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?   

Meerkat's Feeling Lucky

Can Meerkat keep its lead over Twitter’s Periscope? If they keep innovating with addictive features like “Random Meerkat,” it’ll soon be down Periscope.

This year, the real March Madness was with Livestreaming Video; Meerkat, and soon after, Twitter’s Periscope both launched apps in the same month; and it’s been “game on.”  While Periscope launched a cleaner, more polished app; performance has been spotty and the jury is still out.  @mashable did a side-by-side comparison and Periscope couldn’t keep pace with Meerkat.  On the other hand, there have been more users on Periscope, like @amandaoleander who for not being a celebrity, regularly has 250+ live followers on her streams.       

If Livestream Video is going to last beyond initial novelty; these apps must focus on supporting user growth with content discovery and sharing.  We’ll take a closer look at both, this time Meerkat, and then Periscope.  So far Meerkat has the most addictive new feature:  the “Boring? Random Meerkat!” button.

DISCOVER USE CASE

“Boring? Random Meerkat?” button is addicting, it’s like chatroulette without the broadcaster staring back at you.  It’s great for discovering new Meerkats to watch and follow.   It’s so addicting it should be promoted from just the Meerkat portal page to integrated into the core mobile app; by owning this feature with the dice icon, which selects a Meerkat at random:

Slightly Updated Meerkat Player with "Random Meerkat" Dice

I couldn't help cleaning up the top and bottom navigation bars, but refrained from a complete overhaul.  Oh, and the algorithm should be updated to weight randomness away from streams with say only one follower after five minutes - next!  

Browser Plugin which launches the Meerkat portal page and alerts of streams going live is awesome and distracting and greatly contributed to the delay of this blog, ha!

The plugin opens the Meerkat Portal - an easy way to watch from a desktop browser.

Meerkat Portal, Launched from Meerkat Plugin, Displaying the "Boring? Random Meerkat!" 

SHARE USE CASE

Since being kicked from Twitter's social graph, Meerkat must rely on share features to grow - aside from blowing a huge marketing budget, but where's the skill in that?  In the meantime, they've been busy adding features to support sharing:

Follow URL for linking people to your Meerkat page, like this, simple but effective.

Follow button links to your follow URL and is added to sites using the provided code snippet.

Share Your Profile button blasts out your Share URL to your Twitter followers.  This is a great thought, but is buried at the bottom of the home Meerkat List and would be better on a My Profile page.

Hold To Share, upcoming streams will open your iPhone share dialog:

This is a good start but should be extended to include live streams as well; that’s sharing live streams beyond just a retweet to your Twitter followers.

Basic Share allows broadcasters to notifying Twitter followers of livestreams, end these Twitter notifications with #meerkat and viewers to retweet a livestream video; boring but absolutely necessary.    

BIG IDEA, WISH LIST

Once the core Growth and Share use cases have been addressed, I’m looking forward to Meerkat and Periscope focusing more on deeper engagement, such as:   

1. Voice messages back to the broadcaster, who would select voice messages to be played during the livestream; and restart the fun of call-in radio shows of yesteryear.  loveline much?  

2. Apple TV Channel, let’s not be coy, we know it’s coming, just cut to the chase.

3. Search, while not earth-shattering, it’s a basic requirement for discovering content.

4. Playlists as some way to organize upcoming or active stream content would help make some sense of this never-ending list.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Meerkat has been busy adding a myriad of ways to support Discover and Share Use Cases out of necessity since being kicked from the Twitter social graph. While Periscope can rest on the laurels of Twitter for organic growth amongst users, Meerkat must continue to scrap and innovate to grow.  Does this smell of Twitter being anticompetitive? add your thoughts to the comments section.  Will this result in Periscope complacency or afford them to focus on higher level Engagement Use Cases?  Either way, it’s still the first quarter of a showdown that will be both entertaining and live streaming.