If you looked at this week’s sudden Meerkat phenomenon
and thought “hey, Twitter should buy this,” then you’re on the right
track. According to sources we’ve spoken with, Twitter has been in talks
to purchase live streaming app Periscope, which many private beta users have compared to Meerkat.
The talks are in early stages, but it’s clear that
Periscope and Meerkat are doing similar things in a similar space. One
source pegs a possible deal at around $100M, another source says the
deal is worth a fraction of that. Live streaming on the backbone of the
Twitter user graph is certainly intriguing, as the uptake of Meerkat has
proven.
Periscope is a similar arrangement. It allows people to
fire up live video wherever they are and broadcast it to allow people to
watch it. The design is more ‘polished’ than Meerkat, which resembles
Snapchat in its minimal — even roughshod — aesthetic. But the general
principles are very similar.
It would be a natural fit for Twitter to acquire one of
the apps in this space. It’s right in line with its real-time tentpole
and feels inevitable. While much of Twitter’s efforts have been put
toward ensuring that its bottom line benefits from users that don’t
tweet, or even log into its service, offering core ‘creators’ a
1-to-many broadcast option a button away is certainly a no-brainer.
In many ways, a product like Periscope aligns with
something like Apple’s FaceTime. It’s just video chat, which had been
around for ages — but it’s the lubrication of that process that has made
it so popular. When it’s institutionalized, in a platform like
Snapchat, Facebook or Twitter, it becomes just another sharing option.
If you’re one tap away from sharing a cool live experience, won’t you be
more likely to try it out? Especially in a way that taps into the
ephemerality and informality of Snapchat.
Over the past week I used Meerkat to stream a live roller
coaster ride to around 30 people, which was a very interesting feeling.
It had the same feel as a Twitch broadcast, but instead of a game, it
was your life you were commentating. Periscope and Meerkat face the same
challenges as any live-streaming product. There is a narrow window of
opportunity for a live event, and it’s completely synchronous — unable
to be consumed out of line with its creation. That’s both compelling and
limiting. Live video like this seems like it would be incredibly
difficult to scale, but that’s not a problem if you already have scale
and you just want to leverage it in a new way.
Now is the right time for something like this to be a part
of Twitter for a variety of reasons. High-bandwidth, mobile cellular
networks are far more prevalent than ever before, as are powerful mobile
devices with great cameras. There is also Twitter’s history of
facilitating transparency in events like the Arab Spring, the Ferguson
protests in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown and many others.
Live video streaming would be a boon to activists, reporters and
documentarians.
We have reached out to Twitter and Periscope and will update if we receive a response.
Updated story with more pricing details