Yes, apparently Periscope is still alive and kickin’—but not for much longer. Twitter has announced that it’ll be shutting down Periscope by March 2021.
“The truth is that the Periscope app is in an unsustainable maintenance-mode state, and has been for a while. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen declining usage and know that the cost to support the app will only continue to go up over time. Leaving it in its current state isn’t doing right by the current and former Periscope community or by Twitter,” said the Periscope team.
The Periscope app will be removed from iOS and Android by March 2021 to give users a chance to download an archive of their broadcasts and data. However, you won’t be allowed to register for a new account starting today. I tried but the app would only let me “log in with an existing account”.
People will also no longer be able to tip their favourite broadcasters anymore. But Periscope will let select broadcasters to finish cashing out their tips by 30 April 2021.
Instead of the main Periscope app, Twitter suggests using the Twitter Live feature, which is still “powered by Periscope”. The feature is yet to be available to everyone, but you can watch people host their own Live videos on the social media app.
Twitter bought Periscope back in March 2015, before the service even launched. Twitter would go on to integrate live video into the main Twitter app in December 2016.
“We’re so grateful to all of you who invested time and energy into making Periscope the place to show what’s happening in your world and creating vibrant communities,” said the Periscope team.
Besides Twitter Live, you can also use the fairly new Fleets feature that the app introduced. However, I have not yet seen Fleets being used as often as people use Instagram Stories.
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