Instant Analysis: Twitter Inc.'s Periscope Hits 200 Million Broadcasts

Twitter's Periscope recently announced that its live streaming app was used for 200 million cumulative broadcasts within its first year. That figure sounds impressive, but the app still hasn't crossed the more widely used milestone of 1 million hours of daily video views.

Source: Periscope.

Alphabet's YouTube claims that its users watch "hundreds of millions of hours" of videos daily. Facebook topped 8 billion daily video views last November, andrecently announced that over a million hours of VR video had already been consumed onSamsung's Gear VR headsets since their launch last November. Compared to those figures, Periscope's 200 million broadcasts seem paltry.

The business of live streamingTwitter reportedly paid over $86 million last year for Periscope and Niche, a talent agency for social media stars. However, neither platform has been aggressively monetized yet. Periscope won an early battle against live-streaming rival Meerkat, but the app now faces much tougher competition from Facebook and YouTube in the live-streaming arena.

Facebook, which has been aggressively beefing up its video streaming ecosystem, launched its own live-streaming feature for all iOS and Android users earlier this year. YouTube alsorevealed its own live-streaming feature last August. Considering that Facebook has1.6 billion monthly active users and YouTube has "over a billion" users, both companies could trample Periscope's active user base -- which reached just 10 million last August.

What Periscope means to TwitterPeriscope represents one of Twitter's three video strategies, which also include its 6-second loops on Vine and embedded timeline videos. Twitter has tightened up that ecosystem by integrating Vine loops and Periscope feeds directly into its timeline. Thosemoves represent baby steps toward monetization, but pale in comparison to Facebook's and YouTube's clear video monetization strategies.

More importantly, it's unclear how these efforts will address Twitter's core problem of stagnant user growth. So for now, Periscope won't likely move the needle for Twitter until some solid plans to grow revenue are introduced.

The article Instant Analysis: Twitter Inc.'s Periscope Hits 200 Million Broadcasts originally appeared on Fool.com.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Leo Sun has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Facebook, and Twitter. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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