Periscope and Meerkat have a lot in common. They’re both livestreaming platforms. They’re both integrated with Twitter in some fashion. They both launched in the past couple months. And last but certainly not least, they’ll both be making an appearance at Disrupt NY in May.
We’re incredibly pleased to announce that Periscope cofounder Kayvon Beykpour will join us for the upcoming conference at the historic Manhattan Center in New York City, where we’ll discuss all things Periscope, Twitter, and of course, live broadcasting as a whole.
Previously the founder of Terriblyclever (acquired by Blackboard in 2009), Beykpour has spent most of his time recently building out Periscope. In January, Twitter acquired the company before it ever launched and went heads down prepping for a big roll-out.
In March, Meerkat (a direct competitor led by Ben Rubin, also speaking at Disrupt) launched at SXSW and picked up huge traction among early adopters. Twitter turned off some of Meerkat’s social graph access and soon after launched Periscope, which admittedly has a far superior design. The apps differ in some ways — Meerkat’s expire where Periscopes can live on, and Meerkat comments are public where Periscope’s don’t hook into Twitter, among other things.
But what will likely be far more interesting than the initial race is how the mainstream user will adopt live broadcasting as a medium. For example, on UpClose, a betaworks-backed live broadcasting competitor, a younger demographic of users are broadcasting with a use-case very similar to behavior we see on YouTube.
Hopefully Kayvon will be able to shed some light on what to expect out of live broadcasting as the head of the app most poised to capture the mainstream market.
Kayvon Beykpour will join other notable Disrupt NY speakers, including Tinder’s Sean Rad, Joanne Wilson, and Vine’s Jason Mante.
The show runs May 4-6 at the historic Manhattan Center. Tickets are available here.
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