A few months ago, a good friend of mine showed me an app at lunch that I didn’t quite know what to make of. Periscope is sweeping the world, literally, letting you broadcast live and pick up followers for your broadcasts. I could see the immediate potential and applications… but is it all it’s cracked up to be?
I have used it on my iphone (6S) and my ipad (2 Air) with mixed results. The speed of both devices and their processors certainly makes a difference, as does the camera quality. The sound still leaves a lot to be desired, so you do have to take that into account when you broadcast.
There’s a Help manual you can download, and within a few minutes reading, you’re up and running. For those of you who have not yet seen or heard of Periscope, here’s some thoughts on how it works, and some pros and cons I’ve discovered after about 2 weeks of playing with it.
When you download the app, you can use your Twitter account to log on with it. The set-up is pretty quick, just a few steps and questions. If you have multiple Twitter accounts, you can use those as well. Once you have the basic Periscope account established, you are ready to see and share with the world…
There are FOUR icons on the bottom of the home screen that make Periscope work. The first is the small TV. It displays who is live that you are following, along with random Periscope broadcasts that its algorhythm cranks out. If you see numbers to the right of the broadcasts, that’s how many people are watching it. If you see minutes or hours, that’s a broadcast that has ended and how long ago.
The second icon is a Globe, with two options: Map and List. Map lets you expand and see live and expired broadcasts from all over the world. The red dots mean live or just recently ended. The blue dots mean the transmission has ended a while ago.
List shows you live transmissions, selected I guess at random by Periscope. It’s cool for just browsing to see what’s out there with no particular search agenda. For either, once you select a broadcast, you may notice little hearts bubbling up from the lower right hand corner. These are generated when people tap the screen, and you can do so as well when you hear or see something you like in a broadcast.
The third icon is a Camera Lens, with a red dot. This is how you go live and broadcast. You click on it, and then you can type in a short description of what your ‘scope is going to be about.
There are four small icons on the screen above the keyboard that give you additional options. The Pointing Arrow gives precise location to your viewers on the Map display. The Lock enables private broadcasting, nothing global, and lets you select who the potential viewer(s) will be for this broadcast. Mutuals is another option, meaning people you follow who also follow you back.
The Chat icon, when not enabled, allows everyone who is viewing to add comments. When it’s enabled, it only allows people to add comments who are already following you.
Once you have these four options configured, you select Broadcast Now, and you are live! However, to get the camera to show your face, you have to double-click the screen to reverse the image. Very important to remember…
To stop the broadcast, you tap and drag the screen down, and select End Broadcast.
Oh, and one important note: broadcasts do not remain on your profile indefinitely, nor do they remain on your Twitter feed. You have the option though of saving them to your camera roll for future viewing.
Finally, we come to the People icon. This one lets you edit your profile by clicking the Cog icon, upper right corner. It also lets you search for people, see your followers, and also delete followers. This item is important, because yes, the porn world has indeed discovered Periscope. Select the Cog icon on the profile and click “Block Viewer.”
If you encounter annoying viewers posting rude comments during a live broadcast, you can block them as well. Select their profile, find the Cog icon (upper left hand corner, click and select “Block Viewer.”
The rest you’ll figure out pretty quickly, as it’s not that complicated.
Sooooo… with all this said, is it worth time investing it getting it up and running? I think so, yes, because you can demo stuff on the spot that comes to you, plan something ahead and announce it on Twitter and Facebook, create a live feed to your Twitter account for people who do not yet have Periscope, and it’s a cool way to build your presence around the world.
I’m on there as David Aldridge, using my Twitter account (@daldridgedrums) as the link. Mind you, the sound quality for both iphones and ipads is limited, but if you don’t play too loud, it’s comes across okay.
But do remember this: it’ll cream your cellular usage like a thirsty camel after a 30-day trek across the Sahara. Watch out for that and battery use (which you can monitor for this and other apps on an iPhone 6S, I have discovered).
It’s a brave new world out there, and Periscope lets you partake of it in a very interesting way. I think it’s got a lot of potential, and who knows, maybe it can help you get your particular drumming message out there in a way that transforms other players. We truly do live in most amazing times…
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