Twitter, a company that already owns one live-streaming video product, Periscope, has released a second. The company has added the ability for people to broadcast live streams within its own app. This announcesment was made on Wednesday. This followed Facebook-owed Instagram adding live-streaming, which was announced on Mondy for US users.
We’re making it easier for you to share what’s happening in your world. Now you can #GoLive on Twitter!https://t.co/frWuHaPTFJ pic.twitter.com/Xpfpk1zWJV
— Twitter (@twitter) December 14, 2016
But the difference between Facebook-Instagram and Twitter-Periscope is that the Facebook-Instagram streaming features are actually different. Broadcasts on Facebook are able to be archived so people can see the streams after they are no longer live. Instagram’s live streams disappear after the broadcast ends. But with Twitter Live and Perisccope, they are basically the same product, but in separate apps.
The difference between Twitter Live and Periscope is that more people have access to Twitter Live. Periscope, as of August 2015, claimed to have 10 million registered accounts, which isn’t the same as active users. During the third quarter of 2016, Twitter had 317 million monthly active users.
But the idea that Twitter would ad live-streaming to their main app is obvious. Because Facebook has usurped the users that Periscope had, Twitter’s live streaming app seems a little more murky now.
Twitter’s move earlier this year to stream live programming like NFL games and Bloomberg news broadcasts within Twitter instead of Periscope had already raised questions about Periscope’s future. But there seemed to be an answer to those questions: Twitter is for TV-style broadcasts, and Periscope is for normal-people live streams. That answer has now been taken off the table.
Twitter, back in January of 2016, allowed viewers to not necessarily have to use Periscope to watch a live stream. Because of this, Periscope isn’t required to produce one.