March 24, 2015
It’s the talk of the town. A real-time video app set to take over the world. Is it really promising as a new social platform?
The live-streaming app allows users to play videos on their Twitter feeds, as they happen. According to The Independent, since its launch on 27 February, Meerkat has attracted more than 120,000 users. Not bad going for under a month.
Is ‘Meerkatting’ set to become the new way of communicating? Can it outlive its strong start and emerge as a big social network in its own right?
“The difference between Meerkat and, say, YouTube or Livestream or FaceTime or Chatroulette, is that Meerkat merges all those elements – real-time video, mass social participation – into one immediate, participatory dervish” writes Caitlin Dewey in The Independent. The fact that users are able to chat to viewers as their videos are streamed, could be an integral part of Meerkat’s sustainability. It goes above and beyond normal sharing interactions, by merging all of the elements into one platform.
Twitter has responded to Meerkat’s rapid growth by removing notifications from users’ live feeds (Source: Vogue). Why would they do this? They have recently purchased a similar app called Periscope which is in direct competition with Meerkat. Have they waited too long? Meerkat may have already passed the tipping point as Periscope is still in the beta phase (Source: Customer Think).
All of this Meerkat chatter could be just that. Chatter. But it does seem to be more than that. Live- streaming may be here to stay. Coming soon to a phone near you
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