Twitter acquires live-video streaming startup Periscope

Twitter has just revealed details regarding its acquisition of live-video streaming app Periscope, which it closed a month ago. In fact Periscope was still in the process of privately beta testing its app when it started negotiating with Twitter. As it happened, one of the beta testers was a Twitter exec who knew one of Periscope’s co-founders.

In the recent past, you would have noticed that Twitter was rapidly releasing updates to its Android app, to bring it in line with its iOS counterpart. Among its new features, Twitter for Android has gained the ability to edit and share video. With the inclusion of Vine, all the microblogging service was missing is live streaming.

Periscope is still probably a work in progress, but whatever it brings to the table, the acquisition is not unlike Twitter’s buyout of Vine back in 2012, which was also in a closed Beta at the time. Given Periscope’s focus of streaming live video like other startups, Meerkat or YouNow, it stands to reason that we will see a close relationship to Twitter’s features as the application nears completion.

The live streaming features of Periscope should fit in very well with Twitter's usual style of wide-open rapid communication.


source - Wall Street Journal