds. Introducing Periscope | Twitter Blogs Introducing Periscope Tweet Today, we’re excited to introduce Periscope , a new app that lets you share and experience live video from your mobile phone. We think it’s a perfect complement to Twitter, which is why we acquired the company in January. Periscope is currently available in the Apple App Store , and an Android app is in the works. We can’t wait to see where you take it! Read more about Periscope here , directly from the team that built it. Tags Twitter live-streams Wimbledon matches - BBC News Twitter live-streams Wimbledon matches By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor 6 July 2016 Close share panel Image copyright Twitter Image caption Viewers can watch Wimbledon and post tweets about the action on the same screen Select tennis matches at Wimbledon are being live-streamed on Twitter.

It marks the first time the tech firm has broadcast footage from a sports event in this way . The high definition-quality stream is being offered in partnership with the TV network ESPN and the organisers of the Championships. Several of Silicon Valley's leading tech firms are investing in live-streaming technologies. Twitter bought Periscope in January 2015, before the app had formally launched. Image caption Some people have streamed sports events on Periscope without permission, but Twitter has sought to remove the footage Then in April this year, it signed a $10m (£7.7m) deal to stream NFL American football games later this year. In August, 2015 Facebook launched its own live video feature. The company is paying dozens of media companies and celebrities more than $50m to use the service, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal . Google's YouTube has been able to show live video since 2011. But the firm recently added the ability to stream 360-degree footage, and is in the process of testing a "go live" button on its mobile app.

'Incomplete experience' The Wimbledon feed features a video window at the top of the page, below which are shown related comments, unless the screen is expanded on a computer screen to give enough room for the tweets to appear in a separate column. The hashtag #Wimbledon is automatically added to tweets that users post. Users to not have to be members of the network to see the feed. There is no way to scroll back or otherwise control the video. However, Twitter suggested the design was a work in progress. "This live-stream is an extremely early and incomplete test experience, and we'll be making lots of improvements before we launch it in its final form," it said in a statement. Twitter's growth in active users - people who log in at least once a month - has slowed in recent quarters, even going into reverse at one point. One expert said live-streams had the potential to help attract new people. "Major sporting events already drive a huge amount of traffic on Twitter, and being able to mash that up with live video - which in theory should engage its audience more effectively - could be a very powerful combination", commented Ben Wood from the tech consultancy CCS Insight.

"If Twitter is willing to make the investment to secure properties that people are desperate to watch, it will absolutely drive traffic." Twitter has not revealed the terms of the deal to stream the Wimbledon matches. Twitter Confirms Periscope Acquisition, And Here’s How The Livestreaming App Works | TechCrunch Twitter Confirms Periscope Acquisition, And Here’s How The Livestreaming App Works Posted Personality Test App Knozen Asks You Seemingly Random Questions About Your Friends Today Twitter officially announced its January acquisition of live-streaming app Periscope . According to several sources, it will be launched as a separate app from Twitter with the ability to watch both live and previously broadcasted mobile video streams. That lack of ephemerality is the first of many differences between Periscope and Meerkat, the live-streaming app that recently launched and caught on like wildfire in the tech community. Twitter’s Kevin Weil tweeted the announcement today: Excited to officially welcome @periscopeco to the Twitter team. Can't wait for everyone to see what they've built!

— Kevin Weil (@kevinweil) March 13, 2015 He’s referring to this tweet by Periscope: You may have heard some news: It involves a blue bird. #YouCanGuessTheRest #WeJoinedTheFlockInJanuary #AreWeUsingThisRight #IsThisThingOn TechCrunch first reported the connection between Periscope and Twitter on March 4th, saying the companies were in acquisition talks and the deal might have already been done. Business Insider later reported the deal had indeed closed. How To Periscope Periscope hasn’t launched yet, but will soon begin expanding its beta . Here’s how it’s said to work. When you open Periscope, you can see live broadcasts happening now or watch recently recorded ones. Periscope will allow both public and private broadcasts. You’ll be able to blast out a link to your stream to Twitter and have it show up on the Periscope home screen, or alternatively privately invite a few friends to watch. A screenshot from Meerkat Feedback from the audience is a major component of Periscope. It’s how the app will keep people who aren’t broadcasters engaged.

You can post comments on streams, which pop up in front of the broadcaster and other viewers. However, these comments aren’t syndicated to Twitter, so there’s less of the chilling effect on commentary found in Meerkat. Viewers can also shower broadcasters in animated hearts to show their appreciation, which sources say is a delightful design flourish. To offer an experience that feels live even if you’re watching a replay, all the comments and hearts will replay in sync with the video as if you’re watching it in real-time. The hope is that a community of star creators emerges on Periscope, similar to the ecosystems that have developed on Vine and Snapchat. Mainstream celebrities could also become a major broadcaster demographic, using Periscope to intimately reach many fans at once. A Live-streamed Future Fervor built around Periscope thanks to a carefully planned private beta dating back as far as November with some of Twitter’s founders , top investors, and other tech industry elite.

The joke was that this was a Fight Club-esque beta where “The first rule of Periscope is you don’t talk about Periscope.” When Dick Costolo’s company was courting Periscope, a source says the company told Periscope it believes video is a major part of the future Twitter. To that end, on top of the cash paid, which was reported to be about $100 million , Twitter is said to have put up a significant stock compensation package. The idea is that if Periscope can make livestreaming blow up, Twitter’s valuation will rise, and the startup’s team will get even richer. Periscope’s team What’s unfortunate is that Twitter will have to launch Periscope into a frenzy of comparisons to Meerkat , a more rough-shod app built in 10 days by the startup Life On Air. Meerkat doesn’t allow you to watch recorded broadcasts or set up private streams, and its entire identity, communication, and distribution system is built on Twitter. It seems that Twitter was hoping to keep polishing Periscope until it was perfect, but accidentally ended up missing the chance to be the first in the most recent wave of live-streaming apps.

While many I’ve talked to who’ve used it think it’s a much better app than Meerkat, it will still have to try to leapfrog that app’s existing network effect. Some wondered if mobile livestreaming would be a fad. Yet Twitter seems convinced that Periscope could become a big part of how it fulfills its mission to “To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.” While Twitter asks you to describe in text “What’s happening?”, Periscope will let you actually show people. 0 RIP Twitter? How It Matches Up With Facebook Weather RIP Twitter? How It Matches Up With Facebook The hashtag #RIPTwitter was trending worldwide last week, and results released this evening will show how dire the situation is. 11:14, UK, Wednesday 10 February 2016 Video: Is Twitter Falling Off Its Perch? Mail After a catastrophic three-month period in which Twitter lost half of its value, investors will be keeping a close eye on fourth-quarter results, which are due out late on Wednesday. Growth is sluggish, it lost more than $100m last quarter, and it's battling accusations that it doesn't take online abuse seriously.

Its woes even led to the hashtag #RIPTwitter trending worldwide last week - with users pushed to breaking point by a proposed change to the order in which tweets are displayed. Image Caption: Twitter founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey Here are some of Twitter's weakspots, and how it compares to market leader Facebook. :: User numbers Facebook: The number of people who are active on Facebook at least once a month stood at 1.6 billion at the end of December. That's up 14% year-on-year. Twitter: Despite year-on-year growth, the total number of people using Twitter each month is just a fifth of Facebook's user base. Around 320 million people logged on each month in the quarter ending 30 September 2015. Its share price has slipped from $27 in November to $14 today. Image Caption: Twitter went public in 2013 :: Profit and loss Facebook: Business is booming for Mark Zuckerberg's firm - it boasted earnings of $1.6bn in the three months ending 31 December 2015, more than double the amount earned during the same period in 2014.

Twitter: The company founded and run by Jack Dorsey makes a chunky loss - it lost $131m in the three months ending 30 September 2015. Image Caption: Stars such as Kanye West use Twitter to communicate with fans :: Ease of use Facebook: The onboarding process for Facebook is fairly straightforward, it uses complex algorithms to suggest potential people you might know, and encourages you to fill out your profile step by step. Once you've added a few friends, Facebook uses algorithms to show the updates and articles it thinks you'll most like to read. User numbers suggest this works. Twitter: One of Twitter's problems is that it suggests a bunch of celebrities and high-profile users to follow, based on your interests. Given they're well-known, and often have hundreds of thousands of followers, you're unlikely to get a response to any messages. Twitter is also a constant stream of updates, meaning you're likely to miss stuff unless you're logged on all day. Twitter has acknowledged this and has been playing around with a curated timeline. On Wednesday it said it would show algorithmically selected "best" tweets to appear at the top of users' timelines, but the feature can be toggled on and off.

Image Caption: A Periscope video of a puddle became an internet hit in January :: Outside projects Facebook: It owns the world's most popular messaging app - WhatsApp - after buying it for $19bn in 2014. It also bought Instagram for $1bn in 2012, a photo-sharing app which now has more users than Twitter, and is popular with celebrities. Twitter: Twitter acquired the Periscope live video streaming app in January last year, and the number of users is in the tens of millions. However, Facebook recently launched similar functionality within its own app. Twitter also acquired video sharing service Vine in 2012, which allows users to post six-second clips and share them on social media. Again, Facebook muscled onto its turf by allowing Instagram to host videos too. Image Caption: Twitter has shut down thousands of IS-linked accounts :: Abuse and adult content Facebook: Its locked-down nature means that it's hard for people who you don't know to contact you, and it takes one click to block someone who is bothering you. Algorithms also hoover up potentially offensive content such as pornographic images, and users can self-police content by reporting things they are concerned about.

Twitter: Women in particular have pointed out that Twitter can be a hostile place, in which mobs can be whipped up in seconds to bombard users with abuse. Because it's very easy to create a new account, a blocked user can resume abuse within seconds using a new account. Twitter does not block pornography, or heavily police the network. However it does try to block accounts which promote terror. It recently shut down 125,000 Islamic State-related accounts. Image Caption: Mark Zuckerberg has provided steady Facebook leadership since 2004 :: Leadership Facebook: Pretty solid. Founder Mark Zuckerberg has headed up the social network since its creation in February 2004. Twitter: It's messy. The microblogging service was launched in October 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams. Mr Dorsey was chief executive until 2008 when Mr Williams took over. When he stepped down in 2010, Twitter executive Dick Costolo took over. Finally, Mr Dorsey returned as CEO in mid-2015 after Mr Costolo's departure. He juggles the role with his position as chief executive of mobile payments company Square.

Top Stories Hands on with Twitter Periscope, the presumptive Meerkat killer By Lance Ulanoff 2015-03-26 09:09:04 UTC Twitter live video broadcasting is a squall inside an ocean of social media activity, and bobbing frantically in the middle of it like a shiny buoy is Meerkat , the little video-streaming app that could. Social media users are flocking to its bright beacon. It is the app and the social activity of the moment. But slicing through the waves and headed right toward it is Periscope. It, too, is a live video streaming app. Like Meerkat, it's connected to Twitter. However that connection is deeper because, for all intents and purposes, Twitter is the submarine just below the surface the ocean that Periscope is connected to. See also: Inside the Meerkat Bubble, where the air is fine It’s likely that, if Meerkat had not exploded the way it did, Twitter might have kept its Periscope app (free in the App Store starting Thursday) below the surface for a while longer, but now any delay could spell disaster for Twitter’s live video streaming plans.

Meerkat’s undeniable popularity and reportedly explosive growth had to be cause for concern in the halls of Twitter. The micro-blogging social media giant bought Periscope just weeks ago , mere days before Meerkat went from unknown to the app everyone from Jimmy Fallon to Gary Vaynerchuk to Al Roker is using. Getting to know Periscope The personal broadcasting app Periscope makes setup easy (left). You just have to let it use your camera, mic and, if you choose, location. On the right is the home screen with available live broadcasts and archived ones below. Image: Periscope Periscope performs virtually the same function as Meerkat. It’s a platform for streaming live video from your iPhone from virtually anywhere in the world — where there’s connectivity. It tracks viewers, comments and even adds the ability to “heart” video streams you like (or love). Twitter gave me early access the new app, but didn’t turn on full Twitter integration — I could sign in with my Twitter account, but that was it — so the experience felt a bit limited. Here’s what I can tell you, though: Periscope is a smartly designed and easy to use.

It employs swipes and gestures for navigation and features, which in combination with the design, makes the app feel more polished than Meerkat. Periscope tries to guide you on who to follow (left). In the early days, there were more archived broadcasts than live ones (right). Image: Periscope Setup is simple. After installation, Periscope offers a brief walkthrough of its features and then guides you to follow a lengthy, prepopulated lists of early adopters. It’s actually two lists. The top list offers “Featured” Periscope users, including magician David Blaine, Shonda Rhimes, John Hodgeman, and Periscope engineers. The lower list are all the people you follow who are currently on Periscope. The entire list is checked, so if you accept you follow all of them on Periscope. You can deselect the entire list and pick and choose who you want to follow. This approach is notable because, in the early going, Meerkat auto-followed everyone you followed on Twitter — a Twitter no-no. Twitter broke that part of Meerkat’s Twitter API connection and, in Periscope, is clearly showing how it thinks things should work. The next step is the Watch screen.

Like Meerkat, Periscope lists the current live broadcast with large, full-width images, but Periscope clearly has better designers. The images, screencaps from the start of the live videos, are slightly longer than Meerkat’s, which provides room for white, knock-out text, a big “Live” or “Offline” label, a broadcaster name and avatar and the number of people watching. During a live stream, you can comment and the broadcaster will see the comments. Because so few people were watching each stream, people often responded directly to me on camera. In Meerkat, every comment is a Twitter reply to the original Meerkat Live video prompt tweet. Here, however, Periscope fundamentally differs from Meerkat. Periscope will not be pulling in live Twitter responses during your Periscope broadcast. Instead, all those comments are Periscope-only. On the other hand, those who follow the Periscope link on the original Tweet will be able to watch and engage with the live video in the app (if they have it on their iOS device) or in a pop-up screen (Desktop and Android) where they'll still see comments and hearts, but not be able to add any of their own.

Three live Periscope broadcasts. One the left, a live surgery from Sanjay Gupta. Center was a Celebrity Survivor event and far right was a man and his cool cat. Image: Periscope At any time, during anyone’s broadcast, I could select the people icon to see all the live viewers — none of which can watch anonymously (within the Periscope app) — and, if location is on, where the Periscope is originating from. It’s also where you can choose to share out the broadcast to all your followers or just specific people. Periscope lacks Meerkat’s gamifaction element. Instead you get the ability to accumulate “Likes” or Hearts for each video. Viewers give you hearts by tapping the screen while they watch the video stream — more taps means more hearts for the broadcaster. You can also see hearts from other people. They all appear in the lower left corner of the video screen and then float up and fade away. There is no leaderboard in Periscope. Instead there’s a list of people you follow. In there you can see how many Periscope followers each person has accumulated. You can also view your own stats and your total number of hearts or likes.

My competitive nature prefers Meerkat’s leaderboard. The closest Periscope comes to a leaderboard is under the People icon, which shows you People you’re already following on Twitter that you can add and below that "Most Loved," which is organized based on who has the most hearts. When I checked, a singer named Lidia Schillaci topped the list with 13,054 hearts. Because the service is limited to a relative few invited beta testers, there were often times when no one was broadcasting. That’s okay, though, because there’s still lots of Periscope programming to watch. Periscope auto-saves every broadcast and, as soon as you’re done, uploads the whole thing to Periscope so people can watch streams from people they follow even if they’re not live. I like this feature, but the fact that Periscope has to upload that video file does make me wonder how it’ll impact data usage (not in a good way, certainly). Twitter compares Periscope's data usage to that of Apple's FaceTime video chat app. Meerkat, by contrast, offers no off-line viewing options for followers, but does, like Periscope, lets you save Meerkats to your phone.

You can, by the way, like (or heart) saved videos and see the hearts that were awarded throughout the video when it streamed live. I do wish Periscope’s replay viewer let you scrub back and forth through the video. Pause is nice, but I don’t want to have to rewatch a whole stream just to get back to my favorite part. Up Periscope Shooting your own Periscope video is easy. You select the camera icon and are presented with a message “What are you seeing now?” which may remind some of Twitter’s “What’s happening?” prompt that still appears in the mobile app. This is the spot where you title your stream and/or explain what people are about to see. Below that you have the option of geolocating your video, streaming to Twitter (which was not activated for my tests) and, unique to Periscope, creating a private broadcast to a select set of users. If you choose that option, you simply select who you want to invite to the broadcast and then start broadcasting. It could be useful for teachers who want to remotely teach a class on, say, drawing or cooking.

To end a Periscope broadcast, you pull down on the screen to reveal the stop button (and some information about frame rate, which may only exist in the beta). On the right you see Periscope auto-uploading your final broadcast video, as well as stats like Image: Periscope. Public and private broadcasts start and function the same way. You have a big red “Start Broadcast” function. There is no scheduling function, like you’d find in Meerkat. Though, to be fair, that Meerkat option is poorly executed. Meerkat’s scheduler is really just a tweet reminding people that you will start streaming at a predetermined time. Periscope is lacking one more important option: the ability to stream in landscape mode. Yes, you can turn the camera, but your controls and real-time viewer stats will not turn with you. During the broadcast, you can double-tap the screen to switch from the default back camera to the front. I wish this control were visible on screen as it is in Meerkat. Once you’ve started your stream, you’ll see a live count of current viewers — though mine didn’t always sync up with the final tally I saw after the stream.

You’ll also see comments float up from the base of the screen. Comments are color-coded, but with no rhyme or reason, and appear with each commenter’s handle. Also floating in among the comments are updates about new viewers and notifications of viewers inviting other people to follow the stream. Watch me When it's time to broadcast, you see the screen on the left. On the right, you see what the broadcaster's screen can look like. You can keep message on the screen or hide them. You can't hide messages on Meerkat. Image: Periscope If you allow Periscope notifications, you’ll get push notifications inviting you to watch various live streams. These do not come from the person who launched the stream. Instead, you get an invite when someone you follow invites you to come watch someone else’s live stream. These notifications even pop up when you’re watching other streams. I guess this is to encourage discovery, but the volume of invites and notifications started to get annoying. But here’s what's great about Periscope (and to be fair, Meerkat). I love dropping in and out of live stories as they are happening.

I watched a live pet fish burial at sea, Mark Cuban in a live radio interview and taking Periscope questions, played a game with a VC (against other viewers), had Twitter employees sing for me and traveled the world (usually in someone else’s’ car who was Periscoping while driving — don’t do this). The ability to watch previous streams is a key differentiator, but Periscope should add some sort of tagging ability to help organize the, for now, chronological list. I broadcast my commute through New York City and me drawing a picture. While I enjoyed watching people comment and like my stream, the engagement was nowhere near Meerkat levels. Which meant I didn’t get the same dopamine rush. I suspect this will change as soon as Twitter turns on the Twitter integration, which at least means I can broadcast direct to my Twitter followers. Twitter has no immediate plans to let you embed Periscope broadcasts, but if they do it could be a game changer. And even though Twitter is already testing autoplay videos , it will not launch Periscope with the ability to broadcast in the Twitter stream. I'm kind of surprised that Twitter isn't taking integration further.

The lack of it is what could keep Meerkat humming along nicely, even in the face of what's sure to be formidable competition from the more polished Periscope. BONUS: What is Meerkat? Founder explains most-discussed app of SXSW

Question: Name the live video streaming app bought by Twitter for $100m in 2015?
Answer: Periscope