The Twitter loyalists who have gazed in envy at Facebook Live since Twitter Inc. killed its Vine platform in October had their prayers answered on Wednesday.
That’s when the company announced it was integrating Periscope into its mobile app, allowing users to share live smartphone videos through tweets.
In a Dec. 14 statement, Periscope CEO Kayvon Beykpour called the integration an “important step” that would bring the “superpower” of sharing live video to Twitter’s hundreds of millions of users.
“Twitter’s already the place where people go to see what’s happening,” he said. “With this update, anyone can now broadcast what’s happening live.”
Originally developed as a live video streaming app for iOS and Android through 2014, Periscope was acquired by Twitter before its official launch in March 2015.
As with conventional tweets, audiences viewing live video on Twitter can retweet, like, or share any content being broadcast. Similar to competitor Facebook Live, which Facebook Inc. launched in August 2015, five months after Periscope, users can also leave comments and send hearts.
The latest versions of the Twitter app on both iOS and Android now support live video.
At press time, nobody had used it to break online ground in a manner similar to BuzzFeed’s exploding watermelon stunt.