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.     

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.