At Twitter's #VideoNow show for agencies last month, Periscope co-founder Kayvon Beykpour said he plans to further intertwine his mobile app with Twitter "very soon." Right now, when people employ his livestreaming app, they can send a tweet that invites Twitter users to view the video feed on Periscope—but that's it.
"We are doing some extraordinary work to make the play back even more rich and to show up in even more places within the native Twitter experience," Beykpour said at that time.
It's unclear whether the integration will take place before the end of the year or during the first quarter of 2016. And since Beykpour's words "within the native Twitter experience" could mean a lot of different things, we asked marketers what they wanted out of the deeper integration.
They offered five intriguing ideas—drawing more than one comparison to Snapchat.
1. Let Periscope work in concert with Twitter Moments. Ian Schafer, founder and chairman of Deep Focus, said including Periscope feeds in the new Twitter Moments "would make it a compelling alternative to Snapchat Stories. In my opinion, Twitter's Moments can be the ultimate curatorial platform for Periscope."
2. Allow Periscope stats to make Twitter targeting more robust (and, potentially, vice-versa). Schafer said he wants to see "data sharing across both platforms for targeting and amplification purposes."
3. Bring livestreaming to the newsfeed. Schafer and Nick Sheingold, strategy director for the Laundry Service, separately pointed out that putting Periscope livestreams in the actual Twitter newsfeed was a fairly fascinating proposition. "People go on Twitter to find out what's happening, as it's happening," Sheingold said. "Bringing livestreams into the timeline, auto-play and all, introduces a dynamic media experience for users to engage with. This is just the tip of the iceberg of how we'll consume live media in the future." Schafer added, "Live video within Twitter feeds would be very compelling, even if engagement had to happen within the Periscope app."
4. Include a direct-message option. Jason Stein, CEO of Laundry Service, said the success of messaging app WeChat is a glimpse into what could be possible if Twitter incorporated Periscope via the former's direct-messaging feature. "I'd like to see the ability to livestream in group direct messages," Stein said. "Innovating for the feed is important, but in isolation, [it] is not forward thinking enough at this point…. Group-based streaming provides many compelling use cases for users, media properties and brands. Today, you can livestream NBA [games] in WeChat—group direct messages could provide the initial fabric of subscription-based content consumption on Twitter."
5. Naturalize Periscope to better allow it to compete with Snapchat. Noah Levinson, content strategist at Big Spaceship, said, "We want integration to mean that using Periscope will feel more natural for users and brands. For example, when covering an event or activation, you can use Periscope to add in-the-moment content, but many times it feels like a forced opportunity. Snapchat is good at sharing in-the-moment content that's been edited and a bit more crafted, but still feels live. Periscope might just be a bit too low-fi and high-barrier for true meaningful use. If there's a way to connect Periscope and Twitter behaviors closer, then we'd definitely start adding it to more plans (for brand clients)."
