Well I finally gave in and this week joined the ranks of the live Broadcast platform Periscope. I must say I have found it a bit of revelation and have already started using it with one of my Clients on the Social Media Management side. I reali
se that there will be some of you that are not familiar with it so to begin with a potted history of the app – for that is what it is – only works on portable devices. I am indebted to ‘The Week’ for this brief synopsis:
The app was developed by friends Kayvon Beykpour and Joseph Bernstein, was purchased by Twitter in March of this year for $100m (£67m). The duo first had the idea in 2013 when trying to decide whether they should visit Taksim Square in Istanbul after reports of riots. They wanted to be able to see what was going on in places in real time, through the eyes of people who were there.
The app gained a million users in the first ten days after its iPhone launch, and gained many more after its release on Android in May.
So how can you use it and what does it do?
Periscope allows uses to live-stream video from their mobile phones and can be used in conjunction with Twitter which enables other users to see links tweeted in order to view live-streams.
It is not unique as a live-streaming app. There is another prime contender was also launched earlier this year you may have heard of Meerkat. However when it bought Periscope Twitter cut off Meerkat’s access to its site.
How have I been using Periscope?
Initially I used it to cover a ‘round the table’ discussion at a Networking meeting I was present at. Interestingly this prompted a fair bit of feedback from viewers (users can contribute by sending messages on screen) and people were able to contribute to the discussion. I have covered a client’s talk to businesses that ran to around 13 minutes that we have used as an ‘about-me’ article.
Although it is exclusively a Twitter asset you can save the broadcast, either automatically or by choice at the end of the transmission. I have used these transmissions on both Facebook and LinkedIn to good effect.
Finally I have used it cover various parts of recent sporting events. The law on this is ‘patchy’ (as with a lot of new technology) there isn’t a law that covers this. Strictly speaking these events are not copyright but event organisers can stop you streaming their event as was the case recently at Wimbledon.
And what of the future?
Periscope appears to have seen off its competitors to be the number one live-streaming platform but watch out for the other pretenders to the throne particularly if Facebook throws their lot behind a rival! Its sure an exciting time to be involved with Social Media – nothing stands still for too long!
