I’ve been fascinated by the rapid rise of Meerkat for Twitter-driven live streaming. I blogged about it twice in the past two weeks, and I continue to use the app. Watching the SXSW action in Austin is great.

I was an early adopter of Meerkat and became a major advocate to a number of friends who initially ridiculed the concept and have since confessed that they’ve become “obsessed” with it. Their words, not mine.

That said: “Move fast, break things” is the mantra of digital tech and live streaming is no exception.

Twitter’s rumored acquisition of stealth live streaming app Periscope was confirmed on Friday and hopefully the public confirmation means Twitter will bring Periscope out of private beta sooner rather than later.

It’s supposedly a much more polished app (Meerkat was thrown together in ten days), and—critically for certain use cases—Periscope allows both limited-invite streams to small groups of friends as well as saved versions of streams rather than Meerkat’s “once and done” ephemerality.

In my best case mental scenario Twitter would acquire Meerkat and its team too, but God knows if that’s really the best approach. I do wonder though, given the enormous amount of traction and affection Meerkat has earned in the past two weeks.

Whatever happens, true live streaming is nearly here which is great.