Another one bites the dust! Twitter last week announced that it’s shutting down Periscope, but keeping native live video streaming in its flagship app.
Five years after it bought Periscope, Twitter has announced that the app has been “in an unsustainable maintenance-mode” for quite some time due to declining usage and increasing upkeep costs. Millions of people love and still use Periscope, though, and “leaving it in its current state isn’t doing right by the current and former Periscope community,” so Twitter has made the tough decision to shut it down.
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Periscope will be removed from the app stores by March 2021, but you won’t be able to create a new account within the app as of its next update. Broadcasts shared to Twitter will remain as replays, and broadcasters can download an archive of their Periscope broadcasts and data before the March deadline. The Periscope website will remain as a “read-only archive of public broadcasts.”
Twitter isn’t giving up on live video, though. On the contrary, the company believes “in the power of live video to solve impactful problems,” and that’s why it brought most of Periscope’s features into Twitter Live on its main app back in 2016.
As part of this shift, Twitter is relaxing requirements for Super Broadcasters (broadcasters who can get cash tips from viewers). Current broadcasters will be able to cash out their Periscope tips by April 30, 2021.
Periscope’s demise would have come sooner in 2020, but Twitter said it reprioritized many of its products due to “the events” during the year. Yes, that means COVID.