Down Periscope? Its app is no longer needed to live-stream on Twitter

By Christian de Looper Published December 14, 2016

Twitter is further blurring the lines between the Twitter app and Periscope. The company has enabled the ability to live-stream straight from the Twitter app, which basically means that you’ll no longer need Periscope on your Android or iOS devices to live-stream.

To live-stream within the Twitter app, all you need to do is hit “compose tweet,” then press the “Live” button. Periscope users will find using the new feature easy — simply write a caption, then go live, just like you would within Periscope.

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The Periscope name isn’t completely dead — even when you live-stream within the Twitter app, you’ll still see that it’s “powered by Periscope.” Not only that, but according to the Pericope team, the Periscope apps and web player on periscope.tv will remain in place and fully functional. Still, there really isn’t any reason to download the Periscope app anymore — the vast majority of users will be totally fine with the live-streaming capabilities in Twitter.

This is also a big step for Twitter itself, which is going head to head with the popular Facebook Live. Twitter also has some big names behind it — it’s got exclusive deals with the likes of the NFL and Wimbledon, as well as this year’s U.S. presidential debates. The company is clearly hoping deals like this will convince people to use Twitter’s live features over Facebook’s.

The fusion of Twitter and Periscope really was inevitable. But now that users can live-stream straight from the Twitter app, it remains to be seen how long the company will keep Periscope around at all. We all know firsthand how trigger-happy Twitter can be with the apps it owns: Remember how it went for the Twitter-owned Vine?

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Christian de Looper

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Christian de Looper is a long-time freelance writer who has covered every facet of the consumer tech and electric vehicle…

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