After one year on the live streaming platform battlefield, Periscope has proven that it is a competitor in the market and it will not be intimidated. Since its launch the platform has hosted 200 million live streaming broadcasts with 100 million of those created in the last three months. Periscope also reported that users are watching 110 years’ worth or close to 1 million hours of live streams every day. In August, daily consumption was at 41 years’ worth of video, so since then viewing has more than doubled.
Although none of the big competitors in the live streaming market release their metrics for measuring usage, Periscope watches the time spent watching live broadcasts on the app above all else.
Periscope came onto the scene with its main competitor being Meerkat, and now Meerkat is pivoting away from live streaming. Facebook has appeared in the live streaming market and has built itself to be a formidable competitor to the point that Facebook put most of its efforts in its video division into its Live service, going so far as to recruit and pay celebrities to live stream on Facebook to bolster its business. Now Google is reported to be developing a live streaming app called YouTube Connect to compete with the likes of Facebook and Periscope.
It is reported that Facebook’s recent live streaming push has influenced the recent uptick in broadcasts on Periscope but correlation does not signify causation and Periscope is confident that it is on the track to success, and has progressed far before Facebook entered the market. “We were thinking about this before it was super interesting to the big players so the fact that Facebook, the 800-pound gorilla, woke up one day and decided that live was interesting is very flattering for us,” said Periscope CEO Kayvon Beykpour.
Facebook is huge but Twitter isn’t small either, so Periscope also has the built-in revenue stream and user base that Facebook has, albeit smaller ones, but the company is continuing to grow to the point that its parent, Twitter, is in need of Periscope.
Periscope’s users are prolific and creating content rapidly, meanwhile Twitter’s growth has slowed as the company reported the same amount of monthly users for the past two quarters. Periscope will be Twitter’s best chance at saving itself but now it is a matter of how that will be done.
Twitter has added Periscope streams to its news feed and now monetization is on the company’s mind. People are already using the platform for reporting on events around the world, celebrities are bringing their notoriety to the platform and it is speculated that we could start to see Periscope video creators earn fame, similar to how YouTube stars have done. A few companies have begun to add content to the platform in an attempt to capitalize on live streaming like Blumhouse which has produced the first “live horror movie” on Periscope called “Fifteen”.
Twitter is looking at ways it can more closely integrate with Periscope without damaging the nature of either platform while still reaping the benefits of integration. The landscape of live streaming has changed drastically in the last year and this time next year it could be completely different than it is now, so it will be interesting to see how the future for Twitter and Periscope will pan out under a united front.
This first ran in Rider Research’s Online Reporter.