Dive Brief:
- Meerkat has added another social media login option for the platform, with Facebook now joining the video streaming platform's existing Twitter login.
- The company also announced a new feature called “Cameo” that allows video hosts to invite audience members to temporarily take over streams for 60 seconds.
- By connecting with Facebook’s graph via the new login option, Meerkat users automatically follow their Facebook friends and pages.
Dive Insight:
Even though Meerkat was cut off from being able to automatically have Twitter users follow their connections on Meerkat after Twitter launched its own video streaming platform Periscope, it still allows its users to login with their Twitter identity. Now, Meerkat users have another login option – Facebook. This move allows Meerkat to connect with Facebook’s social graph and have users automatically follow Facebook friends and pages on Meerkat, something that should please brands and marketers with a strong Facebook presence.
The connection with Facebook won’t extend to notify users’ Facebook friends about activity, something that it still does on Twitter. “Twitter is in real-time where Facebook is not," Ben Rubin, CEO of Meerkat, explained to TechCrunch. "That’s why we chose not to do that and instead focus on your friends and interests.”