
Periscope by Twitter - knowbody
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id972909677
======
sharkweek
I really like Periscope. It's clean, fun, and there is a lot of potential,
especially with their Twitter distribution. Tried it out this morning and it
was really smooth.

Meerkat is great too, but clearly has an uphill battle for the next few months
after the initial hype. They certainly have passionate initial fans though.

I'd be curious to see with Facebook's dedication to video, especially
highlighted at F8, if they would consider swooping up Meerkat right now and
offer distribution through their ecosystems. This might just be me, but I have
Twitter streaming all day, while I check Facebook maybe 2-3 times
sporadically, so it might be a bit tougher to capture attention. But who
knows, it will be really fascinating to watch.

I'm assuming Grelock, their recent series B lead, would not be interested in
selling so soon after their investment for anything less than 2x. Post-
valuation was $52M, probably a few buyers out there at that price but who
knows(Full details on their Series B:
[http://i.imgur.com/9zOonad.png](http://i.imgur.com/9zOonad.png))

~~~
deveac
_> Meerkat is great too, but clearly has an uphill battle for the next few
months after the initial hype._

I wonder about nuances of engagement on Periscope vs. Meerkat.

Periscope's saved video is touted as a feature, but I've noticed that
_because_ Meerkat does _not_ give me this option, when I get a notification
for a stream I want to watch, I _hustle_ to engage because it's live and I
don't want to miss it.

I have not used Periscope yet and will be checking it out, but I can
absolutely envision a scenario where I get a Pscope notification and ignore it
because there really is no urgency as it will be there later. And then those
streams end up like just another article in my "read-it-later" apps. Saved and
then forgotten because I've moved on, and the promise of what could be in that
stream just isn't compelling enough to chase it down later. Saved video is
what we already have everywhere all of the time.

My guess is that Meerkat's inability to save the stream _could_ be the killer
feature.

~~~
untog
That's not a feature, that's a limitation that forces you to change your
behaviour. It's forcing user engagement. And when I see a Meerkat feed I
missed I'm just annoyed (especially as I expect it to be live when I tap the
tweet) - I'm much happier being able to see a replay on periscope.

~~~
hendzen
> That's not a feature, that's a limitation that forces you to change your
> behaviour.

... Like, say, limiting tweets to 140 chars?

~~~
untog
IIRC the original reason for that was because of the length of a text message,
so it was a technical restriction more than anything.

------
whistlerbrk
I don't like the message Twitter sends with the semi-walled garden. Maybe I'm
completely wrong here, but this to me says "develop on our platform and if you
come up with a good idea and we like what you do we'll just do it ourselves"

~~~
nothrabannosir
Not saying that's never true, but in this specific case there's just no way
Twitter went from zero to release with this app since meerkat launched. A
company the size of Twitter doesn't do weekend hackathons for important
launches like this. Not that I know of, at least.

Add to that the obviousness of this app, and bayesian chances are pretty high
they just came up with it concurrently but were later with the release.

EDIT: It also explains why Twitter went so draconian on Meerkat.

EDIT2: But I'd have to add: yeah, Twitter's behavior is chilling. The way they
cracked down on Meerkat, and now just try to play this launch off as if
nothing happened, it's disingenuous. Just come out and say it, Twitter: you
used your technically justified power over Meerkat to gain competitive
advantage.

EDIT3: A friend tells me they didn't develop this app, they just bought it.
Makes even more sense.

~~~
minimaxir
> _Not saying that 's never true, but in this specific case there's just no
> way Twitter went from zero to release with this app since meerkat launched.
> A company the size of Twitter doesn't do weekend hackathons for important
> launches like this. Not that I know of, at least._

Periscope had been in a closed beta for _months_ before they were purchased.
I'm surprised no media has ever tried the angle of Meerkat being a Periscope
clone.

[http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/26/abre-los-
ojos/](http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/26/abre-los-ojos/)

------
knowbody
In my opinion what Meerkat did wrong was not making relationship with Twitter.
The reason why they got blocked are simple:

\- v1 of Meerkat was posting on user's behalf without permission, auto-follow
@Meerkat on sign-up, sending Twitter notifications without permission.

\- user's social graph cannot be ported to the 3rd party apps

\- recreating commenting network using Twitter's API

This is why I am not surprised Twitter blocked them. They say: "you don't
shit, where you eat".

~~~
smackfu
If Twitter already bought a competitor, why would they make a relationship
with Meerkat?

~~~
minimaxir
Twitter bought Periscope _after_ Meerkat got press, although it may not have
been a cause-and-effect relationship. (M&As take time.)

EDIT: See joeblau's comment below.

~~~
joeblau
I think Twitter bought Periscope (In January Sometime) before Meerkat launched
(Early March), but Twitter didn't disclose the acquisition until after Meerkat
launched (Mid March).

[http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/09/twitter-reportedly-buys-
st...](http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/09/twitter-reportedly-buys-streaming-
video-app-periscope/)

------
normloman
Love the screenshot. "Crazy sunset"

Like there's this great sunset, and you can't enjoy it because you're busy
tweeting it. And there are a handful of others who can't see the sunset
because their looking down at their phones, receiving the tweet.

~~~
jkestner
For better or worse, sunsets are just a social bridge. The value is,
apparently, in sharing a moment with others. Both are ephemeral.

~~~
normloman
Sounds like you need to look at more sunsets.

~~~
hkailahi
This is a pretty useless and unnecessary attack. Sunsets make up a very large
percentage of Instagram, Snapchat, and FB photos shared at my university,
which shows apparent social value.

Sure you may appreciate the experience of watching a sunset live, but clearly
the social sharing aspect may be more important to others.

~~~
normloman
Are you really gonna argue that sunsets aren't beautiful, and merely a form of
social currency?

~~~
hkailahi
What? I never said sunsets weren't beautiful. That's why people share them. I
don't think of them as _just_ a social bridge as the previous poster, but I
was merely stating that sharing them can be the biggest value seen by others.

~~~
jkestner
My original remark was a bit tongue in cheek - here we really can define every
life experience in terms of engagement metrics.

Aside from sharing, we like to photograph things as some sort of time-space
marker for ourselves, even if we never do anything with it. "This is
memorable, so I should take a photo to affirm that." That's why everyone takes
a goddamn photo of the Eiffel Tower.

------
ryandvm
It's weird how these app fads go. I used to work for a company in Charleston,
SC that has been doing live streaming for almost a year now
([http://stre.am/](http://stre.am/)). They got some press out of SXSW, but
without a voice in the Si Valley echo chamber, I suspect they're going to get
crowded out.

~~~
iMark
I think live video streaming for mobile is going to be far more than a fad. I
believe we're very close to a tipping point, where all will take is a single
high profile case (imagine someone live streaming an instance of police
brutality for example) for the technology to reach a mass audience.

~~~
untog
_imagine someone live streaming an instance of police brutality for example)_

What's the case for the "live" part, though? If you imagined everyone at a
Ferguson protest live streaming their experience it would be utterly
overwhelming. Much better instead for people to edit the sections that are
actually interesting and post them to YouTube/LiveLeak/whatever. I don't see
how livestreaming adds much.

~~~
duggan
The generalization of this point is "what's the case for live anything" which
can be answered simply with "presence" or more broadly, shared experience.

Sport is only the most obvious example. Why doesn't everyone just record and
watch the game at their leisure? Or just get the highlights? Sure, those are
options, but the enduring appeal of live sport points to there being more to
it than just consumption of information.

~~~
untog
But the generalization of the point removes the point I was referring to. I'm
not going to argue that live sports are popular for a reason, just that live
watching a large number of people attending protests is less so.

~~~
dethstar
it doesn't have to be protests.

Periscope for ESPN and watch the hosts betweeen quarters of some football
game.

Periscope for famous people and watch them go on stage or whatever.

Periscope for you and let your family and friends meet your newborn asap.

~~~
jetm9
Periscope for ESPN would be interesting. do the leageues allow that since you
are essentially broadcasting the match/event?

------
kolev
Looks like a lovely app, but I wonder why did they attempt to pollute the
identity space with yet another username?!

Let me give you an example of how this can work against them, which is
applicable to other startups.

Let's say, you're an early adopter and you got a nice Twitter username.
Unfortunately, you're in the Android camp (me!). So, a new service comes up
and some guy gets lucky enough to "steal" your username. You will then feel
alienated from that service, because it doesn't solidify your identity. Same
happened with Vine in the past.

What's weird as these come out of a company that has invested so much into
building a new identity as @username and now they are undermining their
investment!

Same happened with Facebook. They launched Slingshot, which invented yet
another identity nomenclature. Not that I care about Slingshot, but if I did,
it would unconsciously boycott it.

I'm not talking about me personally (yeah, right!), but I'm just trying to
think about possible scenarios.

A smart and not so hard to accomplish thing even for the mobile first crowd
would be to at least allow account creation on the web. How hard could that
be? This way early adopters will blame themselves, not the service, for not
being so "early" in the game.

These are just some psychological aspects I wanted to share.

------
noer
Compared to Meercat, there's a better UI, more ways to explore users to find
new content and not as much of a blank slate for new users. After using each
less than 5 times, I sort of prefer periscope.

~~~
kashjawed
most of the users I know who tried both apps agree that Periscope has far
better UI. Meerkat has been crashing on my iPhone so I've given up on it.

------
hodgesmr
Think about why, in a world with LiveStream, UStream, & YouTube Live Events,
people see Meerkat as revolutionary. Also apply that question to Spotify vs
Rhapsody.

~~~
azinman2
Perhaps initial traction/buzz just nets bigger with the "right" initial users.
There's also execution details as well in the product itself.

But great q... maybe they just had the timing wrong?

------
650REDHAIR
This is a good time for Facebook/Instagram to step up and buy Meerkat.

This is also a great time for Meerkat to sell. To anyone who's willing to go
above $50M.

~~~
sharkweek
I agree but there is just no way their recent series B investors (Greylock)
let them sell at a valuation of 50M - their post-val on that round was $52M
([http://i.imgur.com/9zOonad.png](http://i.imgur.com/9zOonad.png)), would be
tough to sell on a "cut your losses" basis this early. But I do think Facebook
could see the value being well above that, so who knows!

------
sschueller
No android version? At what market share does android have to be until
companies do android first?

~~~
auganov
Some [1] report that Apple pressures app developers into doing iOS-first
releases.

[1] [http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/3/24/fear-of-
apple](http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/3/24/fear-of-apple) (search for
"Pocket Casts" in the article to find the relevant paragraph.)

~~~
hullo
For every complaint of that which you can document, I could provide 100,000
developers who hunger for a closer relationship with Apple. It's a non-
starter. Developer relations contact? Yes please.

------
nakedrobot2
The only real, but extremely useful, use case I see for this is for uploading
video while it's being shot, because someone might take your phone away. For
example, when filming the police, or filming any other disruptive / conflict
type of event.

What other reliable apps are there that can do this?

~~~
JayLoFooBar
Google Hangout, or face time. : )

------
jabo
I've been seeing ads for an analytics app called periscope:
[https://www.periscope.io](https://www.periscope.io). For a second, I thought
it was them before clicking through. Poor periscope.io.

~~~
jewel
If you don't want this to happen to your startup, register for a trademark.
Since both the twitter program and this analytics ones are apps in the same
app stores, I imagine that trademark protection would be broad enough.
Twitter's lawyers would have done a trademark search before going live with
the app, so the problem would have likely been avoided entirely.

Here is Twitter's registration from two weeks ago:
[http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4803:2i5...](http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4803:2i5g3o.3.1)

------
dieg0
Just streamed what I'm currently working on... felt odd, like letting 14
people into my office, one guy even asked a question "what are you coding?",
it didn't have a way to reply by text... which makes sense as you can be
either streaming correctly or typing correctly, which is why once that
happened the stream got extremely shaky, [sorry for that other viewers]

I think this has potential and it might take a unexpected turn once Carlos
Danger gets the news

~~~
darkstar999
Why would you type when you can just talk? Does it not do audio?

~~~
dieg0
Lol, I know, felt stupid after I got to that realization

------
ulisesrmzroche
I run an Internet TV Station for Latin Indie Music Fans here in Austin
(estereobit.tv), and one of the core services is live broadcasting, so these
sort of apps interest me a lot.

I tried Meerkat during SXSW, but yeah, I'm switching to Periscope. I had users
complaining about broken streams, and how they couldn't get the video on time.
This could have been due to internet traffic because it's off the charts
during SXSW; I'm not sure how it does on smaller events.

Reach worries me for sure. I don't know the details of how that is going down
with Twitter though. Another thing that worries me is that I can't save
videos. A good show can keep accumulating views forever so having that footage
available is important.

Quality is also a big problem. In low-light settings and with loud music, it's
hard to get a good show with just the iPhone. I was thinking of investing in a
good camera but I don't know how that would work with these apps. Does anyone
have any ideas on how could I get through this hurdle?

------
hkailahi
There was a Forbes article on HN about Chris Sacca yesterday, and he's talking
about it now -
[https://www.periscope.tv/w/VvV_yzk2fDY0OTI3wusAmiDk5lk8euhHx...](https://www.periscope.tv/w/VvV_yzk2fDY0OTI3wusAmiDk5lk8euhHxEvW1u1g7B3nhEOp4PpP9xhgHf8=).
I think it's pretty interesting, like a live AMA.

EDIT: It's over now. It's certainly an interesting platform, and I do think it
will catch on if celebrities start doing these types of AMA talks. Personally,
I would love to watch someone like Sam, PG, or Fred Wilson do one.

------
oimaz
This is great. I really like the design and screenshot ability. Even though
Meerkat seemed like the first mover in this space, looks like they might be
beaten by periscope with a better execution

~~~
joezydeco
I'd probably rethink the "heart" thing. Watching hearts flutter over a flaming
collapsed building doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies.

------
naman34
Disclaimer: I work for upclose.me

I think Periscope is great. Other than the nice logo, Meerkat was always very
rough around the edges, Periscope actually looks very nice in comparison.

It also has less latency.

We are obviously looking at the competition very seriously, here at upclose.
For now, we have confidence in our ability to compete. Though we haven't
managed to ride the hype wave like Meerkat and Periscope, we have steady
growth.

We are also the only platform that also exists on web and Android, and with
virtually no latency.

I would love to hear your thoughts on upclose

~~~
WA
There's a typo in your URL.

I think, it's pretty tough to compete with Twitter. Why? Because people see
Twitter already as a micro-journalism platform and live-streaming is more or
less live-journalism. Or at least, this is one way to use it and this helps to
gain a lot of traction fast.

I never tried any live streaming. If I were to start today, I'd use the
platform with the most users and least effort to get into. Which is probably
going to be Periscope.

~~~
tim333
I tried periscope and just now upclose.me. I like that you can I think stream
to the web whereas periscope seems app only. Though upclose is not working for
me after a minute or so - I'm on a slow connection in Vietnam though.

~~~
naman34
Hi Tim, video streaming usually needs a good internet connection. But with
upclose, you should still be able to stream reliably to people near you, as we
use a peer-to-peer streaming solution.

------
msie
So I'm guessing Periscope must use HTTP Live Streaming for video?
[https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Networ...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/StreamingMediaGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html)
: _Important: iPhone and iPad apps that send large amounts of audio or video
data over cellular networks are required to use HTTP Live Streaming._

------
aikah
Didn't they just shut down a service that did the same by blocking their
twitter api access or am I mixing stuff up ?

~~~
tartuffe78
Yea, Meerkat was shut down for spammy practices apparently:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9207271](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9207271)

~~~
minimaxir
The app wasn't shut down, but one feature (auto-follow) was cut off. Periscope
does not use this feature either.

All the _other_ spammy app practices remain.

------
teaneedz
Are there any privacy issues using this app? Streams won't load for me unless
I disable VPN. I'm not sure if that's an issue with my VPN or simply this app
(Twitter) blocking / throttling VPN in general. Anyone else notice this issue?

------
msie
Oh wow, went to Appstore to look for it and it's Editor's Choice. Bam.

------
taozhuo
The killer feature of Periscope is real time communication and its massive
distribution channel, which Meerkat lacks. If broadcasters don't see more than
a few viewers, they lose interest immediately.

------
jug
I hope this can help Twitter. It at least feels like one of those things that
seems to be much more compatible with the immediacy of the Twitter culture
than the Facebook one.

------
Red_
Insight by Wired:
[http://www.wired.com/2015/03/periscope/](http://www.wired.com/2015/03/periscope/)

------
msie
Oh, I smell a lawsuit!
[http://periscopewebvideo.com/](http://periscopewebvideo.com/)

------
tdkl
Streaming mobile videos ? Great, because the world needed another level of
narcissistic obsessive behaviour in the society.

------
tbeutel
This would be a killer app on Google Glass.

~~~
tdkl
This is actually only a stepping stone to prepare people for possible 24/7
Glass surveillance.

------
vermontdevil
Anyone able to switch to front camera? Meekrat - you can. I prefer that so I
can sign to camera while others watch.

~~~
command_tab
Double-tap the video to flip to the other camera.

~~~
vermontdevil
Ah after you start broadcasting - me duh. But not very intuitive at first.

Thanks!

------
lawry
Remember even if you mute your microphone, it's still possible to extract
audio from the video you are streaming:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKXOucXB4a8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKXOucXB4a8)

~~~
rkuykendall-com
> it's still possible to extract audio from the video you are streaming, if
> you are perfectly still, streaming high resolution, lossless, 60FPS video of
> a single object very sensitive to vibrations in the air.

You would have to be trying extremely hard to get a periscope video which
could have audio extracted, if it's possible at all with all the compression
involved.

~~~
lawry
I didn't took that into account, thanks! Still much more is nowadays possible
then people realise. And it scares me how little some users care about privacy
issues when uploading photo's/video's.

Of course it doesn't means someone somewhere is going to try to harm you, but
it's possible. It seems like the days where your username was anonymous and it
was hard to track it back to you are over. Not sure if that's a good thing :(

------
mittbitt
Saw this on Product Hunt too. They're getting everywhere huh?

------
bluthru
Strange that the "Start Broadcasting" button is "hang up" red.

~~~
nav1
Well, "record" buttons also tend to be red.

~~~
ChrisLTD
Yep!

Check out the "Record" button in the iOS Camera app, when you switch to video
it changes the circle from white to red.

------
than
White Bear

------
austenallred
I have this strange sense of aversion to Periscope, even though I know it's
not logical.

It feels to me like Meerkat was a cool thing built by a bunch of my friends
that took off, and then the big blood-sucking corporation (Twitter) tried to
rip it off and make some money (even though that's not accurate).

That probably stems from this conversation between Ben (the co-founder of
Meerkat), and someone who was building something similar:
[http://austenallred.com/assets/ph-ben.png](http://austenallred.com/assets/ph-
ben.png)

> Pete: "I was working on the exact same app... kind of depressed right now.
> :("

> Ben: "PETE! What makes you think you're not capable of doing something
> better/different? It would be a very sad world if people just gave up on
> ideas. I can tell you that the live video space is still broken in terms of
> the distribution mechanism, and that obviously Meerkat is not perfect.
> There's a very good chance that anyone in the world could come up with a
> better product/perspective. Please, go back to code. That's how we'll all
> build things better together, even though we'll all work separately - we
> learn from each other."

How can you not fall in love with that product/company?

~~~
minimaxir
> _How can you not fall in love with that product /company?_

For several reasons, mostly for _destroying my Twitter feed_ in the name of
"growth hacking."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9208429](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9208429)

~~~
dataker
Can you blame them? One way or the other, it was probably one of the only
strategies available and ended up being successful.

Unlike larger companies, they had to solve the chicken-and-egg problem to
distribute the product.

~~~
encoderer
I'm of a mixed mind on this, but I will add clarity here: you are definitely
condoning spam in the name of 'doing whatever it takes'.

~~~
dataker
Not really. There's a clear difference between Meerkat and Viagra spam: it had
a lot of unproven value. Once people starts to use it, it's usually not a
waste of time.

~~~
objclxt
That's true, Viagra is actually proven to work, whereas Meerkat isn't.

There isn't a difference. Spam is spam.

