Periscope: What Is It and Why Is It SO Cool?

Periscope: What Is It and Why Is It SO Cool?

OMG. It’s so cool. At first the thought of a live video feed freaked us out a bit… but once we started using it and understanding how the platform could be used – WOW. We know, the fast-paced world of the internet is hard to keep up with at times. It wasn’t long ago that we were talking about the importance of video as the new big thing. Well, now it’s live streaming. This means that we can now publish videos live on the internet in real time.

What is Periscope?

Periscope is Twitter’s new baby; their new live streaming app which allows users to broadcast live to the world. Using Twitter followers, the app also allows you to keep your videos meaning that more people can see them, whilst giving you a larger bank of other people’s videos to access.

Following…

You can add a setting to be notified any time someone adds a new video, and obviously can watch it straight away or save it for later. From this, you can leave comments, saved in your Periscope app, not your Twitter account to avoid cluttering it up.

Hearts

Just like a Facebook ‘like’ or a Twitter ‘favorite’, you can send and receive ‘hearts’ on Periscope. This means that you can show people that you loved their video, as well as experience the delight of receiving an influx of little hearts, as people show you how much they liked your video.

Private

Another great option with Periscope is that it allows you to broadcast privately to a person or closed group. This is great for sharing special moments that you don’t want the whole world to see.

Infinite

Your video can be broadcast to an infinite number of people (especially useful if you are a celebrity) and for as long as you like (obviously providing that you have the space on your phone).

There are of course a number of issues which need to be ironed out with live streaming, the biggest being issues about privacy. However, this is the direction that the internet is headed, and for those looking for a great live streaming app, it doesn’t get much cooler than Periscope.  Make sure to follow @jennhurless, she posts some pretty interesting things, like…shark fishing.