Meerkat Brings Live Streaming To Facebook

This article originally appeared on 60 Second Social.

Just a few weeks ago Ben Rubin, CEO of Meerkat was asked about integrating with Facebook after Twitter launched Periscope as competition to the app. At the time he said that; “Posting video to your wall is not relevant, since only 12 percent of your friends see what you post within 24 hours.” However at the same time he did not rule out working with Facebook.

Meerkat released an update over the weekend which allows brands and celebrities to share their live broadcasts directly to their Facebook page. The update also means that users no longer need a Twitter account to watch Meerkat videos, now a Facebook account is sufficient.

It is the first big move away from Twitter for Meerkat, when the platform launched in late February is relied heavily on Twitter. In fact the first user rule was, and still is, “Everything that happens on Meerkat happens on Twitter.”

Meerkat quickly got a taste of how dangerous it can be to rely heavily on another service shortly after it launched. Twitter cut off Meerkat’s access to their social graph which made it harder to find and follow new users. The reason? Twitter was working on Periscope and they wanted to make it harder for Meerkat to grow.

At the moment the integration is pretty minimal on Facebook however it will be interesting to see what happens further down the road. If Meerkat adds the ability to log in from a Facebook account or source new Meerkat followers from your Facebook friends list it will be interesting to see how Facebook reacts.

Meerkat clearly does not want to end up in a similar situation as to the one they were in before and Rubin says that they have reached out to Facebook seeking help and clarification on a handful of questions during their recent update process.

He says that Facebook were friendly so it is possible that Facebook is not building their own live streaming app and it could possibly be looking at Meerkat as a possible acquisition further down the road.  If Meerkat has learnt anything over the past few months it should be not to rely on Facebook too much, they don’t want to end up back where they were a few months ago.

About The Author

Mark is the founder of 60 Second Social media where he provides social media news and digital marketing analysis. You can follow him on Twitter here. You can also follow 60 Second Social on Twitter here. Or you can drop Mark an email at, daltomark@me.com