The live streaming app battle may not have much room for many offerings besides early mover Meerkat and Twitter-owned Periscope, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t going to try. There’s still some hype left in the bottom of that particular barrel, and Yeplive is hoping to scoop it up by offering some features notably omitted from any of the other current offerings.
Yeplive is a Canadian startup that offers live broadcasts via mobile devices, with apps for iOS and Google Play, with a few differences including location-centric feeds, with maps and pins to show where broadcasts are originating, as well as a full-featured conversation interface available on the web so that anyone can join in the conversation.
Yeplive has GPS verification, meaning you can reliably trust that broadcasts are actually coming from where they claim to be coming from, but that also means it’s an app that’s not designed for users super-focused on geo privacy. The app is leaning on location as one of its differentiating factors, however, so it’s not looking to be everything to everyone.
It also archives content by default, which another one of those features that either aren’t offered by, or are in some ways limited by both of the major competitors in this field. Another big unique feature is landscape filming, which will satisfy video quality fanatics out there who vocally oppose the portrait-only orientation of both Meerkat and Periscope – but this may just be a “get off my lawn” situation, since other platforms popular with the youths like Snapchat also seem to favor the vertical.
The live chat function is perhaps the most interesting so far, since it doesn’t even require that the audience have an app installed, and it means that Yeplive’s can have equal impact across various social platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and Google+ (there’s even Instagram support coming soon, albeit for archived feeds).
After a lot of initial buzz, both Periscope and Meerkat have mostly receded peacefully into the collective social background consciousness, but long-term the market still probably has potential. Is crossing feature requests for competitors off a list enough to build a viable alternative to the current leaders? Not necessarily, but some different thinking in the space can only help it progress overall.
