Have you heard about the new live streaming app called Meerkat? Considering it only launched less than a month ago, the new app has gained huge attention from users all over the world – and I strongly believe it is here to grow.
Meerkat App – What Is It?
Meerkat is a desktop and iOS app that allows you to easily live-stream video from your phone to Twitter, so that your followers can watch, comment, re-stream and share in real time. Instead of creating a video and uploading it to your Twitter followers, they can now watch you LIVE which means you can share live events, breaking news or just about anything. Anyone watching can follow along and comment. It’s very simple to use and currently, only has two options: to begin a stream or schedule one for later.
Beware of the Rules of Meerkat:
“Everything that happens on meerkat happens on Twitter. Streams will be pushed to followers in real time via push notifications. People can only watch it live. No reruns. Watchers can re-stream any stream to their followers in real time. Scheduled streams will be distributed in the community by their subscribers. Your own streams can be kept locally on your phone, but never on the cloud. Everyone can watch on web. Be kind.”
At first, Meerkat depended on Twitter for it’s social graph but later on Twitter crippled the new app by limiting it’s access to automatically sync Twitter followers into Meerkat followers. No problem though – according to Mashable reports, Meerkat says its grown by 30% since Twitter announced its cut-off.
Current Issues with Meerkat
Delays – A friend and I were meerkatting one day. We were using my iPhone and she joined in with hers. We noticed that there was a significant delay, about 10-20 seconds, between recording action and those actions appearing on the screen.
Landscape – Meerkat strictly records in portrait. So that means we can’t rotate our phones. I don’t necessarily think this is a huge issue but maybe others would prefer landscape views. Even if you try to shoot in landscaper it will record a closer-cropped section.
Scheduling – This one bugs me a little, but I’m sure Meerkat is working on it. When you schedule an upcoming stream, and you see others liking it and subscribing to it, it’s a huge bummer to say but you have to create a new stream, at that exact time.
iOS users ONLY! – My friends with Androids are super jealous that this app is available for iPhone/iPad users only. I guess this is another issue that Meerkat should be looking into!
#KayNAna
One of my best friends and fellow social media fanatic like myself, Ana Font, have been using Meerkat for the past couple of weeks and we absolutely love it. We’ve made connections, built relationships and have been utilizing the app to live-stream the both of us talking about Social Media and Digital Marketing. We’ve done about 6 streams to date and we are both so happy we’re active on it. One things for sure, Meerkat has not only helped my offline social skills, but my confidence in my career too.
Although there are critics out there about the new app, it’s safe to say that Ana and I are obsessed! How do you feel about Meerkat? Are you active on it? Do you think its just a fad and will eventually die out? Let’s hear your thoughts!
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