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Comment by minimaxir | Hacker News Reader

> I feel this platform is very cool and can fulfill many niches along with Meerkat

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.

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"YOU CAN GUEST IN ANOTHER LIVESTREAM ZOMG XD"

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.)

I also see Facebook's competition with YouTube and the issue of "Freebooting" somewhat tempering the adoption of YouTube. Also, for music minded folks, Apple Connect might still hold more sway than Facebook. Then over on the side there's Vine. I see all these as competing, but not necessarily for the same audiences. Will be interested in the next developments and to see how the market share plays out.

@6stringmerc

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.

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