Periscope by the Numbers
medium.com
medium.com
Disclaimer: I don't work for Meerkat. It's just the way it is. Twitter deserves every bad bit of luck they are getting lately.
When Facebook launches streaming video, should we be angry at them since they have way more money/users than Twitter, and because Twitter did it first?
If Meerkat has built something defensible, then they'll be fine. If not, nobody should expect them to just be deemed the only company that can do streaming video. During Twitter's history, many people tried to pop up and knock them down to take the lead - but Twitter was tenacious and had an awesome product, and they won.
It's a long game and Meerkat can still win it. If one early competitor is enough to crush them, then they probably weren't going to make it anyway.
MSFT/GOOG etc... could always decide to "un-suck" and kill some new hot thing, but it's a deus ex machina and not something you can predict, so it shouldn't really even be a consideration.
I get where you're coming from but deep pockets and an army of engineers doesn't guarantee success. Google+ never got out of the "it sucks" stage into mainstream success. The legacy of Steve Jobs is also littered with fanciful ideas that never got traction. I guess my point is there is a point to innovating and attempting to try, even as a small player, because there's really no guarantees.
I can't recall the exact story right now, but I recently heard that a well-to-do / highly funded flight project (Langley?) failed, and a short time later, the shoe-string operation by the Wright Brothers was successful.
"MSFT/GOOG could just do it and kill your [service]" is a very common response to anyone who is launching anything new or groundbreaking and it's also a misguided response.
So worrying that BIGCO will do that is basically a worthless concern and saying that because something is obvious in retrospect that it was inevitable is not particularly useful.
That said, they still can do it and on the rare occasion when they do, instead of doing an acquisition it usually does kill the newcomer. So to the original point, it seems like it's actually becoming more common than less for them to spin something up rather than acquire.
> "The best thing of all worlds is to build a product that a lot of people really love. In practice, you can't usually do that, because if there's an opportunity like that, Google or Facebook will do it. So there's like a limit to the area under the curve, of what you can build. So you can build something that a large number of users like a little bit, or a small number of users love a lot."
Google, Facebook, and Twitter are far from omnipotent. Want proof? Just look at Google's failed attempts to get into TV advertising or social networking. Or Facebook's attempts with Messenger. Or Twitter's... everything, really.
Also, consider, it's unlikely any of them would copy an idea until you've already made it a success, at which point network effects can work in your favour (again, Google's repeatedly aborted attempts in social networking are illustrative, here).
To summarize: they might try to copy you, but there's no reason to assume they'll succeed.
Twitter pulled some very dirty stuff on Meerkat, merely days before launching Periscope and later, in order to favour their own Meerkat clone. That's when everything changed from 'it's a free market' to 'it's our market and we can kick you out for no reason'. And yeah, it actually is Twitter's market, they are allowed to do anything they like with it and "monopoly regulations" aside, they can kick you out of their for no reason.
But let me tell you what I don't find ethical about all of this. That when you are going to develop for them, they do not tell you straight away: we are going to fuck you up if what you do turns out to be valuable; quite the contrary, they just put out their "we-are-so-cool-and-we-love-developers" face and invited everyone to be part of their platform blah blah blah.
That started around 5-6 years ago, and probably you (selectively) won't remember this either, but back then the first killer apps that Twitter had were third-party Twitter clients that made the whole user experience better. They were a hit because back then, too, the main Twitter UX was a piece of s... and these alternatives were so much better. And guess what happened to those products? Twitter pulled the same shit on them, they bought TweetDeck which was arguably the one with the most users (or the one that needed the money the most), and banned all other clients from their API with a week-or-so notice. At that time, that thing was even worse, because I would even dare to say that Twitter somehow was in debt with those developers because a significant contribution to the growth of twitter was driven by people going through all these third-party clients, that's plain treachery and there's even a special circle in Hell for that thing.
Now history repeats again and will repeat forever because the message from Twitter in that sense is very clear: we don't give a shit about our developers.
But now, it's good to see that things are finally turning around. Twitter desperately needs a killer app right now, because they've lost the hype, they're running out of money and investors don't eat anymore that "we will be profitable in ten years" crap. The only one way that Twitter could be hip again is, oooooh the irony, if another great product starts driving people back into using Twitter, but guess what? No developer will ever take Twitter seriously anymore, and that's just and sweet beautiful karma :)
Btw, it would be honest for you to disclaim about your relationship with Twitter :^)
Seems to me that Twitter built a truly massive social media platform with hundreds of millions of users interacting with short real-time updates in a semi-public manner. An accomplishment nearly no other company has ever done.
Meerkat had the remarkably obvious and unoriginal idea of having this hyper successful platform also host some live streaming video. In implementing this obvious extension to the Twitter platform they ignored the effect of their intrusive updates on the UX for everyone else in violation of the terms of service.
Twitter decided that the experience of posting media on Twitter is their department and acted accordingly. In the process Meerkat's founders and investors were deprived of the opportunity to become billionaires in exchange for a few months of development and a trip to Austin. My heart breaks at this injustice.
The timing of the meerkat -> Periscope launches indicates that your analysis of how "obvious" and "unoriginal" it was is probably wrong. It's not like this was a big thing before meerkat came out, not that they were the first, but meerkat essentially made the market.
Periscope acquisition by Twitter seems to have slowed them down on launching new features, but I have to say that their app and streaming works better than Meerkat and numbers don't lie. They are doing a great job.
Meerkat is great at innovating and moving fast. The "Cameo" feature looks really cool. Everyone thought they were going to be bought by Facebook, but they just launched their own app for famous people and journalists (at least at the beginning to try it out). Let's see how this space evolves once Facebook releases the app to the public and Google starts doing the same using Youtube.
After studying and forming opinions about various outlets, I'm pretty happy to be on Periscope, and I don't think I'll get on Meerkat or jump at the chance to do a Facebook live stream. As explained in the article, the viewers through the app or through the web enable people to pick an avenue they prefer, and I think that's a strength. Periscope reminds me of the fun of ChatRoulette without the hazardous free-for-all setup.
With the continually shifting avenues for marketing and performance streaming (Periscope, Tidal, etc) there's a lot of opportunity for mid-tier acts to have a chance at a wider audience. Is it wise to spam every service? No, but getting a foothold in the ones with a decent return on time invested does seem reasonable, even if that list is about 10 sites long. Managing a digital footprint is pretty cool these days...a long way from sharing MIDI files over 56k modems haha
I feel this platform is very cool and can fulfill many niches along with Meerkat. For example, I could learn/communicate from/with an expert on a subject or just hangout with someone famous (Kevin Hart). I even watched an entire wedding (from planning to the event to the after party) thanks to Amanda Oleander (I think she's the top Periscoper right now).
Personally, it can also broaden your horizon, especially for shy people like me. I'm using the platform to learn broadcasting techniques and to showcase my artwork (@artJutsu). I'm horrible at it, but I feel I'm getting more comfortable with my public speaking because of it.
When you broadcast you are LIVE and have to think on your feet to keep things interesting. This is much different than non-streaming social media because you can create the most perfect instance of yourself/business.
I would love to see how this product develops further. I don't think it will be a replacement for Youtube or Twitter, but more of an enhancement of your current social paradigm.
The success of Periscope and Meerkat are mutually exclusive. While Periscope has topped the Social Networking category in the App Store, Meerkat has been gradually losing ranking since Periscope's inflection point at the end of May, according to App Annie: http://i.imgur.com/b51Wpm2.png
No, "YOU CAN GUEST IN ANOTHER LIVESTREAM ZOMG XD" is not sufficient feature differentiation.
The space will become tragedy-of-the-commonsed once both YouTube and Facebook release dedicated livestreaming apps; and both are currently in limited release.
Yeah, I don't understand the mentality of "but we have xyz feature"! Its rather tacky and I'm not sure if it ever worked. There's a reason why Meerkat has fallen out of favor and its not because of a single feature. Periscope has what "304 million monthly active users" potential users because of Twitter alone. That's hughmongous! Also, the name Meerkat is not fun. Reminds me of a Ferret for some reason.
Facebook has already released live streaming for celebs. Once that catches on, Periscope will be reserved to just another feature that Twitter uses.
No one's going to win. Its just an enhancement of a service that's long due. I do think, however, that the Meerkat boys will be fine. They can just have FB write them a check and be acquired (which I believe was the intent anyway).
Twitter on the other hand, if used wisely, may help their business model since more and more people will be active on their platform because someone's on there acting interesting. (Expect to see 1,000,000 #WSHH tags on Periscope soon.)
Facebook is trying its hardest to not be Facebook. Its purpose as a platform has morphed drastically from its original intent, And that's fine. Heck, I would do the same.
I do see the practice of Freebooting as an issue, but nothing that will break them. They have way too many people who does it and (worse) way too many people who are either uninformed or just don't care. So, really I feel its going to happen for all eternity.
That said, I'm surprised that Facebook hasn't branched out and became its own entertainment hub. FacebookNews, FacebookFilm, FacebookShop, Facebook...Books lol. They certainly have the cash to do so an make it happen. Maybe that's what they are working on as we speak.