Periscope vs Meerkat: Which Is the Best Live-Streaming App

Imagine if you only had one shot for a photo or video before it was uploaded to social media. Just snap, then it's automatically uploaded. Unless you're crazy photogenic, that would be a fucking nightmare. Thankfully, that's not the case. Messed up the lighting in this selfie? All right, re-take it five more times, pop in a filter—boom and done. That instant, easy editing process and the ability to re-shoot until your smartphone memory runs out are important to how we've tailored our identities in our social media profiles. But what if we handed over that editing control and showed ourselves in the raw? That, for better or worse, is live-streaming.

Live-streaming isn’t anything new to the Internet: cam-girls make thousands off of streaming, Chatroulette shows us that we're willing to talk to strangers (to a point) in video chat rooms, and Twitch proves that people will stream or watch a stream as long as they have a similar interest, like gaming. But live-streaming outside of Skype and Facetime has been largely untouched when it comes to social networking apps. Instead we have a bunch of video apps that distinguish themselves with audio dubbing features or videos that last just as long as the time it took you to finish reading this sentence. Most live-streaming apps haven't been able to go mainstream (there was Qik for a short time, but it was bought out by Skype) and no mainstream app has really embraced live-streaming outside of a conversation meant for more than two people. But the success of Twitch has shown that the demand is there, and it likely provided a catalyst for live-streaming to break in on smartphones when Meerkat dropped in February. Meerkat quickly became popular, was used by a bunch of celebrities like Jimmy Fallon, and the app showed that live-streaming might have found a spot in mainstream social networking. Then Twitter came and ruined the party.

Within two weeks of Meerkat’s debut, Twitter took away Meerkat's ability to automatically follow people on their Twitter profiles (Meerkat uses Twitter accounts for practically everything). Then Twitter bought the live-streaming app Periscope, and relaunched it under its own brand—with full Twitter integration and a reservoir of millions of potential users ready to crossover, like they did with Vine. The launch happened on the same day that Meerkat announced that the company received $14 million in funding. And just like that—we're off to the races. So, I tried out live-streaming with the two new apps to find out if they were just fads, or if there was some lasting appeal outside of it just being something new in the App Store (Meerkat and Periscope are both only available on iOS as of now). ​Here's what I found.

Periscope has a “love” feature where you can check out how many people are watching the stream, and can see when someone "likes" a stream by the animated hearts that appear in the lower right hand corner of the video. I thought this was cool at first, but if you’re on a video that a ton of people are watching, there will be a steady stream of hearts that clog the screen.

On Meerkat, though, likes are counted in the corner, which is less distracting, and still gets the point across. But Meerkat's screen does fill up rather quickly with pictures of the other users who are in the stream (pointless) and other information. Also favoriting, replying to, or re-tweeting a stream on Meerkat will likewise be reflected on your Twitter feed as well. A comment will turn into a tweet unless you turn it off, and a favorite will be listed under your Twitter favorites. In contrast, Periscope​ keeps everything inside the app.

Advantage: Periscope

I wouldn't call this a fad. Things are only going to grow as more users establish themselves, and I could totally see people starting their own live shows. But there’s the question of what happens when people start streaming sex, drugs, or harassment. How will that be handled? Vine allowed x-rated content in its early days, and banned it about a year after it launched. Will things like that attract users, or drive them away? People are already streaming movies like Fast & Furious 7 while they're sitting in the theater, but companies have been surprisingly cool about it so far.

If you're thinking about jumping in to live-streaming, while both apps are solid, I'd have to toss my recommendation to Periscope. It's less cluttered, and, well, I'm already using Twitter—and since Twitter is its parent, it's likely to stay around for awhile. I wouldn't be surprised if Meerkat sells to Facebook or Microsoft sometime in the next year or two. Whatever you choose, watch out for your data plan—this shit will gobble it up in no time—and be on your best behavior, because you'll never know when you'll be on camera, live.

Winner: Periscope