Twitter meets real-time  video  as two streaming apps  compete in the iOS space. Android  users won't  have to wait too long
March 30 2015: When Twitter  first burst on the social media scene in mid 2006, it  was what its name suggested:  "a short  burst of inconsequential information" limited to 140 characters. Critics  lampooned Twitter:  "1 pm: My cat sneezed.  1.02 pm: My cat sneezed again.  1.04: Cat hasn't sneezed recently. Getting worried."  They wondered who would be interested in  hearing other people's trivia.  They  were so wrong.
Today,  Twitter had 500  million registered  users who send 350  million tweets every day. Celebrity tweets   have lakhs of followers. Last week Prime Minister  Narendra Modi and Twitter CEO  Dick Costolo, came together to inaugurate Twitter Samvad, the world's first e-governance and citizen service initiative.(IndiaTechOnline story here)
Even while Costolo was  leaving Delhi, his company  back in San Francisco  had  launched a new Twitter service:  An app called Periscope, which  let users    go   live with a single touch,  with whatever the video camera of their  phone or tablet was  recording, with notifications to all their 'followers' or to a subset.  For the followers it's not a passive experience:  they can influence the broadcaster by sending messages  or just tapping the screen which sends heart-shaped  icons  of approval.  The creators of Periscope   imagine it as a  'visual pulse of what's happening'. Twitter felt the same way -- and  acquired Periscope   only weeks ago for a rumoured $ 100 million, before rolling it out as a free iOS app last week.  Android versions can be expected soon.
Periscope comes hard on the heels of an iPhone and iPad  app  called Meerkat, launched last month,  which does pretty much the same thing.   Periscope has one function missing in Meerkat  --  the ability to store and  replay the videos later. Both work only with Twitter -- and  are all set to  change the contours of social communication in a big way.   They are revolutionary in their minor detail too:  The  video is vertical  or in 'portrait' mode only -- so that people can shoot and send with one hand.  Gone are the days when video  or movie meant a 'landscape' format.
Twitter lets you say what was happening to you or around you in 140 characters of text.  Meerkat and Periscope  let you show it in live, moving images -- the delay is less than 10 seconds,  rivalling  what the best of TV and Internet broadcast stations can do.
Critics are calling it  'consensual voyeurism';  but live mobile video streaming from your own phone  -- for better or worse -- is all set to be the biggest  noise in social media in 2015.  Shoot and share!   Anand Parthasarathy

For a few days we feature the Twitter Periscope Video in our TechVideo spot on the home page