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Periscope by the Numbers

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Re: Periscope by the Numbers

#21

Post by 6stringmerc »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #18
6stringmerc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, back when I was first starting to understand computing (Pentium II days), the phrase we always kicked around was "Do something great that Microsoft is terrible at, then wait for them to buy you out." That kinda-sorta applies in this scenario.

Except in this case they aren't buying meerkat out they rolled out their own version. So I don't think that ethos applies to his question.

Yeah but in context the idea was that at any time, Microsoft could decided to "un-suck" at whatever it was and then the plan would get blown apart.

Re: Periscope by the Numbers

#22

Post by 6stringmerc »

sreyaNotfilc wrote: post #20
minimaxir wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel this platform is very cool and can fulfill many niches along with Meerkat The success of Periscope and Meerkat are mutually exclusive. While Periscope has topped the Social Networking category in the App Store, Meerkat has been gradually losing ranking since Periscope's inflection point at the end of May, according to App Annie: http://i.imgur.com/b51Wpm2.png No, "YOU CAN GUEST IN ANOTHER LIVESTREAM ZOMG XD"…

"YOU CAN GUEST IN ANOTHER LIVESTREAM ZOMG XD" Yeah, I don't understand the mentality of "but we have xyz feature"! Its rather tacky and I'm not sure if it ever worked. There's a reason why Meerkat has fallen out of favor and its not because of a single feature. Periscope has what "304 million monthly active users" potential users because of Twitter alone. That's hughmongous! Also, the name Meerkat is not fun. Reminds…

I also see Facebook's competition with YouTube and the issue of "Freebooting" somewhat tempering the adoption of YouTube. Also, for music minded folks, Apple Connect might still hold more sway than Facebook. Then over on the side there's Vine. I see all these as competing, but not necessarily for the same audiences. Will be interested in the next developments and to see how the market share plays out.

Re: Periscope by the Numbers

#23

Post by AndrewKemendo »

6stringmerc wrote: post #21
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in this case they aren't buying meerkat out they rolled out their own version. So I don't think that ethos applies to his question.

Yeah but in context the idea was that at any time, Microsoft could decided to "un-suck" at whatever it was and then the plan would get blown apart.

That is literally always the case.

MSFT/GOOG etc... could always decide to "un-suck" and kill some new hot thing, but it's a deus ex machina and not something you can predict, so it shouldn't really even be a consideration.

Re: Periscope by the Numbers

#24

Post by sreyaNotfilc »

sreyaNotfilc wrote: post #20
minimaxir wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel this platform is very cool and can fulfill many niches along with Meerkat The success of Periscope and Meerkat are mutually exclusive. While Periscope has topped the Social Networking category in the App Store, Meerkat has been gradually losing ranking since Periscope's inflection point at the end of May, according to App Annie: http://i.imgur.com/b51Wpm2.png No, "YOU CAN GUEST IN ANOTHER LIVESTREAM ZOMG XD"…

"YOU CAN GUEST IN ANOTHER LIVESTREAM ZOMG XD" Yeah, I don't understand the mentality of "but we have xyz feature"! Its rather tacky and I'm not sure if it ever worked. There's a reason why Meerkat has fallen out of favor and its not because of a single feature. Periscope has what "304 million monthly active users" potential users because of Twitter alone. That's hughmongous! Also, the name Meerkat is not fun. Reminds…

@6stringmerc

Facebook is trying its hardest to not be Facebook. Its purpose as a platform has morphed drastically from its original intent, And that's fine. Heck, I would do the same.

I do see the practice of Freebooting as an issue, but nothing that will break them. They have way too many people who does it and (worse) way too many people who are either uninformed or just don't care. So, really I feel its going to happen for all eternity.

That said, I'm surprised that Facebook hasn't branched out and became its own entertainment hub. FacebookNews, FacebookFilm, FacebookShop, Facebook...Books lol. They certainly have the cash to do so an make it happen. Maybe that's what they are working on as we speak.

Re: Periscope by the Numbers

#25

Post by awwstn »

FilterSweep wrote: post #14
awwstn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do something new and it's popular and shows potential to be a big business, other people will compete with you; that's how markets work. Some of those people will try to innovate and out-pace you, and others will simply copy you. Some will be scrappy startups, and others will have deeper pockets than you; that's inevitable. When Facebook launches streaming video, should we be angry at them since they have way…

Honest question, then what's the point of innovating, if Google, Facebook, or Twitter can simply copy your idea with an unlimited reach?

Here's something @sama said about this in a lecture:

> "The best thing of all worlds is to build a product that a lot of people really love. In practice, you can't usually do that, because if there's an opportunity like that, Google or Facebook will do it. So there's like a limit to the area under the curve, of what you can build. So you can build something that a large number of users like a little bit, or a small number of users love a lot."

Re: Periscope by the Numbers

#26

Post by 6stringmerc »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #23
6stringmerc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but in context the idea was that at any time, Microsoft could decided to "un-suck" at whatever it was and then the plan would get blown apart.

That is literally always the case. MSFT/GOOG etc... could always decide to "un-suck" and kill some new hot thing, but it's a deus ex machina and not something you can predict, so it shouldn't really even be a consideration.

...except when it's literally not always the case.

I get where you're coming from but deep pockets and an army of engineers doesn't guarantee success. Google+ never got out of the "it sucks" stage into mainstream success. The legacy of Steve Jobs is also littered with fanciful ideas that never got traction. I guess my point is there is a point to innovating and attempting to try, even as a small player, because there's really no guarantees.

I can't recall the exact story right now, but I recently heard that a well-to-do / highly funded flight project (Langley?) failed, and a short time later, the shoe-string operation by the Wright Brothers was successful.

Re: Periscope by the Numbers

#27

Post by AndrewKemendo »

6stringmerc wrote: post #26
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is literally always the case. MSFT/GOOG etc... could always decide to "un-suck" and kill some new hot thing, but it's a deus ex machina and not something you can predict, so it shouldn't really even be a consideration.

...except when it's literally not always the case. I get where you're coming from but deep pockets and an army of engineers doesn't guarantee success. Google+ never got out of the "it sucks" stage into mainstream success. The legacy of Steve Jobs is also littered with fanciful ideas that never got traction. I guess my point is there is a point to innovating and attempting to try, even as a small player, because there…

I think you are missing my point or I did not make it clear because we are in agreement.

"MSFT/GOOG could just do it and kill your [service]" is a very common response to anyone who is launching anything new or groundbreaking and it's also a misguided response.

So worrying that BIGCO will do that is basically a worthless concern and saying that because something is obvious in retrospect that it was inevitable is not particularly useful.

That said, they still can do it and on the rare occasion when they do, instead of doing an acquisition it usually does kill the newcomer. So to the original point, it seems like it's actually becoming more common than less for them to spin something up rather than acquire.

Re: Periscope by the Numbers

#28

Post by anotherangrydev »

awwstn wrote: post #12
anotherangrydev wrote: post #9

Twitter ripped off Meerkat. That's all I will ever see to this story. I don't care how succesfully they may be or become. Disclaimer: I don't work for Meerkat. It's just the way it is. Twitter deserves every bad bit of luck they are getting lately.

If you do something new and it's popular and shows potential to be a big business, other people will compete with you; that's how markets work. Some of those people will try to innovate and out-pace you, and others will simply copy you. Some will be scrappy startups, and others will have deeper pockets than you; that's inevitable. When Facebook launches streaming video, should we be angry at them since they have way…

Everything's fine, everything said so far here it's fine. But I was around here when that happened, which was not that much time ago so I find it weird that you guys don't remember.

Twitter pulled some very dirty stuff on Meerkat, merely days before launching Periscope and later, in order to favour their own Meerkat clone. That's when everything changed from 'it's a free market' to 'it's our market and we can kick you out for no reason'. And yeah, it actually is Twitter's market, they are allowed to do anything they like with it and "monopoly regulations" aside, they can kick you out of their for no reason.

But let me tell you what I don't find ethical about all of this. That when you are going to develop for them, they do not tell you straight away: we are going to fuck you up if what you do turns out to be valuable; quite the contrary, they just put out their "we-are-so-cool-and-we-love-developers" face and invited everyone to be part of their platform blah blah blah.

That started around 5-6 years ago, and probably you (selectively) won't remember this either, but back then the first killer apps that Twitter had were third-party Twitter clients that made the whole user experience better. They were a hit because back then, too, the main Twitter UX was a piece of s... and these alternatives were so much better. And guess what happened to those products? Twitter pulled the same shit on them, they bought TweetDeck which was arguably the one with the most users (or the one that needed the money the most), and banned all other clients from their API with a week-or-so notice. At that time, that thing was even worse, because I would even dare to say that Twitter somehow was in debt with those developers because a significant contribution to the growth of twitter was driven by people going through all these third-party clients, that's plain treachery and there's even a special circle in Hell for that thing.

Now history repeats again and will repeat forever because the message from Twitter in that sense is very clear: we don't give a shit about our developers.

But now, it's good to see that things are finally turning around. Twitter desperately needs a killer app right now, because they've lost the hype, they're running out of money and investors don't eat anymore that "we will be profitable in ten years" crap. The only one way that Twitter could be hip again is, oooooh the irony, if another great product starts driving people back into using Twitter, but guess what? No developer will ever take Twitter seriously anymore, and that's just and sweet beautiful karma :)

Btw, it would be honest for you to disclaim about your relationship with Twitter :^)

Re: Periscope by the Numbers

#29

Post by zzalpha »

FilterSweep wrote: post #14
awwstn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do something new and it's popular and shows potential to be a big business, other people will compete with you; that's how markets work. Some of those people will try to innovate and out-pace you, and others will simply copy you. Some will be scrappy startups, and others will have deeper pockets than you; that's inevitable. When Facebook launches streaming video, should we be angry at them since they have way…

Honest question, then what's the point of innovating, if Google, Facebook, or Twitter can simply copy your idea with an unlimited reach?

My experience: because you can probably still do it better.

Google, Facebook, and Twitter are far from omnipotent. Want proof? Just look at Google's failed attempts to get into TV advertising or social networking. Or Facebook's attempts with Messenger. Or Twitter's... everything, really.

Also, consider, it's unlikely any of them would copy an idea until you've already made it a success, at which point network effects can work in your favour (again, Google's repeatedly aborted attempts in social networking are illustrative, here).

To summarize: they might try to copy you, but there's no reason to assume they'll succeed.

Re: Periscope by the Numbers

#30

Post by awwstn »

anotherangrydev wrote: post #28
awwstn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do something new and it's popular and shows potential to be a big business, other people will compete with you; that's how markets work. Some of those people will try to innovate and out-pace you, and others will simply copy you. Some will be scrappy startups, and others will have deeper pockets than you; that's inevitable. When Facebook launches streaming video, should we be angry at them since they have way…

Everything's fine, everything said so far here it's fine. But I was around here when that happened, which was not that much time ago so I find it weird that you guys don't remember. Twitter pulled some very dirty stuff on Meerkat, merely days before launching Periscope and later, in order to favour their own Meerkat clone. That's when everything changed from 'it's a free market' to 'it's our market and we can kick yo…

disclaimer: I use twitter
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