Today I've had the pleasure of walking along the streets in Paris, watching an Italian chef prepare pizzas in Milan, and listen to live music in Austin, Texas. I got to join a guy and his friend walking their dogs around DC and listen to Brad Paisley's bandmates rehearse music. All without leaving my home.
I can't believe it took me a few months to learn about Periscope, a live video app owned by Twitter. Periscope, a new app on the scene since March 2015, wanted to build the "closest thing to teleportation."
This app is seriously so cool.
What makes this more of a conversational app is the ability to comment. Viewers can type in questions or comments and they pop up on the bottom of the screen. When I was watching a video in France, I wrote, "Hello from Phoenix!" And the broadcaster responded, "Hello, Phoenix!" So fun.
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When I first heard about this app, I thought it sounded similar to Snapchat. (I love the different cities featured on Snapchat Live! Who's with me on that?!) The difference with Periscope is the live aspect - the ability to show what you're currently doing/recording at that very moment and to interact with viewers.
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This afternoon, I tried it out for myself on my lunch break. I walked around campus and answered questions from the people commenting. It was so cool to see people from around the world watching and joining in on the conversation.
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Safety: There is an option to turn the location of your video on, which I find really cool! One of the first updates with the app was to change the location from the exact point to a larger geographical area - so no need to worry about viewers finding your home address. I also haven't seen any "inappropriate" broadcasts, but there is a way to report it and block users if that were to happen.
Updates: I also learned of a new update as of today, which allows people to sign up for an account using their phone number instead of with Twitter. If you don't have a Twitter and don't want to get one, now you don't have to in order to use Periscope.
What do you think about this app? Comment with your username below (mine is @allyarcher, same as my Twitter) and I'll follow you!
Screenshots are from my experience using the Periscope app; all imagery credit goes to Periscope.