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You can now livestream directly from Twitter's mobile apps
The line between Twitter and its livestreaming service, Periscope, is beginning to fade. Starting today, anyone can broadcast by hitting the compose tweet button inside Twitter's iOS and Android apps, followed by the "Live" button. Instead of being bounced to the Periscope app, however, you'll now start start a livestream immediately. The functionality is still "powered by Periscope," and indeed the experience is mostly the same as before -- you write a quick caption before you go live, and then registered users can leave hearts and comments while you stream. Is this a direct reaction to Facebook Live's growing popularity? Almost certainly.
Watch Twitter's CEO interview Edward Snowden at 12PM ET
The world's most famous whistleblower, Edward Snowden, will be interviewed by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in less than an hour. Those of you who are interested in watching can do so live via the Pardon Snowden Twitter account, and you can also participate by submitting your own questions using the hashtag #AskSnowden. There are no details on what the conversation will be about, but chances are we'll hear something related to Russia "hacking" the US Presidential election and other things of that nature. Tune in at 12:05PM ET.
Periscope debuts Clinton and Trump masks ahead of Election Day
I, for one, wouldn't want to be in either candidate's shoes right now but Periscope has a different idea. For the next week, the livestreaming app will allow users to don Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump masks when they broadcast in selfie mode.
Twitter is killing Vine
Bad news for fans of the once-popular Vine video-sharing network. Its parent company Twitter announced today that it is killing the service's mobile app, meaning you can no longer create new clips. The website will still exist to showcase already-posted footage, although it's not clear whether you might be able to record new material in future.
Streaming to Periscope is no longer confined to phones
Twitter's livestreaming service is moving beyond the phone. Today, Periscope CEO, Kayvon Beykpour, announced that Periscope will stream videos from, well, anything. The new "Producer" feature is aimed at content creators who might not want to be limited to just streaming from their phone.
Periscope's website now organizes live videos into good old channels
Yup, Periscope is still a thing: Twitter's live video streaming service just announced some new discovery features to make its web portal to the world more useful. Taking a page out of the aging but still successful broadcast TV playbook, Periscope is offering up sets of "curated channels." Some are hashtag-driven, like #Music, #Food, #Art and #Travel -- those will be updated whenever some goes live on Periscope.
Periscope's VIP program rewards popular livestreaming users
If you're popular on Periscope, the livestreaming app will soon reward you as part of its new VIP program. The three-tier initiative is designed to incentivize creators who have invested time in using Twitter's live video option with tools that will help them make their audiences even bigger. In other words, it gives livestreamers a reason to use the platform more and make an effort to pad that follower total. Gold, Silver and Bronze levels require follower counts of 10,000, 30,000 and 100,000, respectively. There are also benchmarks for average viewer tallies and you'll need to be broadcasting at least twice a week.
Thieves find a more insidious way to steal credit card details
The secret service has issued a warning to banks and ATM companies about a new way that thieves can steal your credit card information. A report from Krebs on Security explains that "periscope" skimmers have been found inside teller machines in Connecticut and Pennsylvania in the last two months. Of course, since the devices attach to the internal mechanism, there's absolutely no way for an end user to tell if they're at risk.
Periscope gets iMessage hearts, improved iPad support on iOS 10
Periscope's been tweaking its service to better take on main rival Facebook Live, and with the release of iOS 10 today, the Twitter-owned app gets a big upgrade. The new version of the livestreaming app will come with native iPad support, improved global and home feeds, as well as hearts stickers that you can use in the iPhone's messaging app.
Periscope makes it harder to creep on your friends' broadcasts
Periscope has rolled out a tiny update that alerts streamers when people they follow join their broadcast, taking all the fun out of secretly creeping on your friends' digital lives. When streaming, the names and icons of people you follow will pop up on the left side of the video as soon as they start watching.
Twitter's Olympics coverage includes live Moments and Periscope
Much like Google, Twitter is going all-out to make itself a one-stop shop for summer Olympics coverage... and this year, there's a distinct focus on live action. The social network has revealed that there will be an Olympics-specific Moments section (shown below) that will help you keep track of your home country or individual sports as they happen, one tweet at a time. There will also be an Olympics-oriented Periscope channel -- no, you probably won't see someone broadcasting an event from their phone, but you may just get a feel for Rio de Janeiro from someone who's there.
Periscope videos can now be embedded with a tweet
One key thing was missing from Periscope's live video option: the ability to embed the video streams and archived footage in other places rather than sharing a link. Twitter's livestreaming option is doing something about that today as Periscope videos can now be posted in a tweet. This means that so long as you're willing to embed the tweet than contains the live video, you'll be able to post them wherever you like. The app also got a Highlights feature, but it's different from what Facebook's live videos offer.
BuzzFeed and Washington Post turn to robots for RNC coverage
Both the Washington Post and Buzzfeed have sent robots to cover the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Call it forward thinking, call it a gimmick, inventive, desperate... doesn't matter. But it's happening, and both outlets couldn't be prouder of their efforts to modify their news gathering process and bring additional interactivity to their reporting.
Twitter confirms it's launching an AR division with new hire
Following its acquisition of Magic Pony earlier this month, Twitter confirmed to me on Tuesday that it had hired Alessandro Sabatelli as its new Director of VR and AR. He will head up the Augmented Reality team within Twitter Cortex, the company's upstart machine-learning division.
House sit-in shows the power and potential of livestreaming
Forget the final few minutes of the NBA Finals. Forget BuzzFeed tying rubberbands around a watermelon until it exploded. Forget a woman trying on a Chewbacca mask in a car. Sure, these are all moments that have been livestreamed, sometimes to millions of viewers. But it's events like the sit-in by House Democrats that have truly shown the power and potential of live internet video.
Democrats use Twitter to amplify House sit-in over gun control
Democrats are currently staging a sit-in at the House of Representatives to demand a vote on gun control legislation, and Republicans aren't happy about it -- they're declaring recesses to shut off cameras (which are controlled by the House) and downplay the protest. The Dems aren't letting that get in the way, though. They've gone into overdrive using Twitter, Periscope and Facebook Live to advertise the sit-in and draw attention to their cause. Even C-SPAN has turned to displaying tweets and live streams in the absence of TV broadcasts from the House floor.
Tumblr to launch live video with an hour of wacky streams
It seems Tumblr is planning to jump on the live video bandwagon to join Facebook, Twitter and Amazon. The blog platform has posted eight updates on a subdomain that features a logo with the words "Live Video on Tumblr," accompanied by a caption that says, "Launches Tuesday, June 21."
Twitter brings its go-live Periscope button to everyone
Want to livestream for your Twitter audience? You don't have to switch apps to get started. As promised, Twitter's Periscope button is now available to everyone using its Android and iOS apps. When you're starting a new tweet, you can tap a "live" button in the media picker to hop over to Periscope (it'll offer a download if you don't already have the app) and start broadcasting. This is more about exposing newcomers to Periscope than catering to veterans, but it's still handy if you thrive on Twitter and want a quicker path to live video.
Periscope is using viewer juries to fight trolls
With most social internet services, getting rid of trolls is usually a matter of reporting a post or blocking the offender. But how do you do that in a fast-moving livestream service like Periscope? By asking viewers for help, that's how. Periscope has introduced a moderation system that creates "flash juries" whenever a comment is up for dispute. If someone flags a message as abuse or spam, a few random viewers are asked to vote on whether or not it's a problem. If the majority believes it is, the offender faces a minute-long ban on comments; a repeat offense mutes the person for the rest of the broadcast.
Periscope broadcasts are now permanently saved by default
Earlier this month, Twitter's live-streaming app Periscope began testing saving broadcasts for more than 24 hours. During that beta phase, you had to include #save to trigger the feature. Permanent saves are now available for everyone by default, and you won't need to use that hashtag to make it work. Likes and comments are saved along with the video footage, so you'll be able to gauge reactions afterwards as well.
