Unless you’ve been living under a rock, in a cave, on the moon it’s probably pretty safe to assume you may have heard people talking about an app named Meerkat this week.
For those who are somehow unfamiliar, I’m not talking about annoying mongooses trying to offer you decent car insurance.
Released in February but properly brought into public consciousness in the past week or so after a massive hoo-hah at SXSW Festival, Meerkat is a video app that allows users to launch a live stream via their iPhone or iPad that can be published on Twitter.
Functionality within the app allows for streamed and scheduled content and users can engage via Twitter from either desktop or device.
The ramifications for football are huge.
It doesn’t take much imagination to see how rights holders can utilise this service. Think live streaming of journeys to games, behind-closed-doors training sessions, first-person accounts of access fans can only dream of. The possibilities are endless.
Furthermore, Meerkat offers further empowerment and opportunities to those involved in the game. How long before we see Joey Barton adopting the platform as a soapbox, or pundits offering their take on the game during and after the event?
It’s hard to imagine socialmediaphile Mario Balotelli not getting involved – particularly given his bizarre rant on Instagram this week and who wouldn’t want a live stream of a night of Mario?
However, Meerkat also presents a massive headache for rights holders and publishers.
As Apple’s ‘Shot on iPhone6’ campaign so slickly reminds us, everyone with a smart phone is now a citizen journalist and, legality aside, can shoot and publish whatever they like. Meerkat further extends this capacity.
Nice advertising #iphone6 #apple #tfl #london #underground #tube #photographs #ShotOniPhone6 pic.twitter.com/X6ZpDybhog
— ros gomersall (@GomersallRos) March 10, 2015
The Premier League are already embroiled in a pretty weighty battle pulling down Vines that directly undercut their official product and with Meerkat now wading into the matter, things will soon get very interesting.
Thought I might use the Meerkat app to live stream a Premier League football match this weekend. Presume there’s no legal issues?
— markpinsent (@markpinsent) March 18, 2015
Twitter have taken steps to stem the already-considerable growth of Meerkat by denying the app access to it’s social graph – when new users sign up, they will no longer be automatically connected to the other people they are linked up with on Twitter.
With video consumption the hot topic across web and social, Meerkat’s emergence further clouds muddy water. Quite how the app develops is anyone’s guess but it’s safe to say that the proliferation of video streaming streams will have an everlasting effect on fans’ consumption of football.
By Josh Clarke
