SOCIAL
Twitter Confirms the Shutdown of its Separate Periscope App in March 2021

It comes as little surprise, especially given speculation about the app’s future after a discovery in Twitter’s back-end code last week. But today, Periscope has confirmed it:
Some personal news: the Periscope app will be going away next year. We’re here to say goodbye. ????
We appreciate all the support, learnings, and broadcasts from our vibrant creator community. More on our difficult decision to discontinue the app: https://t.co/jZWjDlsRHk (1/2) pic.twitter.com/Kfgvocq31O
— Periscope (@PeriscopeCo) December 15, 2020
Yes, Periscope, one of the original apps of the 2015 live-stream boom is going away. Superceded by native streaming within Twitter, and seeing declining usage, Twitter says that it can no longer justify supporting the separate app:
“The Periscope app is in an unsustainable maintenance-mode state, and has been for a while. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen declining usage and know that the cost to support the app will only continue to go up over time.”
As a result, Periscope will go into retirement as of March 2021, while no one will be able to create a new account as of the latest app update.
“Broadcasts that were shared to Twitter will live on as replays, and all broadcasters will be able to download an archive of their Periscope broadcasts and data before the app is removed in March 2021.”
Functionally, this won’t mean a lot. As Twitter notes, users can still go live on Twitter, but they won’t have a dedicated space to store their past streams. Instead, your broadcasts will only live within the tweet, but it seems likely that Twitter will also, eventually, look to integrate live-streaming into its new Fleets option.
That scenario was given a further boost last week, when Twitter announced that it had acquired group live-streaming app Squad, which enables group chat members to share their screen during the broadcast.

The Squad app was immediately shut down after the acquisition, which likely suggests that it will re-appear soon within Twitter, and you would assume that would be within Fleets.
That could point to new opportunities for Fleets, like a new archive for your Fleets, where your live-streams would also be placed. Twitter also just signed a new hosting deal with Amazon Web Services to expand its capacity on this front, so definitely, live-streaming will remain within the Twitter app. But Periscope itself won’t be part of it.
Which, as we noted last week, is a little sad. For a short while, after the arrival of Meerkat, live-streaming was alive, it was a refreshing new spin on social media, which everyone seemed genuinely excited about. That excitement, however, didn’t last, and most of those original boom apps eventually died out, including Meerkat, Blab and several others.
Now Periscope joins them in the great app resting place in the clouds. Or the cloud, more specifically.
The announcement was widely speculated after app whispering legend Jane Manchun Wong noted a single line of code within the Twitter app last week.
This text found inside Twitter’s app indicates the shutdown notice might be shown in future versions of the Periscope app, directing users to a FAQ page about the app pic.twitter.com/gGrNNxRLL7
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) December 11, 2020
From that text, Wong deducted that Periscope was a goner, and a week later she was (once again) proven correct. Wong’s dedication and diligence to finding such notes has seen her earn a reputation as the leading expert in reverse engineering apps, often giving us the heads up weeks, even months in advance of new features. We have repeatedly referred to Wong’s discoveries in our reporting, and this update, once again, underlines the value of her work.
So, Periscope will soon be no more – goodbye to hearts and Super Hearts and that pale blue background.

If you have any Periscope broadcasts that you want to save, you should get on it now, while you can find out more about the pending shutdown of the app here.
SOCIAL
Elon Musk’s Team Asks for More Data to Complete Assessment of Twitter Bots

Okay, let’s just check in on the latest with the Twitter/Elon Musk takeover saga, and where things are placed to close out the week.
According to the latest reports, Musk’s team recently asked Twitter for more tweet info, in order to help it make an accurate assessment of bot activity in the app. This comes after Musk questioned Twitter’s claim that bots and fake accounts make up only 5% of its active user base, and said that his Twitter takeover deal could not go ahead unless Twitter could produce more evidence to support this figure.
Which Twitter did, by providing Musk with access to its ‘full firehose’ of tweets over a given period, which it shared with Musk’s team back on June 8th. Musk’s group has now had that data for a couple of weeks, but this week, it said that this info is not enough to go on, and that it needs even more insight from Twitter to make its judgment.
And after initially resisting calls for more data access, Twitter has now reportedly relented and handed over more tweet data access to Musk’s team.
Which may or may not be a concern, depending on how you see it.
In its initial data dump, Twitter reportedly gave Musk’s team info on:
- Total user tweets (within a given time period)
- Data on which devices were used
As noted, Musk’s team says that this has not provided it with the insight that it needs to conduct an accurate analysis of potential bot activity, so Twitter has now provided Musk with more ‘real-time API data’.
It’s not clear whether that means that Twitter has provided everything that its API systems can provide, but that could mean that Musk’s team can now access:
- Real-time info on tweet text and visual elements/attachments
- Data on retweets, replies, and quote Tweets for each
- Data on tweet author, mentioned users, tagged locations, hashtag and cashtag symbols, etc
- Date, time, location, device info
That should satisfy any analytical needs to uncover potential bot trends, and get a better handle on Twitter’s bot problem, though it also means that Musk has all your tweet info – which, again, it’s worth noting, Twitter up till now had been hesitant to provide.
I’m sure it’s fine. Musk’s team is beholden to disclosure laws around such, so it’s not like they can do anything much with that info anyway, in a legal sense. But the idea that the sometimes erratic Elon Musk now has all the tweets could be a little concerning for some.
But Twitter likely had to provide what it can, and if Musk is going to become CEO of the app soon anyway, he’s going to have access to all of that data either way.
But still, given Musk and Co’s past history of undermining and attacking critics, sacking trouble maker employees and digging up potential dirt on rivals, it sits a little uneasy.
Should be fine. No problems – no need to go deleting all your DMs (which are likely not included in the data that Twitter has provided at this stage).
According to reports, Musk’s team says that it now has the info it needs to make its assessment of bot activity, which should see the deal move forward (or not) sometime soon.
Of course, no one knows what exactly is going to happen next, and whether Musk’s team will look to renegotiate, or even back out of the deal entirely as a result of its bot analysis. But it does seem like, one way or another, Musk will be forced to go ahead with the $44 billion transaction, with Twitter’s past bot reporting methodology already accepted by the SEC, giving it legal grounding to argue that it’s acted in good faith, regardless of what Musk’s team finds.
The next steps then, according to Musk, would be securing debt financing and gaining Twitter shareholder approval, clearing the last hurdles for Musk to change the app’s name to ‘Telsla Social’, and add a million references to ‘420’ into the platforms various terms and conditions.
Because of the memes, because weed jokes are still funny to the richest man in the world – because he vacillates between inspired genius and a massive nerd who now gets to play out some fantasy of being cool.
Or something. Who knows what goes on in Elon Musk’s head – which is also why most are hesitant to bet against him, as nobody knows if and how he might be able to fix Twitter, and whether this is a great investment or a massive disaster.
It seems like we may soon find out. Maybe. Who knows. Either way, the memes should be great.
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