Meerkat and Periscope: My Experience as a User

a.k.a. Me Pitching Both These Companies Some (Probably Obvious) Ideas

Everybody knows about the Meerkat and Periscope supposed war for users on the live streaming video space. While most are aware of the fact that it’s too soon to call, there are a lot of groupies that insist on calling their preferred side a winner. What these people are also doing is overlooking some of the drawbacks of each app (and, in some cases, of both). Let’s jump into those.

Meerkat

Meerkat, the so-called hottest app at SXSW 2015 (I couldn’t say, I wasn’t there), has some great things going for itself. First of all, I like all the, let’s say, partially clothed girls promoting random products… No, I’m just kidding (and I’m sure Periscope has its share of that too, I just didn’t have time to look for them).

What I really like is the fact that they have an iPad app (not just an app for the iPhone, like Periscope), which allows me to watch my favorite streams in a much more comfortable way. I also like the possibility that users have to schedule a stream (so far not featured in Periscope), which allows me to get prepared to watch something (maybe make some popcorn, get some bacon, whatever I feel like eating at the time).

And then there’s the fact that everyone watching a particular stream can comment, without limitations, something that isn’t (and I really don’t get why) possible on Periscope. And I really prefer the way comments are displayed on Meerkat, not taking most of the screen like Periscope.

Periscope

Periscope, acquired by Twitter in March, seems to have more diverse options of streaming channels. I really like that they give users the possibility of archiving videos for a while (24 hours), but, then again, you could just save them and post somewhere else, like some people are already doing.

I like the hearts you can give when you like what you’re seeing that exact moment, but I think people tend to overuse that (Meerkat gives you just one opportunity of showing that you like what you see). Maybe they should come up with a broken heart or any other bad thing for when you don’t like what you see, but, then again, that’s rarely a feature in social networks.

Some people may ask what I think about Periscope not having the Twitter avatars at the top of the screen (like Meerkat has), but I don’t know how I feel about that. I don’t think it’s particularly useful, but overall Meerkat really does “work the screen” better than Periscope (where you have to choose between seeing who is watching the stream right now or seeing the comments). And I hate when I’m watching someone on Periscope and all those comments keep popping up in the face of the person I’m trying to watch, usually just to troll or to ask to see a fridge (I’m secretly a fridge freak too), but that does not mean I don’t want to see the comments at all (I just wish they took less screen space).

Problems on Both Sides

Both apps have been fun so far, but they do share problems. The first one, and the main reason I think it’s too early to talk about winners here, is the fact that none of them has an official Android app (Meerkat has some unofficial clients, but I haven’t tested them, so I couldn’t attest their quality), which means that most smartphone users around the world can’t use them.

Next, there’s the fact that you can’t live stream a video chat with other users on those apps yet (so that you could, for example, invite a friend that is in another place to share their livestream video in the same “channel” as you). In the first week or so of using Meerkat, I saw some weird stuff, like someone filming their computer screen (probably from their phone) while having a video chat with other Meerkat users.

I also would like to see some categorization of the streams, like the one on Vine. A user could say what category each stream fits in when he schedules or starts it, so that the app can better filter the streams for you. I like that Periscope, after it’s big recent update, started separating the people you follow from all the other streams, but if I want to go to the Global tab to find something new, it’s chaos and I don’t know what to watch.

So, What Now?

I said twice in this little article that it’s too soon to call a winner in this supposed battle between Meerkat and Periscope. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and they even have some problems that none of them has tackled so far. So what I’ll do is treat this competition as I treat TV programming: I’ll use your app if the person whose stream I want to watch is there. So far, some of the people I like to watch are on Meerkat, some are on Periscope. I’ll get notified on my iPad and I’ll watch it. But I think the days of browsing around to check new streams are over for me. Yeah, seeing you drive home from work is not that interesting after all.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts.