Let’s do it Live!

A couple of years ago, I was talking to a friend about video streaming & how it was just so awe-inspiring & how easy it would become in the coming years to beam a live video feed practically ANYWHERE, not just to a friend or a set of people, but the entire world.

I bloviated that this was just a start to the way we watch video content & how we are well clear of the world of television – where content meant to be sitting down in a room & watching the carefully scheduled, professionally edited & produced shows .

To what we have on our hand’s now – YouTube infused paradigm which is no less than a big bang. Now of course we all have become well habituated to Llve streaming video. Million’s Skype for hours, once an innovation, live streamed events on the web are now familiar.

Being a gamer, we all saw twitch grow over the years, it was an awesome feeling to stream & watch uber talented gamer’s across the world embrace the change. Most of all it bought e- sports into the much-deserved limelight with big brands investing now in e-sports. Companies big or small rose to accommodate a video stream ecosystem.

Then came the big band in social live streaming – Meerkat!

MEERKAT 

Meerkats are social animals, famous for traveling in large packs and rarely ever separating as they wander the Kalahari Desert. But with time, a new breed of “Meerkat” had navigated its way into our digital landscape. Emerging from its burrow in Tel Aviv, Israel, and this new tech startup was a part of the first wave of new media companies that would change the way we watched live content.

Formerly known as Yevvo, Meerkat is a mobile application that enables users to live-stream videos for their Twitter followers (USED TO) to watch on their mobile devices. It gave anyone with a smartphone the ability to create a live broadcast anytime, anywhere. When a live stream began, users are notified on their smartphone that someone they follow is now live-streaming.

Twitter was fast to sense an opportunity & thus came PERISCOPE.

Like Meerkat, Periscope allows users to stream live to their Twitter followers and interact with them within the app. Unlike Meerkat, Periscope lets you see the broadcasts of people you follow for up to 24 hours by showing them as a timeline when you open the app. As a Periscope user, you can use the "people" tab to find the people you follow on Twitter. Like Meerkat, it sends a tweet to your followers alerting them of the start of your broadcast.

Both apps allow users to leave comments while watching the broadcast, but Periscope has made the interaction more effective by reducing the streaming latency to two seconds. This way the broadcaster can actually respond to the users' comments in real time.

Periscope will definitely in time emerge as a powerful platform for business, For me it already has – brand’s like Mountain Dew, Taco bells and Victoria Secret’s have done some fanciful work.

Regardless of what app MEERKAT or PERISCOPE you choose to employ, both Meerkat & Periscope have its limitation’s – copyright infringement could stop you right on your tracks if one has not done their homework.

Broadcasters are customarily prohibited from using their footage for commercial purposes without express permission. Anyone featured in a promotional content must sign a release, meaning brands need to be prepared if they plan on using a live streaming footage in their advertising.

Nevertheless, follow the rules & do it live!