Periscope
Periscope (██)
Periscope is a mobile app for live-streaming video from your phone. It was acquired by Twitter in 2015 and you can automatically share a link to your live-stream on your Twitter feed (in addition to sharing with other Periscope users). Replays of live-streams stay up for 24 hours.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Privacy settings allow for more control | Data costs and battery drain (and if you turn off push-notifications, you’ll never know when someone’s broadcasting |
| Integrated with Twitter | Very similar to Facebook Live |
| Users can choose to keep video available for viewing indefinitely or up to 24 hours after broadcast |
Audience
Periscope is relatively new, so data is limited. One million users signed on within the first ten days of Periscope’s launch, in April
2015, with about 10 million active users by the end of the year.
Metrics
Periscope recently added a Analytics Dashboard, which includes features such as how many viewers are live/watch the video on replay, the total duration they spend watching, the average time each user spends watching, and how many hearts a video gets.
Privacy
Before you can broadcast anything using Periscope, the application insists you give it access to your camera, microphone, and location. However, before going live, you can disable "precise location sharing", which, at one point, was considered Periscope's "creepiest" feature. However, disabling "precise location" still means that your general location will be public. Even if users disable location services, Periscope "may infer your location based on information from your device" according to their Privacy Policy. This should technically not be possible on iOS.
On the top left, users can also choose to limit the audience of their broadcast, which, by default is "Public", i.e. everyone. Periscope's Privacy Policy adds that this default option "includes the metadata provided with your broadcast, such as when and where you broadcast." Further, any reactions (comments or likes) users have on other broadcasts are also public.
Security
Periscope allows you to connect one or more of your social accounts, including Twitter, Facebook and Google. Consequently, as long as you have two-factor authentication enabled on whichever social account you use to log into Periscope, you have nothing to worry about.
However, if your primary mode of connecting to Periscope is via your phone number, two-factor authentication is not available. Hence, this is not recommended.
Case studies
Newsroom
Local Florida TV WPEC CBS12 station used Periscope to live-feed their coverage of Hurricane Matthew, with correspondents reporting live from many of the areas that were devastated by the storm. The live stream had up to 718,000 viewers.
Classroom
Here is an example of a live-streaming video assignment (ideas include: give a virtual tour, experiment with TV reporter forms)
Additional resources
Tutorial\/help: How to use Periscope (skip the intro and start around 2:00)