That’s about to change.
Advertisement
Along with Meerkat’s integration into Facebook’s ecosystem, the company also unveiled a new feature called Cameo, which allows users to invite others to invade their streams for up to 60-seconds at a time.
Meerkat is keen to point out that it won’t be posting to your Facebook profile itself, however.
“This is the strongest manifestation of our long-term vision for participatory live-streaming”, it said.
But viewers can’t just take over any live-stream of their choosing- the broadcaster has to invite them by tapping on their profiles as they watch. Basically, the person hosting the video stream can opt to allow video from a viewer to take over, and be shown to everybody else watching. At any time, either user can end the cameo, which will revert the stream to the originator’s control.
“Cameos are short in their nature and we want to give your followers an opportunity to see them!”
“This update is about sharing your live streaming experience with friends and the people you’re familiar with.”
Instead, Meerkat will let you know when any of your contacts starts a Meerkat stream, or joins the service. Meerkat’s blog post on the subjects says that this should also attract more eyeballs to broadcasters’ streams via cross-promotion.
Meanwhile, if you don’t have Twitter, no worries: you can now sign up for Meerkat with just your phone number. Head over to meerkatapp.co/username and log in to manage your private saved streams history.
Advertisement
The last part of the update is the Meerkat Library.
