Periscope (app)

Periscope
Original author(s) Kayvon Beykpour
Joe Bernstein
Aaron Wasserman
Tyler Hansen
Geraint Davies[1]
Developer(s) Twitter
Initial release March 26, 2015 (2015-03-26)
Development status Active
Written in Go (server-side)[2]
Operating system iOS, tvOS, Android
Available in Multilingual[3]
Type Video streaming
Social networking service
Website www.periscope.tv

Periscope is a live video streaming app for iOS and Android developed by Kayvon Beykpour and Joe Bernstein and acquired by Twitter before launch in 2015.

History

Beykpour and Bernstein came up with the idea for Periscope while traveling abroad in 2013. Beykpour was in Istanbul when protests broke out in Taksim Square. He wanted to see what was happening there, so he turned to Twitter. While he could read about the protests, he could not see them.[4]

They started the company in February 2014, under the name Bounty.[5] They raised $1.5 million from Founder Collective, Scott Belsky, Maveron, Google Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Bessemer, Stanford – StartX and Sam Shank in April 2014.[6]

Periscope was acquired January 2015 by Twitter before the product had been publicly launched. One investor source says the acquisition amount was "sizeable", above $50 million. Another says it fell between $75 and $100 million. A third says the deal was "small-ish".[7]

The acquisition was officially announced in a tweet from Periscope and retweeted by Twitter CEO Dick Costolo on March 13 after the rival video streaming app Meerkat was a breakout hit at South by Southwest 2015 (March 13–17).[8][9][10] Meerkat became the talk of SXSW partially due to Twitter cutting Meerkat off from its social graph just as the festival was starting.[11]

Periscope was launched on March 26, 2015.[12][13] Later, on May 26, 2015, Periscope was released for Android.[14]

On August 12, 2015, Periscope announced that it had surpassed 10 million accounts, four months after it was launched. At the same time, the company noted that the amount of video being watched had reached a level of "40 years per day".[15] On December 9, 2015, Apple named Periscope as the iPhone App of the Year.[16] On January 26, 2016, the company released an update that allows users to stream live from GoPro.[17]

In April 2016, as part of a wider partnership with Twitter to stream selected Thursday Night Football games, the NFL announced that Periscope would feature ancillary behind the scenes content from these games.[18]

In June 2016, Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives staged a sit-in on the House floor to protest the lack of a vote on a gun control bill. The Speaker pro tem, Rep. Ted Poe, declared the House was in recess and subsequently the House video feed to C-SPAN was shut off. However, after a brief interruption, C-SPAN was able to broadcast the sit-in because Rep. Scott Peters streamed the activity and the speakers using his Periscope account.[19][20]

Service

Periscope users have the option to tweet out a link to their Live Stream.[21] They can also choose whether or not to make their video public or viewable to only certain users.[22] Scopes can be LBB (Limited by Broadcaster) which disallows comments.

Periscope allows viewers to send "hearts" to the broadcaster by tapping on the mobile screen as a form of appreciation. The maximum number of users that can be followed is 8,000.[23]

Both the scoper and viewers of the scope are able to block viewers. When blocked by the scoper, users are added to a blocked list, and booted from the scope. If enough scopers block a user, they are blocked from the scope. If they receive more than 4 blocks from 4 different scopes then the user gets shadowbanned.

On September 8, 2015, Techcrunch reported and later confirmed that Periscope was building an AppleTV app.[24] On September 10, 2015, Periscope added the ability to broadcast live in landscape view.[25]

As actress Alyssa Milano autographs copies of her graphic novel during an appearance at Midtown Comics in Manhattan, her assistant, Kelly Kall (left foreground) streams video of the event on Periscope.

The app can be misappropriated for copyright infringement, an issue that came to the forefront around the time of the app's launch when several users of the service used it to air the fifth season premiere of HBO's Game of Thrones live; that network made the claim that the service needed better tools and policies to deal with copyrighted content.[26]

These issues were magnified further by a professional boxing event on May 2, 2015, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao, which was televised via a pay per view that cost approximately US$90, but saw wide unauthorized distribution through streams of various quality on Periscope.[27][28][29] Periscope's terms of service specifies that rebroadcasting copyrighted content violates the service's TOS, and can result in suspension or banning the offending account.[30]

Other complaints have come from firms acting on behalf of the NFL, the Premier League, the U.S. Open Tennis Championship and Taylor Swift, according to data from Chilling Effects, which tracks online takedown notices and was started by attorney Wendy Seltzer, several law school clinics and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The Ultimate Fighting Championship, which has kept a close eye on people it believes are illegally streaming its pay-per-view mixed martial arts matches, has sent more than 650 takedown notices to Periscope, according to data from Chilling Effects.[31]

Events

Periscope Summits

A New York summit was held September 22–25, 2015.[32] The New York summit had popular scopers Jon Erlichman, Tasmin Lucia-Khan, Alex Pettitt, Alex Khan, Alix Witvoet, Amanda Oleander, Bree Olson, and Brian Fanzo were keynote speakers.[33] Another event was held in San Francisco called Summit Live in January 2016 and had popular national and international broadcasters like Jon Erlichman, Vinnie Potestivo, Caroline Lesley (Co-Creators of Parachute TV), Grace Smith, Jason Stolken, MrASingh, and many other speakers.

Scope Day

On November 7, 2015, 56 broadcasters in 37 cities on 6 continents showcased destinations in their respective cities/countries over the course of 16 hours. All broadcasts were saved to a custom page at: katch.me/pages/scopeday.[34] The creator of Scope Day is Mike Lin who created the event. Issac Duckett, the CEO of SCL Brands / Slickchix acquired the rights to Scope Day in December 2015 with plans to create Scope Day Live Expos in major cities.

Coopie Awards

The 1st annual Periscope Awards were held on Sat, April 2, 2016 and were presented by Slick Chix Lifestyle and iCom solutions group.

Resources

As of July 5,[35] Periscope released an update where users can choose whether to save their broadcasts or delete them after 24 hours. (Although scopes disappear from www.periscope.tv/username after 24 hours, users were able capture their scopes, and other live streaming apps, using Katch.me. It stopped collecting videos on April 22, 2016 and shut down on May 4, 2016.[36]) A television channel based around Periscope is PeriscopeTV.[23]

References

  1. "Periscope: Anglesey man behind video streaming app". BBC News. Retrieved 4 February 2016.
  2. "API Engineering - Periscope at Periscope". Angel.co. 2015. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  3. "Periscope in Other Languages". Periscope Help Center. 10 January 2016. Retrieved 6 May 2016.
  4. Shontell, Alyson (26 March 2015). "What it's like to sell your startup for ~$120 million before it's even been launched: Meet Twitter's new prized possession, Periscope". Business Insider. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
  5. "Product Hunt Live". 27 August 2015. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  6. "Periscope". angel.co.
  7. Shontell, Alyson (9 March 2015). "Twitter quietly bought a video startup that hasn't been launched yet, Periscope". Business Inseder. Retrieved 9 March 2015.
  8. Koh, Yoree; Rusli, Evelyn M. (9 March 2015). "Twitter Acquires Live-Video Streaming Startup Periscope". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
  9. Hachman, Mark (13 March 2015). "Twitter buys Periscope as its livestreaming response to Meerkat". PCWorld. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
  10. "Periscope on Twitter". Twitter.
  11. Bohn, Dieter (13 March 2015). "Twitter cuts Meerkat off from its social graph just as SXSW gets started". The Verge. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  12. Pierce, David (26 March 2015). "Twitter's Periscope App Lets You Livestream Your World". Wired. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
  13. Weil, Kevin (26 March 2015). "Introducing Periscope". Twitter Blog. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
  14. Baldwin, Roberto (26 May 2015). "Twitter finally launches Periscope for Android". Engadget. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  15. "Periscope, by the Numbers". Medium. Retrieved Aug 12, 2015.
  16. Warren, Christina (December 9, 2015). "Apple names the best iOS apps of 2015". Mashable. Archived from the original on December 10, 2015. Retrieved December 10, 2015.
  17. "GoPro". GoPro. GoPro. 26 January 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  18. Brodkin, Jon (5 April 2016). "Twitter buys NFL streaming rights for 10 Thursday Night Football games". Ars Technica. Conde Nast. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
  19. Kleeman, Sophie (23 June 2016). "C-SPAN Is Using Periscope to Broadcast Because the GOP Killed Its Camera Feed". Gizmodo. Retrieved 23 June 2016.
  20. Fandos, Nicholas; Isaac, Mike (June 23, 2016). "C-Span Delivers on Sit-In, Even With Cameras Off". New York Times. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  21. "Twitter's Launches Periscope, Its Own Live Video Streaming App". Eyerys.
  22. Segall, Laurie. "Meerkat who? Introducing Periscope". CNN. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
  23. 1 2 "PeriscopeTV".
  24. Josh Constine. "Periscope Is Secretly Building An Apple TV App". TechCrunch. AOL.
  25. "Periscope goes wide with new 'Landscape' streaming feature". CNET. CBS Interactive. 10 September 2015.
  26. ""Game of Thrones" hit by piracy from Periscope". CBS News. Retrieved 22 Dec 2015.
  27. "Periscope Piracy Sets Up Grudge Match: Hollywood vs. Twitter". Variety. Retrieved May 3, 2015.
  28. "Periscope proves a new method for pirating Mayweather-Pacquiao". Yahoo! Sports. Retrieved May 3, 2015.
  29. Warren, Christina. "I watched the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight on Periscope and saw the future". Mashable. Retrieved May 3, 2015.
  30. Kastrenakes, Jacob. "HBO says Periscope could be a tool for 'mass copyright infringement'". The Verge. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
  31. "Anti-Piracy Battle Unfolds in Real Time on Periscope". Mercury News. Retrieved 22 Dec 2015.
  32. "Exclusive: Periscope users conference set for SF, NYC as app expands to Android". siliconbeat. Retrieved May 26, 2015.
  33. "Periscope Is A Bigger Opportunity Than Twitter Itself". Seeking Alpha. Retrieved 2015-11-19.
  34. "Scope Day on Katch".
  35. "How do I save my broadcast to my device?".
  36. "Katch".
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