Remember the days when life was easy? When we could just log into Facebook and seemingly have a connection to everything we could ever possibly want?Then came Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Google+, Pinterest…
Now, the talk is Meerkat vs Periscope. And, while they certainly aren’t the only mobile apps that allow you to stream live video from your phone to the whole wide world, they seem to be the ones getting all the buzz. At the recent Experiential Marketing Summit, video streaming was the hot topic. From a marketing perspective, this takes social media to an experiential level, particularly for live-marketing events. While the experience may not be the same as being there in person, there is the thrill of ‘interacting’ with the event in real-time.
Meerkat’s appeal lies in its simplicity. Launch the app, tap the Stream button and you’re broadcasting to anyone who happens to hop on the stream. Meerkat automatically notifies your Twitter followers that you’re broadcasting. When you’re ready to call it a wrap, just tap the Stop button and your broadcast ends.
Periscope, launched by Twitter as its own streaming platform, provides additional features. You decide whether to tweet out a link to your live stream before you start recording. You also have the option to create private broadcasts: Tap a lock icon, and you can select specific people who can see your live stream. Periscope also automatically saves your streams for 24 hours, allowing anyone who clicks on the Twitter link to see what you had broadcast. That gives it a huge advantage over Meerkat, where streams disappear once you stop recording. However, both apps let you save any video you shoot to your phone’s camera roll for archiving.
Both Meerkat and Periscope let you interact with any streams you watch in similar ways. The two apps let you like and retweet streams; you’re also able to post comments that the stream broadcaster can see in real-time.
Great for weddings, don’t you think? Can’t make it? No problem, cousin Jim can stream it live to you. Want to see something specific, just tweet out camera directions – ‘pan over to catch the expression of the groom as the bride enters’ ( does that fit in 140 characters??)
