Twitter Puts The Clamps Down On Meerkat App

Twitter is cutting off Meerkat’s ability to port people’s social networks over from Twitter to its own service known as the social graph. That means when new users come on board, they will no longer be automatically connected to the other people they are already following on Twitter. This comes not long after Twitter purchased a competing live-streaming service, Periscope, and just as the South by Southwest festival is getting underway in Austin.

Meerkat is a live-streaming video service that automatically tweets when you start recording. But it essentially piggybacks on Twitter’s network. Not only do new users sign in via Twitter, but the app also connects you with all the Meerkat users you are also connected to via Twitter, and you then have the same follower and following relationship on Meerkat that you do on Twitter. Which means once you have the app installed (and assuming you have notifications turned on) every time someone you follow on Twitter starts live-streaming a Meerkat video, you get a notification.

A Twitter spokesperson said that, “We are limiting their access to Twitter’s social graph, consistent with our internal policy,” the spoeksperson said. “Their users will still be able to distribute videos on Twitter and log in with their Twitter credentials.”

It is no surprise that Meerkats access is being restricted, Twitter has always restricted API’s for developers in a strict fashion for the simple reason that they want to be the best, they want to have the best apps. Sure you can use a third party app but it won’t have all the features the main app has.

That kinda goes against this.

Only time will tell now if Meerkats days are numbered, its hard to tell until we can try out the Periscope app for ourselves, however the inside reports so far is that the Periscope app is a much more well rounded experience than that of Meerkat and if that turns out to be the case then they could be in trouble.

About The Author

Mark is the founder of 60 Second Social media where he provides social media news and digital marketing analysis, he is also a proud father of his bearded dragon, Lola. You can follow him on Twitter here. You can also follow 60 Second Social on Twitter here.