Periscope has already skyrocketed to the top of the app store charts, and took away the hype around the SXSW breakout app – Meerkat. The Twitter owned company isn’t stopping at that. It’s updated the app to bring landscape video when you flip the phone horizontally, and introduced the ability to share streams to Facebook. The official support for landscape videos could be apart of the rumored Apple TV app launch, and the sharing to Facebook is huge for the app. Considering its owned by Twitter, and that it’s heavily integrated with your Twitter account sharing to another social network is somewhat shocking, but necessary as Meerkat supports Facebook sharing too.
Landscape video is on the top of the list on its release notes, and a huge shift for the app that’s only allowed vertical video streaming. Snapchat has normalized taking video vertically, at the same time many YouTubers have started a war against vertical video and the black bars that come along with the videos on YouTube. The horizontal video makes sense for a TV app, but on a phone it doesn’t make as much sense. We are condition to using the phone vertically, and when we have to spin it sideways we start to wonder if it’s really worth it.
Adding the Facebook support was something that had to come in order to stop Meerkat from saying they have more features than Periscope. It’s also another step away from Twitter, after they announced you can sign up to the service with only your phone number – no Twitter account needed. By connecting your Facebook account you can instantly share when you’re streaming and replies directly to Facebook.
These updates are limited to the iOS app, but we would image that Twitter will update the Android app in the next few days. Tell us in the comments down below what you think about the landscape video, and sharing to Facebook in the Periscope app!