Meerkat has launched its latest initiative aimed at taking on Periscope.
The live streaming video app has essentially turned itself into a platform, releasing APIs that enable third party developers to make tools for the service.
These developers have actually been building new features around Meerkat since the app was launched, but only on an unofficial basis. Now Meerkat has officially endorsed such efforts.
Take that, Periscope. Indeed, Meerkat is taking the angle that it’s learned from its experiences with Twitter to come to this decision.
Meerkat was originally built around Twitter’s social graph, which served to notify followers when a new live streaming video was taking place. Then, Twitter rather ruthlessly cut this facility off with just two hours warning.
The reason behind this was Twitter’s purchase of its own rival live streaming service, Periscope.
Meerkat founder Ben Rubin recently alluded to Twitter’s behaviour as a motivating factor for producing his app’s new developer tools. “Big platforms should take leadership, coming from courage and not fear,” he told TechCrunch.
“Nobody knows what a good livestream is and what this medium is going to be. It’s important to give people a chance to show their creativity.”
Read More: What is Meerkat?
Rubin’s intention is to make these developer APIs a permanent addition to the Meerkat package – so it’s not about to whip them away when things get competitive.
With Meerkat also recently adding Facebook support and address book integration, it marks an impressive comeback against the much slicker, better funded and fully featured Periscope.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.