Periscope Down! Streaming video from Twitter.

I tried Periscope this week. It’s a Twitter creation that streams live video to whoever happens to tune into the feed at the time.

“Let’s just try it,” I say to my boyfriend, while we’re eating breakfast at local restaurant.

“Periscope?” He raises an eyebrow.

“It does live video. Like a mini-broadcast, I suppose.” I open my newly downloaded Periscope app. “Here, I’ll broadcast you, eating.” I  hit the red button, and presto! Begin transmitting. He looks at the camera and shakes his head.

“I pity whoever is watching this,” he says dryly.

I roll my eyes, “Oh come on, who would actually watch this.” I stop suddenly in horror. Someone has joined the live feed. Then another person. “Oh my god.”

“Boring, boring, boring,” he is saying, poking at his eggs.

I fumble with my phone, trying to turn the camera off, “They’re actually watching! People are watching!”

I finally get the camera to turn off and start laughing. “Oh my god, that was insane. Look, look…”I point at my periscope update. “Five people tuned into watch.” I sit back, “Wow, that’s so weird! They didn’t even know what they were going to get.”

He is still shaking his head at me. “Worst broadcast ever.”

“You know what I should’ve done, I should’ve periscoped my class this morning.” I had taught a public class in Whistler outside. “Now that would have been thinking. What could this be good for?” I’m musing.

On my recent visit to Toronto, I stayed at an AirBnB of a hairstylist. Amongst our pleasantries and how-do-you-do’s, she had mentioned that she was planning on using periscope to transmit her live classes. Periscope could be useful in many learning situations, where an immediate live feed could provide visuals for psychomotor skills to the public. You could publicize it on twitter, similar to a Twitter chat. “Live Periscope Feed at 5 pm!” Or the like. The video could then be saved and perhaps more artfully curated for video distribution. The issue that could rise from impromptu video screenings: privacy, privacy, privacy.

“Huh.” I say. My boyfriend again raises his eyebrows and shakes his head.

“Okay,” I say, “I’m almost done with the phone.” The eggs look great.  And I’m going to eat them – right after I instagram them for posterity.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.