Kiki Schirr, {grow} Contributing Columnist
There’s a lot going on in the video streaming world right now. It can seem difficult to keep up. This post will bring you up to speed on what’s been happening with the latest and hottest video streaming technology.
The Death of Meerkat… is Periscope next?
Meerkat is dead. (Long live HouseParty?)
In recent months Meerkat (which was widely touted as 2015’s hottest app), Blab, Shomi, and various other video streaming platforms have folded. As a result, people are beginning to question Periscope’s viability.
Geoff Golberg, Periscope star, questions the video streaming platform’s viability
In Jeff Needles’s bleakly-titled Medium article, “Livestreaming is destined to fail,” the former Meerkat team member outlines 7 reasons that people live stream. And then proceeds to debunk each as a temporary phenomenon.
The Rise of HouseParty and Shots Studio
From the ashes of Meerkat rose HouseParty. HouseParty is a casual video conferencing tool that supports up to eight simultaneous live streams. Ben Rubin, the CEO of both companies, told Fortune Magazine that “Live video is great as a feature on top of an existing social network, not as its own medium.”
Rubin is not alone in this thought. Shots Studio started as a Vine-like video platform backed by Justin Bieber. However, it recently pivoted to be a creation tool that can post to other social networks.
YouTube faces criticism for changing their policies
Speaking of video stars, in late August YouTube clarified its Advertiser-friendly Content Guidelines. The guidelines, YouTube insists, had always been in place. They were simply less clearly stated.
However, the newly-clarified guidelines could prohibit a lot of standard YouTube fair from earning revenue. Video creators are noticeably upset. It’s only been six weeks since the policies were clarified, so word is still out on how carefully the rules will be enforced.
Yet this event can be a lesson in video streaming: ultimately all creators are subject to the whims of their platform.
What’s up with Facebook Live?
Opinions of Facebook Live vary greatly. Some marketers have embraced the technology, but general use seems unusually slow to pick up for a Facebook feature.
Facebook Live recently started making news when activists and protesters began to use it to livestream. However, this use case might be limited because Facebook has turned off individuals’s live streams at police request.
Other networks to know
YouNow is popular with a younger crowd. It functions like Periscope in that one person’s live feed can be viewed by a large audience.
Koowalla is similar to Shots Studio, in that it creates content which can then be shared on other platforms. Sharing within the app is encouraged as well, but without Justin Bieber to promote the community, this LA-based startup has an uphill battle.
Musical.ly is an app for creating goofy lip-syncing music videos. If you haven’t already, download it today and have fun with your family and friends.
Bebo is the brainchild of Monkey Inferno, the same shop that put out Blab. Clearly, Monkey Inferno learned a lot from its Blab run. Many of the features will seem familiar to former users.
The future of video streaming
In last week’s article, Four marketing mega trends nobody’s talking about, Mark predicted more content would move to private networks. Live streaming could be the prime example of this trend.
While users lament that Vine is “for stars,” and that YouTube is hard to break into, private sharing of live video seems to be on the rise.
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Illustration courtesy Flickr CC and Cindy Funk.