Remember Periscope? Blab is Video Chat for Groups of up to 4 People

Periscope launched to mass hysteria and took the mantle from Meerkat as the Live Video App of choice. And now we have Blab, the video messaging app for groups of up to 4 people to talk about, well, whatever they want really. You can blab about anything and anyone that has signed up to the app can join in. Four people can talk at one time, but if one person has to leave, any one watching can jump into the hot seat and offer their opinion.

So the screen looks like this, it divides into 4 when there are 4 participants and you can see exactly what is going on. You see who is watching and can also field text questions from the audience too. Wayne and I tested this out, him from Ireland and me in the UAE and it worked incredibly well. We also had some interaction with people popping in and asking what we were up to. After the test we haven’t used it in anger, but checking in regularly we can see the user base increasing week on week and as we are subscribed to their communications we see what’s going on.

Blab, like Periscope is linked to Twitter and when you set up a Blab, you tweet to let people know you are blabbing. As with the likes of Snapchat you are using your other social media channels to bring attention to the fact that you are on Blab. Like Periscope where you can give broadcasters hearts, by tapping on the screen (shows positive support for what you are watching) Blab uses what they call ‘feels’ to do the same thing. This uses the emoji of the two hands together – the blabber with the most ‘feels’ has this icon next to their broadcast area.

Another neat function of the app is that you can mute broadcasters – particularly useful in an interview scenario when you actually want to listen to the answer of the person being interviewed. You can mute the other three and do just that. There are a myriad of uses for Blab, from interviews, political debates, reviews, musical collaborations (yep this has happened already) as well as sharing content – slightly illegal, but we read that one person could pay for the pay per view sporting event and then have their device pointed at the screen and share the event with three other commentators as well as all those not broadcasting but watching the blab and commenting in text at the side.

Very cool app which has been described as addictive. As always when it comes to live broadcast, Stop | Think | Post – as it’s live, you can’t take it back and people can also record blabs. Think about what you are saying, what you are doing and in some cases, what you are wearing. Remember, you are live to the world!