Whatever is happening right now is a lot more interesting that what happened yesterday. Jokes are funnier when they are told to you in person and stories are more interesting if you hear them first hand. Any performance viewed in real time has a strange vividness and urgency that cannot be gotten from something that has already happened — even if it has happened a couple of minutes ago.
The CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo, has helped his company achieve its potential as an up-to-the-minute news source. But, a small start-up called Meerkat has given the portal a brilliant way to share in real time.
Meerkat is a live streaming video app that uses Twitter’s identity, distribution, and communication system.
You can start a broadcast of yourself at any time on this app. This triggers a tweet of the link of your stream and a notification to those of your followers who have this app. People can tune in through the web or the app and send comments as Twitter @ replies. Once you are done, the video disappears unless you save it to your phone.
That’s all there is to the app. People are loving it. This app has become a favourite of Product Hunt that is signing up a large number of the tech elite and receiving praise from users.
There have been plenty of apps that have failed. So, Meerkat just about works. A large part of this is due to the fact that it was built on Twitter. It copies your Twitter graph. So, anyone you follow or anyone who follows you is automatically connected to you on Meerkat. In the app, you will be able to see any of your connections currently on air. It really does not have its own feed and the app’s streams go viral on Twitter.
