With the expansion of social media throughout the decade, innovation has brought the world into new territory.
Applications like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter have helped further the ‘Golden Age’ of live stream and social media that we live in. Apps like Meerkat owe their success not only to their brilliant marketing strategies but also to the success of others like Twitter founders Evan Williams, Noah Glass, Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone.
Experts in media and social marketing expect live video sharing apps like Meerkat and Periscope to transform news and communication. Although these inventions have been ingenious, they have created widespread gray-area on the legality of their use.
When Facebook was invented in 2004, the Internet was changed forever. Two years later, Twitter was introduced to the world and, retrospectively, so was the age of live stream.
Ben Rubin released the app Meerkat from Austin, Texas on March 16, 2015. Meerkat is a video live streaming app with close structural ties to Snapchat. When a member would start a live stream, their Twitter followers would be notified.
Soon after Meerkat’s launch, Twitter acquired the Periscope live streaming app. Periscope is very similar to Meerkat but is more user-friendly. Twitter disabled the connectivity features between itself and Meerkat and with that, Meerkat’s popularity decreased.
Periscope had an eight month unopposed period of prosperity before Facebook Live was released. Facebook, with over 1.59 billion users, had the advantage in this situation simply because users do not have to download a separate app to use its new feature.
Fortune’s Erin Griffith said, “It has prioritized live video streams in its “News Feed,” sending users so many alerts that they’re starting to feel annoyed while sending broadcasters so many viewers they’re likely to keep live streaming.”
“Facebook is even paying media organizations (including Fortune parent company Time Inc.) to produce live videos,” said Griffith. “Facebook Live directly competes with Periscope, Twitter’s live streaming video app.”
Even though as consumers we can post anything we want to online using apps like Meerkat, Periscope and Facebook, this doesn’t mean that we should. Live streaming apps have had to deal with piracy of copyrighted materials recently due to how easy it is to give access to these materials.
From pirating NFL, NBA and MLB games to Disney movies to HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’, live streaming applications are having trouble censoring posts due to the amount of accounts being used at a time.
In a perfect world, administrators of apps would be allowed to take down anything and everything they find offensive or not reasonable for their site in a timely fashion.
Taylor Soper, in his article “Periscope, Meerkat, and sports: Can fans, media live stream from the game?” said, “Imagine a ringside ticket-holder streaming the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight to fans not willing to pay for the PPV.”
Although issues of copyright are important and need to be taken seriously, there are many more critical matters to take care of.
“In addition to copyrighted content being streamed illegally, Facebook Live has in the past demonstrated its inability to properly block the broadcast of acts of terrorism and murder,” said Soper.
It is also important to take into account the very inappropriate that could very easily get into the hands and minds of children. Many children younger than the required age of 13 use Facebook and now have access to a whole new world of content. It is essential that users report immoral posts on all forms of social media because it can get into the hands of the wrong people very easily.
With the expansion of social media throughout the decade, innovation has brought the world into new territory. There are not many rules for the new technologies that are being invented and this will lead to copyright and other legal troubles in the not-so-distant future.
The ‘Golden Age’ of live stream and social media that we live in is framed by applications like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter, in addition to newer technologies like Meerkat and Periscope.
Live streaming is the next big thing of social media; not only is it attractive to the eye and an amazing opportunity for the consumer, but it is also a surefire way to generate revenue and strengthen the hold on users around the world. Anyone can watch anything at anytime and anywhere with unlimited and boundless opportunities for the future.
