Hopefully by now you've heard of Periscope. You know, the app where you can live-stream from anywhere, anytime, literally to anyone who wants to watch.
For those who don't know, Periscope was named the "iPhone App of the Year" in 2015 by Apple. It was created by Kayvon Beykpour and Joe Bernstein who saw the need for a live-streaming app while traveling in Istanbul in 2013. A protest broke out, and Beykpour wanted to see what was happening so he turned to Twitter...but he could only READ about it there. He wanted to SEE it.
Fast forward a few years and Twitter bought-out their app with a relaunch in March 2015. After just four months, Periscope had passed 10 million accounts with around "40 years per day" of video being streamed.
Around the same time Periscope came out, so did a similar rival: Meerkat. This was also a live-streaming app that had its "15 seconds of fame" at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in March 2015. Users here had the option to connect their Twitter and Facebook accounts to stream to their followers and friends, but after Twitter purchased Periscope, well, things changed for Meerkat.
Twitter focused a majority of their attention of pushing Periscope to its followers and limited Meerkat's access to it's social graph, no longer allowing users to connect Meerkat to Twitter. Meerkat beat Periscope by becoming an Android app first, but once Facebook Live was launched, Meerkat's chances of growth became slim to none.
On October 4, 2016, Meerkat was shut down.
But wait...you don't want to miss this part.
The company who owned Meerkat has been in the process of developing a new app called Houseparty. With this, users can create or join video chat rooms of up to eight people. Participants can also switch between "rooms" (name of the chats) with just a swipe of the finger. Remember the days when you wanted to talk to all your friends at once but didn't want to pay Skype (video chat) to do it? Well now there is a specific app for iOS and Andoid in the works that could change the game in just my own life.
As a young PR professional, how this app can benefit my life ranges from having conversations with my team out of my university's student-run firm, Inspired Strategies Agency, to just being able to chat with my friends all over the United States.
Keep your eyes out for Houseparty friends...and if you haven't checked out Periscope, get a feel for what live-streaming is all about.
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