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Comment by ryandvm | Hacker News Reader

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/). 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.

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Remember that Twitch.tv started out with a guy carrying a camera on his head and lifestreaming everything.

Running a successful company depends on knowing which way the wind is blowing and adapt accordingly.

The adoption of justin.tv for e-sport was a huge surprise, but Justin.tv were smart enough to catch on to the trend and adapt.

That's also why the "ahead of their time" trope can be very misleading.

Meerkat treated users incredibly disrespectfully, and I can't be bothered that a company might fold at the first sign of competition. It's not like Jaiku and Pownce weren't around at one point.

"Running a successful company depends on knowing which way the wind is blowing and adapt accordingly."

So.True!

iOS user detected

(http://www.macrumors.com/2015/03/13/ios-8-3-space-bar-period...)

> Running a successful company depends on knowing which way the wind is blowing and adapt accordingly.

We call that a pivot.

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.

> someone live streaming an instance of police brutality

Hasn't that been done for many instances already? People have been live streaming from Ferguson, Egypt, etc.

These new apps are bringing a much more streamlined, accessible method for anyone with a smartphone. People in Ferguson or Egypt likely had a more complex set-up or were posting pre-recorded footage.

Maybe only more complex in that they cost $ to livestream, but I could sit in front of my Roku and watch multiple live streams of Ferguson protests on UStream.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I suspect the original commenter was just using a topical example, but ok, let's say it's protests.

A very large number of people streaming might create a curation requirement, but that's all. You have someone reputable who is retweeting or directing people to the most useful feed (as happens already with breaking news events on Twitter).

You end up watching someone having a dialog with a police officer, or in the middle of a rush, or something. You feel a greater sense of connection knowing that it is happening right now.

The people streaming have no time for editing. Moreover, video editing is unnecessarily painful, so amateurs hardly ever do it. What does happen is the best stuff gets saved and recycled as GIFs/HTML5 short videos.

The live part would be really useful if the police decide to confiscate your phone before you have a chance to edit and upload anything.

I think its pretty big everywhere else in the world. People in South Korea use it for "muk-bang"(watching pretty girls eat a TON of food) and Chinese use it for gaming(most gaming channels with 10k+ viewers are chinese channels). I assume Europe has a lot of gamers live stream channels, but the number must be dwarfed by Chinese.

It's really interesting to see cultures evolving around this technology despite America's lag on adopting it.

I always think of live streaming if I was ever in a plane crash.

Or a couple hundred car crashes/fatalities. I've already seen two people try to stream from their driver's seat with the phone in one hand and the steering wheel in the other.

Although I think connections help more than not, I think it's more nuanced than that. You have to have a story, something to convince people that they need your app. It has to capture peoples imagination, and it needs to be simple enough that the average user doesn't need to do anything to consume it. And the market needs to be ready for it. Too early is just as bad as too late.

Yes, this is not an original idea at all. But the slick onboarding, clean interface and the promotion are making this a hit (Being on the front page of the Appstore is huge).

http://bambuser.com/ is another one that's been around for years now.

It already looks like a hassle to sign up. The onboarding for Periscope is so slick, they take advantage of your Twitter account for one-step signup. I was watching streams in mere seconds.

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