About 48 hours ago I saw a reference to Meerkat somewhere on Twitter and grabbed the app. Meerkat is built atop Twitter and let’s anyone stream live video. Viewers from Twitter can start a conversation on your Meerkat stream that exists on Twitter. When you’re done your Meerkat stream you can save the video to your device if you want to upload it to YouTube, otherwise it’s gone.

Since installing it I’ve gotten a bunch of push notifications for live streams from people on Twitter I’m following. Super interesting service, something that could be revolutionary for Twitter if acquired and integrated. Twitter stream is snackable, but it’s content is typically nutrient rich.

Meerkat seems to contribute the missing element, which is to bring live streaming into the same place as text. It’s dead simple to Meerkat unselfconsciously, versus something like Livestream or recording a short Twitter video. It feels like it’s got longer legs than Snapchat in terms of live conversation and co-viewership.

A recent example: I followed Musa Tariq on Twitter at some point, and then Meerkat let me know he was streaming so I tuned in. A spontaneous Twitter follow led through Meerkat to a more personal connection in the form of a short streaming session from Southern Pacific Brewing and later with Marvin Chow riffing on Meerkat where 150+ were watching. Fun.

Too early to say where Meerkat goes, but it feels like it’s got incredible potential, especially in being able to schedule a Meerkat and create personal programming for friends and followers. It could also disrupt podcasts in an unexpected way, which are still so cumbersome to create. Still thinking through what that looks like.

Here’s a screenshot from a Meerkat I did from Hudson Yards: