Periscope, the live video streaming app from Twitter, recently celebrated its one year anniversary. As outlined in a brief post on Medium, Periscope has come a long way since its debut.
As of today, more than 200 million broadcasts have been created. If that doesn't impress, perhaps the fact that over 110 years of live video are watched every day will. That's up from 40 years of live video each day back in August.
Periscope owes much of its success to pioneers that blazed the trail before it.
A decade ago, sites like Justin.tv and Ustream introduced and somewhat popularized the concept of lifecasting. Back then, broadcasting live on the go meant you need to haul around a webcam and a laptop computer with a connection to a "speedy" wireless network like Sprint's EVDO network. The concept was still new but some people, like Justine "iJustine" Ezarik, leveraged the platform to develop a devout legion of fans which helped to springboard her career.
Several years later, Twitch (a spin-off of Justin.tv) arrived with a focus on gaming. The idea that other people would want to sit around and watch strangers play video games is still baffling but as we now know, the concept is wildly popular and has directly led to the creation of similar platforms like YouTube Gaming.
These days, Periscope users have it easy as smartphones are now powerful enough - and equipped with decent enough cameras - to serve as their own streaming platforms, bolstered of course by fast 4G LTE wireless networks. Oh, and let's not forget to thank Meerkat for popularizing the modern-day live broadcasting genre before Periscope jumped in.
Image courtesy University Book Store, Seattle, Washington