Point, shoot, upload

techaway

The world is becoming smaller, but distances are growing larger. More often than not, so many of us live away from family and friends, and miss either seeing or sharing important events with them. Of course, there are also those of us who just want to let everyone know exactly what we are up to at any given point of the day. If you fall under either of these categories, then these live video-streaming apps are for you.

Persicope

Periscope is Twitter’s live-streaming app. Simply select the broadcast option, point and start shooting. Your followers will receive a notification so they can watch you (or whatever it is you have the phone’s camera pointed at) live. Followers (or you, in case you’re the one watching a broadcast) can then send you hearts if they like the broadcast or comment on it as well. After you’re done with the broadcast, you can also choose to make it available to your followers for the next 24 hours. Or delete it when required. If your broadcast gets a good number of hearts, you get to be placed in the “Most Loved” list.

Meerkat

Meerkat is essentially Periscope’s predecessor in the live-streaming game. With this app, you can either live-stream immediately or schedule a live-stream (more thrilling – it gives your Twitter followers a countdown too!). Followers can favourite or retweet the broadcast; however, unfortunately, unlike Periscope, once the broadcast is over, the video is lost. Of course, if you are shooting something particularly enthralling, you may want to save it to your device by another means. While viewing a broadcast works best in-app, as the app description says, “Everything that happens on Meerkat happens on Twitter”. You can also go to the app’s “Live Now” section and check out featured live-streams.

Skeegle

While Twitter currently has monopoly over the world of live video-streaming, can Facebook be far behind? Skeegle, a new live-streaming app, unlike its rivals, offers integration with Facebook. Which means, rather than airing your laundry (dirty or otherwise) for all to see, you can actually choose a select number of friends (or all, in case you only have, like, 20) who then get to view what you shoot in real-time. Unfortunately, so far, Skeegle has not yet arrived in India, but we wait with bated breath.