Meerkat v. Periscope, Next Episode

Whoa!  that was fast, just a week after my June 30th blog, Meerkat rolls a major update, addressing key areas that were begging for improvement.  

Their V1.5 release is ambitious and demonstrates: 

1. they get it (or at least they read this blog, haha) and
2. they have a strong ability execute   

Let’s walk through it; then compare to the July 8 release from Periscope. 

CAMEO

As the name suggests, enables the broadcaster add a viewer for a brief appearance in their livestream.  Simply tap on a viewer’s icon from the audience and invite them to cameo.  

• Cameo meerkaters must be invited by and accept the broadcaster's invitation 
• Cameos are one at a time
• Cameo streams display nested inside the host’s livestream 
• Cameo streams last 60 seconds

This is awesome! a creative way to improve Engagement  and even better than my suggestion: allow livestream viewers to leave voice memos (like “love line” call in shows) but why stop there? it’s all about live and video, duh!  

Well played.

FACEBOOK CONNECTION

Connect your Meerkat account to Facebook to “magically” Discover friends and interests.  It’s about time (easy for me to say).  But this had to happen, my #1, NOT-SO-BOLD-PREDICTION from last week.  Time to move on from the Twitter episode; I have 1.44 Billion reasons why.

NO SOCIAL MEDIA, NO PROBLEM!

For those out there without a Twitter or Facebook account… wait... do you even read blogs? was this printed and mailed to you? anyway, now Meerkat accounts can be created with just a phone number, welcome!

MEERKAT LIBRARY 

Livestream videos live on; now Meerkat will host your finished streams so you and others can watch them later.  This is close to my suggestion of a more seamless connection to YouTube, letting Google store the ended streams; perhaps Meerkat learned their lesson from another company, eh hem, tweet, tweet. 

SHARE BEYOND TWITTER

Sharing is seminal for growth and Meerkat now allows notifications of upcoming streams to be shared out to Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr.  

SEARCH

Meerkat now has search!  previously there was a sad text box masquerading as search; not anymore.  Meerkat. Now. Has. Search.  This is a good start for the Discover use case, but limited to finding friends; still plenty of opportunity for improvement here.  

LEADER BOARD UPDATE

Now there’s both “Past Week” and “All Time” leaders *yawn* but more importantly for Discovery the “Suggested” list helps you find people to follow based on your connections; and thus Meerkat Social Graph begins.

AND IN OTHER NEWS…

Periscope released 1.1.2 with the following, it’s not fair to compare, but let’s do it anyway:

• Profile edits of name, photo, and description
• Blocked comments displayed as such (to the broadcaster)
• Polished the design of “Featured Users” and Broadcast Share” sections

THE BOTTOM LINE

Meerkat won this round.  V1.5 shows great promise, as the team focuses on Discover, Engagement, and Share use case to enhance their ability for grabbing and holding users, well after the initial novelty wears off.  Periscope unfortunately, dropped a point release on the same day; was this a true comparison?  No.  But will the ongoing Twitter management drama weigh down their ability to execute?  because, the ‘kat moves fast and they’ll have to sprint hard to keep up.   

Meerkat v. Periscope

This month, with Meerkat announcing coverage of @sharkweek and Nestlé running the first ever sponsored Periscope, @drumstick, livestream video moves closer to mainstream.  But are they ready for primetime?

It’s still too early to call this one, both services have shown promise; moving from just grabbing users with Discovery and Sharing use cases to holding them with deeper Engagement while creating an Ecosystem for developers.

Let’s compare Meerkat and Periscope against how well they Grab and Hold viewers and creators. 

DISCOVER

Discovery is seminal for growth; for livestream video to gain adoption, viewers must find content.  So far it’s been rough sledding; finding streams is more happenstance than anything.  But, there’re been a few bright spots: the Meerkat browser plugin launches a page which contains an Alice In Wonderland like question “Bored? Random Meerkat” which launches you into a random livestream.  This feature is fun, I like it, it embraces the randomness of finding livestream videos. While Periscope offers their Twitter page, ho hum.  But then again Periscope has full Twitter Social Graph for finding your friends and a respectable search for finding others, like celebs and public figures.  Meerkats search requires typing an exact Twitter handle - which is remedial search, more like an “enter box.”

NOTEWORTHY | DISCOVER

Periscope’s Map View, is great! it’s a creative way to open a window up to a place.  “What’s happening in Sao Paulo?” tap it to list local livestreams. 

SHARE

Sharing makes livestream social, viral and growth exponential.  Initially, sharing options for both were predictably limited to Twitter posts.  Since, Meerkat has been busy and now offers Facebook posts and share to phone contacts; and from their website player include Twitter, Facebook, and copy link; the table below lists the rest.

NOTEWORTHY | SHARE

Meerkat’s Embedded Player, is a crafty tool that allows creators to insert a livestream player onto their site. It’s easy, check it out!  Discovery Channel is using this for the upcoming @sharkweek livestream.  

ENGAGEMENT

Twitter acquired Periscope to help with their infamous Engagement problem.  And if livestream video expects to live up to its great expectations the content must be more engaging; holding the users they’ve grabbed after the initial novelty wears off.  Recently, they’ve both shown promise in their own way; Meerkat with fun, quirky animations and easter eggs, mobbing, and basic scheduling (dare I say ‘scheduled programming?’ we’re not there yet) and Periscope with private broadcasts - give the non-exhibitioninsts a nudge.  

NOTEWORTHY | ENGAGEMENT

Meerkats’ Mobbing, effectively makes livestreaming social by promoting popular streams which are trending.  And there’s a cute graphic of a meerkat in a yellow submarine. 

Pericsope’s Design, is slick, clean with a well-organized layout and a fit and finish expected from a product a year in the making.  The iconography is beautiful and just makes sense and even data heavy displays like user profile cards are refreshingly legible.   The map views support their fundamental vision: to share a person’s window into a place. 

ECOSYSTEM

For services which capture and broadcast live content their surrounding Ecosystem is critical.  Think about it; the components in their must have user experience: from the hardware used to capture and play livestream videos to the sites they depend on for sharing this content and adding new users.  Ecosystem is the silent, behind the scenes growth multiplier.  So far, Meerkat is way out in front here.  Nowhere is this more obvious than with the number of 3rd Party projects listed on Product Hunt, producthunt.com, 17 for Meerkat and just 5 for Periscope.    

NOTEWORTHY | ECOSYSTEM

Meerkat’s 3rd Party Services, could be how Meerkat stays competitive with Twitter owned Periscope.  Of the 17 services listed on Product Hunt one of my favorites is the browser plugin that launches the Meerkat portal page which includes the “Random Meerkat” button and alerts of streams going live.

NOT-SO-BOLD PREDICTIONS

1. Meerkat cozies up to Facebook, says “I’ll see your Twitter Social Graph and raise you a Facebook.”  What’s better than 300 million users? well, 1.44 billion users.

2. Periscope is caught up in Twitter’s management drama - dramaa! - product development and innovation start to slow.

3. Livestream video breaks out into wearables, like Google Glass (don't call it a "comeback"), and drones.

Meerkat Livestream Alert Posted To Facebook

TAKING STOCK

The reports of Meerkat’s death were greatly exaggerated by more than one guy and they’re fighting back after losing their early lead.  

But while Meerkat is winning the feature chase, their product efforts, at times, seem like throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks. 

​ The mixed bag of often half-baked features lacks clarity and a cohesive direction.  Without a vision they’ll soon lose their befuddled audience.  For a startup with limited resources that which you don't do is more important than what you do.  Saying “no” focuses the team on what matters, putting more wood behind fewer arrows.  On the other hand, Periscope has been more measured and professional but is starting to fall behind in functionality and as Meerkat’s API and ecosystem take off it’ll be difficult to keep pace with the ‘kat.  Will it be Meerkat? Periscope? or both that take livestream video into mainstream?   

Amazon’s Other Showrooming App

With Amazon Flow, featuring visual search, the world is your showroom, but does it work well as a stand-alone app?

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My wife and I bought a house last year and are saving to start a family; so in 2015, it’s less frivolous spending and no impulse buying.

Four months into 2015 and my resolution to be more discerning shopper was relatively still intact.     

That is, before I rediscovered Amazon Flow, which essentially has a “point and impulsive buy” button for everything around me.  Great plans to spend less: blown. up.   

It started with a simple price-check from my pantry; it couldn’t hurt to look, right?:

Coconut Oil:

• Point the App,
• 1-Click Buy,
• Arrives in two days.   

Whoa! way too easy.  A quick lap around my kitchen, pointing the Flow at whatever seemed low: sea salt, cumin seed, green tea, coconut water, almonds: Point the App, 1-Click Buy, 1-Click Buy, 1-Click Buy… viola! our kitchen pantry was transformed into a virtual grocery store and in two days, prime, it would be replenished, thanks to Flow.

THE GOOD.

Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world; their core competency has always been frictionless shopping and Flow follows this arc: 1-click “buy now;” Amazon Prime; subscriptions all orchestrated to quell the tiny voice “do I really need this?” 1-click, boom! too late, arrives in two days.

Twinkling blue stars mean it's working

It Twinkles!

Flow is a barcode reader without the barcodes.  With the camera lens in your phone, Flow uses image recognition to find products; which can be added to your Amazon cart.  You’ll know it’s working when the twinkling blue stars hone in on the product, then add it to your running list; all within seconds.  

Killer App

With Flow, Amazon didn’t just port their website over to an app; they reimagined their core offering as if it were something new; addressing the must have user experience in a smaller screen while concentrating on first class use cases around the native camera for image recognition and search.  Flow is focused, stripped down to the essentials.  Flow is for Hunters, and not Gatherers.  Buyers, not Shoppers.  When we just want to place an order and move on.  

Layout

Released the same year as Snapchat, Flow has a similar camera-as-homescreen, stripped down user interface which gets out of the way of making a purchase.  Every overt interface element is thoughtfully placed to optimize purchase or dismissed to the pulldown list on the righthand side, a.k.a the “gutter.”   

History

If you don’t “buy now,” there’s History, which is an editable list of your previous visual searches.  This is helpful for accessing previously detected products, when they’re no longer in view.  Or, to haunt you until you buy them.  

OPPORTUNITY FOR IMPROVEMENT

I like Flow; I prefer it to the Amazon App, it’s stripped down, un-bloated, devoid of nonessentials.  However, it’s been around since 2011 and hasn’t exactly caught fire.  Last year Flow’s image matching tech was added to the Amazon app so good luck guessing Amazon’s next move.  

In the meantime, I prefer the streamlined version, because I’m a hunter, I know what I want; am in and out, done.  Which is it for you; full version in all its browsing glory or stripped to essentials in Flow?  share your thoughts in the comments.  

Amazon should focus on judiciously added a few features to Flow; but overall keep it lean and clean.  

“Out Of The Box” Detection

Flow should be able to detect products, literally, out of the box.  Image recognition tech is improving, by the quarter, and Flow should keep up with this pace.  To illustrate, take these Ted Baker boots.

I bought them on Amazon and they’re still available, but Flow had no recognition of them.  

I’ve worked with image recognition tech that could match these two images, quickly, with a high degree of accuracy.  So come on Amazon, let’s step it up here.  In fact I should be able to snap a pic with flow and run an image search for similar products - after all Amazon practically invented the collaborative filter (product suggestions based on similarities).    

It would be cool to snap a stealthy pic of, say someone wearing a great jacket across the street, and instantly pull it up with close matches, ready for the Amazon cart.

Buy It Again

What’s keeping Flow from standing on it’s own?  Quite simply, my “go to” list of purchases.  And while the image detection tech is being improved, voice search would be helpful.  But that’s it.  Adding these two features will bring balance to the app; between excess and essential features.  Here’s an enhanced layout, elevating Flow to stand alone.

The enhanced interface moves the text search to the top middle and pulls history out of the gutter onto the left side; with voice search accessible from the pulldown list (which of course is hidden when not in use).  

The History icon opens the same list views but includes an “Orders” view containing all previously purchased items, so I can easily reorder - especially when items are out of sight.  This Order history should pull from my full Amazon purchase history - amazon.com as well.

THE FUTURE

The hybrid, physical storefront with ecommerce fulfillment, has been a “next year” thing for  over 15 years.  With its Flow technology, Amazon skips ahead to fast fulfillment of the world around us; even using the storefronts of others to order their fulfillment.  Sure we can obsess over usability, performance, and design details; but let’s be clear:  It’s an app that will frigg’n take a photo of a product then have it to you in 24 hrs; the future is now.   

THE BOTTOM LINE

Amazon has a good first version product with Flow, but since its 2011 release, they haven’t exactly set the industry ablaze with new features.  Amazon should add some basic features to breakout Flow as truly stand-alone for all ordering use cases; as it has the potential to be better than their “full version” mobile app.  Until then, the hybrid storefront with ecommerce fulfillment is still a year away, for yet another year.