Jun 8, 2015

Keeping PeriKat On The Up and Up


In the age of selfies and “citizen journalists,” it seems only natural that live streaming would become a trend. Over the years a number of companies have tried to make personal broadcast streaming a reality, but two newcomers appear to have succeeded: Meerkat and Periscope, the former a startup backed by the likes of actor Jared Leto, the latter a startup purchased by Twitter only a few months ago.

They both burst onto the stage in April during the Floyd Mayweather/Manny Pacquiao fight (known on the interwebs as #MayPac). The reason? Dozens of people were live streaming the $100 pay-per-view broadcast of the fight. Unsurprisingly, HBO and other rights holders were a bit unhappy about these unauthorized broadcasts, and even more unhappy about what they felt was Twitter’s lack of a serious response to their takedown requests.

Many in the industry rolled their eyes at HBO, noting that the shaky, hand-held streams were hardly a replacement for an HD broadcast and that the network was getting all bent out of shape over nothing.

So were HBO and other rights holders justified in coming down hard on Periscope and Meerkat? Or was it, yet again, much ado about nothing? Change is inevitable, right?

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