Get Ready for a Meerkat on your smartphone – video streaming through Twitter is here and it’s easy!

Are you ready UAE? You better be, as the latest app sensation will be hitting our shores very soon. In fact it’s already available, it’s just people don’t know about it yet. Meet what will become your new best friend – the Meerkat App.

Now usually Meerkats are the realm of cute/cool greeting cards, internet memes, or in the UK you may be familiar with them from an insurance sales perspective. But from now on, they will be associated with the easiest way to broadcast whatever you are doing, live through your Twitter feed.  The best thing about it, in terms of usability is that it’s so SIMPLE. Connect your Twitter account and hit Stream and you are live!!

There is a lot of talk in the United States right now about how Meerkat is going to be the next ‘Snapchat’ in terms of number of users and penetration of the market. As Snapchat is ‘maturing’ and is filling up with brands and of course parents, the younger generation are looking for the next big thing. This could well be it.

Having downloaded it and used it we can see why this is the talk. It has that cool factor as it’s a great way to broadcast live footage to your followers – can you say VVIP access at your next concert and streaming live to your followers as you go backstage to meet your idol? It has the potential to be a great way to generate positive content which we of course whole heartedly get behind. Broadcasting live is a way to be transparent with your message, show people what’s really going on and of course allow people into areas they haven’t previously been allowed. From an online reputation standpoint this is fantastic as you can get some great content out there and whilst Meerkat doesn’t keep copies of the content, you will have local copies on your device, that you can then upload to other channels for full coverage.

What does worry us, is that whilst they have made it super easy to broadcast. Their tag line of ‘what happens on Meerkat happens on Twitter’ means that you really do need to think about the kind of content you put out there. There is no preview button, so as soon as you hit stream, whatever your camera is looking at, and what ever is picked up on the microphone is being broadcast to your following. Who can also retweet the feed to share it with more people. So you better be happy with what is going out there, and don’t leave it logged in when you aren’t paying attention. You know how sometimes your phone makes ‘pocket’ calls to the last number dialled? Well just imagine that happening to your 500 or maybe even 50,000 Twitter followers!!

We see a huge potential for the business world, where brands will show their fans more of the ‘inside’ scoop when it comes to events especially. Sportify, Starbucks and Mastercard are early adopters of the app, so check out what they are doing through Meerkat or their Twitter feeds. There is also a place for Meerkat in the family unit, ‘spontaneous togetherness’ as Meerkat’s founder, Ben Rubin, says, is what the app is for, but we still advise caution when it comes to creating content to put out there online. You better be happy with whatever it is, after all, your online reputation is your reputation now. You will be judged! Stop | Think | Stream!