What Pat Flynn & I observed about the quality of viewers in Meerkat & Periscope
Earlier today I apparently took a break from work at the same time as Pat Flynn. I know this because my phone notifies when people are streaming (Meerkat) or broadcasting (Periscope) on either of these apps.
Not all my friends and followers are using it yet so I’m not being bombarded with notifications.
Periscope
Pat was doing some pretty sweet stuff on his ukulele on Periscope (this alone is reason enough to be checking these apps out). It was probably about a 5 minute stream where 42 people tuned in.
However towards the end of Pat’s broadcast there were only four or five people. While there was a flurry of people who joined at the beginning they had all left pretty much left by the end. Forty-two people had checked it out, with not more than probably 12–15 watching at once.
Meerkat
There was a little bit of a different story over on Meerkat. Pat doesn’t know this (well he does) but I got another notification telling me Pat was |LIVE NOW| on Meerkat.
I immediately checked in to see what he was doing there only to find he was doing the exact same ukulele bit again (can anyone say rerun). While the jingle was the same, the viewer engagement was much different.
People were responding and really getting into Pat’s song. And the amount of people watching stayed the same throughout the entire stream. There was approximately 20 people watching from start to finish and 36 people total had checked out Pat’s stream. And unlike Periscope, at the end there were still 20 people watching.
Further Observation on Meerkat & Periscope
While there were less people who checked out Pat on Meerkat (36) there was far more engagement from viewers as well as more people viewing for longer periods of time.
Again, on Periscope we saw 42 people check it, but after the initial rush of people checking in at the beginning, the number of viewers never passed 15 and by the end there were only 4 of us watching.
My question is, which one are you getting results from? Which one seems to be getting more of a response from viewers?
Periscope, I think, looks more polished, has a friendlier UI, and those amazing hearts you can give broadcasters. But it seems to be filled with lots of spammy, useless broadcasts from people.
Meerkat, while it’s UI isn’t as gentle on the eye, it allows you schedule streams, post your comments as tweets (which I think is great. I commented with Cliff Ravenscraft’s twitter handle in another one of Pat’s streams on Meerkat and Cliff joined us & was engaging with Pat) and really only shows you streams that are gaining popularity amongst the community and people you follow.
Early adopters and users of these great apps, what are you seeing from your viewers and audience?
I don’t know if my observation earlier today is valid or true across the board, but I thought it an observation worth sharing. I’d love to hear what you think on Twitter as well. You can find me at @ryan_bilello.
