Here at Smart Document Solutions , our goal is to keep you and your team as productive as possible. Although we’d love to earn your business we think it’s important that both our clients and potential clients are aware of trends in getting things done and growing your business. One trend that is getting a lot of press these days is livestreaming.

Livestreaming is not exactly a new idea. Skype has been around since 2003, Google hangouts launched in May 2013, and Ustream has been around since 2007. These apps have primarily been on the desktop and were built before the mobile first idea took hold. Another complaint is that many of these services tend to be buggy and not very user friendly.

A lot of recent buzz centers on a few new mobile + desktop livestreaming apps such as Periscope, Meerkat, Blab.im, and Appear.in. Here is more information on the services and how they differ.

Periscope

Periscope launched in late March 2015 and in less than 6 months has become a force to be reckoned with in a fight for supremacy in mobile livestreaming. The app was purchased by Twitter for $86 million and currently has the largest user base with over 10 million passionate users as well as an event called the Periscope Summit which was in New York City during the week of September 21st.

Periscope allows you to broadcast video from your smartphone and watch others broadcasting from their smartphones. The killer feature in Periscope is the map function. You can look at a map of the world and zoom in — with stalker-like accuracy to see exactly who is scoping (what us natives call broadcasting) at that exact moment.

Uses for Business

Periscope is a great way to get your name out to a semi-captive audience. Some common uses of Periscope include but are not limited to:

Product demonstrations

User feedback/mini focus groups

Tips and Tricks that add value to your target market

Moving prospects through the next step through a sales funnel

Keep in mind that the average Periscoper has a fairly short attention span, so unless you have a very large AND engaged following you may want to limit your ‘scope to about 5–15 minutes.

Meerkat

Meerkat — came out in early March 2015 and was –at first- the belle of the ball at SXSW. Periscope launched a few days later and began stealing some of Meerkat’s glory. Regardless of the competition, the app has raised $18.2 million thus far. It also has 2 million users which is nothing to shake a stick at. At first the app was fairly glitchy but now they have smoothed out most of the issues and even added some great new features.

Meerkat also allows broadcasters, or “Meerkasters” as they are called, to both broadcast their world from their phone and also watch others as they broadcast as well. Meerkat’s advantage, or at least key differentiator, is that it allows you to schedule your broadcast and people can subscribe to that broadcast. It also allows responses from the audience — just like Periscope — however the responses are saved on Twitter and added to the broadcaster’s twitter stream which can be seen as an advantage or disadvantage depending on the brand and target market.

Uses for Business

From my experience with Meerkat — the average Meerkaster happens to have a longer attention span than the average Periscoper and because of this it is to your advantage if you are having a longer broadcast — say over 10 minutes. Some great uses of Meerkat are:

Product demonstrations

Tips and Tricks that add value to your target market

Moving prospects through the next step through a sales funnel

Presentations

Capturing feedback

Blab.im

Blab.im — is the newest contender in the livestreaming arena and may very well change the face of podcasting and livestreaming. Vincent Orleck — a social media influencer calls Blab “a place for dialogue” whereas Periscope and Meerkat are “places for monologue”. Blab was born out of a failure — the team that put together Blab is from Bebo. Like the legendary Phoenix — even Bebo is in the process of rebirth. It’s unclear how many users they have — they keep those figures pretty close to the chest, but more and more people seem to be joining daily.

Blab allows you to share your livestreaming video with 3 others as they stream as well. The platform has become an amalgamation of more and more people joining in daily from Google Hangouts, Periscope, Meerkat and most recently Snapchat. It is available on both mobile and laptop or desktop but is better suited for the latter two.

Uses for Business

This is a great platform for exposing your brand to new audiences and oddly enough — networking. I’ve actually witnessed a person join a blab I was a part of and then have a prospect join and say they wanted to buy what my co-blabber was selling. One of the fastest sales cycles I’ve witnessed in livestreaming. That being said here are some great uses for Blab.im:

Webinar replacement

Tips and Tricks for target market

Lead generation

Interviews

Mastermind/Peer/Roundtable groups

Group training

Appear.in

Appear.in — Is a website very similar to Google Hangouts and possibly a multi-person Skype but its better in many ways. One key way being that it requires no sign-in whatsoever! You simply need to choose an appear.in randomly generated web address and begin streaming once you arrive on the link. It’s that simple.

Appear.in has been around for over 2 years now but just recently began to get recognition as some appear.in users advised Blab.im users of the service (one of them being me). The site is definitely user friendly.

It allows you to start a video chat with up to 8 people simply by directing users to a link. Users can share and watch videos together, they can share links, and one key differentiator from blab is that rooms can be locked.

Uses for Business

This is a great platform for groups that want a little more privacy then blab. Some great uses for Appear.in include:

Mastermind groups

Private work groups

Private client focus groups

Individual or small group training that incorporates video/slides

Since live-streaming became a trending topic many other big names have thrown their hats into the ring. Here are some honorable mentions:

Facebook Mentions — Facebook created Mentions– only problem — in my opinion is that the Mentions focused only on “celebrities” virtual and otherwise and the key to the other livestreaming platforms is that they are inclusive to all.

Nomadcast — apparently the 1st livestreaming mobile app. The great thing about nomadcast is that it allows you to imbed your videos directly into your Twitter feed without redirecting users off Twitter. It also allows you to see who is interacting with your video in real time.

In conclusion, if you are a business that has a physical product or that is very face-to-face relationship dependent you should look into the new growing trend of livestreaming.