With each passing year we become intrinsically more involved with more and more lives across the globe. What was once a passé (taking pictures of your lunch) is now an art form, celebrated and shared by millions of people on social media.
The latest foray into the social world is Periscope, an app designed to allow for bite-sized streaming sessions, and controlled environments in which to peer into people’s daily activities. Whether this is a fad or not is irrelevant, as mankind has spoken and their voice is loud and clear—digital interaction is here to stay.
Since Periscope comes compliments of the folks over at Twitter, you’ll have to link your account before you even gain access to browse the app—so get on that if you haven’t already. Once you’re in, you’re greeted with a soothing interface that’s extremely easy to use by way of tabs, and you’ll be viewing your first stream in no time. What is there to actually watch? At first glance I mostly found gaming streams that are typically on Twitch, and…sandwich eating.
That’s because the interface really needs a lot of work in terms of sorting, as the most interesting streams are often buried beneath the rubble of the app. Once you start digging though things get a little more exciting. You can watch breaking news as it happens. You can view someone’s birthday party or even be a witness to a natural disaster. It’s all part of the human experience and it’s rather fascinating to see it unfold before your very eyes with a free, easy to use app.
Broadcasting yourself is extremely easy, as you just tap the camera icon at the bottom and you’re basically done. Streams can be kept unlisted or public if you so choose, and after all is said and done you can save it to an archive. That’s basically it. The amount of entertainment you get from Periscope is quite literally directly correlated to the amount of effort you put in, both from a broadcasting perspective and the amount of effort you put into digging through streams.
With the right tools Periscope may end up being the definitive way to stream on mobile devices, much like Twitter is the shorthand communication king. While I’m generally not a big streaming fan, this app makes it easy to see the appeal.
Periscope is an iOS app that can be downloaded for free in the iTunes App Store.