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Even though the live streaming app Meerkat has taken Twitter by storm, Twitter may have preemptively acquired Periscope, a viral streaming video app that’s currently in closed beta.
Twitter has confirmed that they have bought Periscope, the close competitor of Meerkat. This has promoted the social network to kill a few of Meerkat’s features.
Although, the terms of the deal has not been disclosed but it looks like Twitter has all geared up to bring a live streaming option to its service after the company confirmed its acquisition on Periscope.
It seems the acquisition happened back in January, it had not been announced yet. Periscope tweeted out the news a little after 1PM EST.
You may have heard some news: It involves a blue bird.
#YouCanGuessTheRest
#WeJoinedTheFlockInJanuary
#AreWeUsingThisRight
#IsThisThingOn
-Periscope (@periscopeco) March 13, 2015
Twitter retweeted, making the announcement from its official account. And Kevin Weil, Twitter’s VP of Product, greeted Periscope team.
Excited to officially welcome @periscopeco to the Twitter team. Can’t wait for everyone to see what they have built! https://t.co/6eAJjpXmaS
-Kevin Weil (@kevinweil) March 13, 2015
Twitter didn’t release details about the deal, but media reports said Twitter was paying between $50 million and $100 million for the app, which is still in the testing phase and has only been available by invitation.
Periscope is a known to be an app for live streaming video from a Smartphone or tablet; still it doesn’t have a product on the market yet.
Periscope is supposed to provide similar functionality as Meerkat. Meerkat is one of the fast-rising, live video Twitter broadcasting platform that has seemed to gain millions of fan base since its launch a few weeks prior. Through it, live stream viewers could tweet directly at you and make it appear instantly on our scream. Meerkat’s failure is due to its integration with Twitter. A lot of people have noticed that it will become an issue in the long run especially that Twitter has decided to finally get itself into live videos.
Meerkat works by tweeting out links to streams and rerouting users to its own platform, Periscope’s features will likely be integrated directly into Twitter timelines in Player Cards, the way Vine posts work.
However, there will be some differences like, Periscope streams will not self-destruct like Meerkat’s, and it allows for both private and public broadcasts. There will also be a comment system; these will not be posted on Twitter. Interestingly, replays will also present comments in sync with when they happened on the original stream.
Now, Twitter has started to limit Meerkat’s access to the social graph of Twitter. A Twitter spokesperson said “We are limiting their access to Twitter’s social graph, consistent with our internal policy. The users will still be able to distribute videos on Twitter and login with their Twitter credentials”.
Twitter is constantly making changes in its services making it more desirable. A live streaming option will certainly be useful for news stories and may also appeal to celebrities keen to connect more closely with fans via special one-off live broadcasts.
Periscope uses the tagline “Explore the world through someone else’s eyes”; let’s see how far it goes with Twitter exploring the worlds of its users.
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