The live mobile video streaming revolution may have just gotten what it needed to go mainstream.

 

Apple TV now offers a Periscope app, allowing millions of users to watch user generated live streams from the comfort of their own couch.

 

Of course, the writing was on the wall when Periscope first launched “Couch Mode”, a clever way of auto-playing similar streams without the need to select. Then there was the move to landscape mode. Two moves that allow the app to be powerful features on that big screen at home.

 

Here are my three quick conclusions for Apple TV and Periscope: 

Periscope is a live video streaming app for iOS and Android developed by Kayvon Beykpour and Joe Bernstein.

 

Periscope lets you broadcast live video to the world. Going live will instantly notify your followers who can join, comment and send you hearts in real time. The more hearts you get, the higher they flutter on the screen.

Beykpour and Bernstein came up with the idea for Periscope while traveling abroad in 2013. Beykpour was in Istanbul when protests broke out in Taksim Square. He wanted to see what was happening there, so he turned to Twitter. While he could read about the protests, he couldn't see them.

They started the company in February 2014, under the name Bounty. They raised $1.5 million from Founder Collective, Scott Belsky, Maveron, Google Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Bessemer, Stanford – StartX and Sam Shank in April 2014.

Periscope was acquired Jan, 2015 by Twitter before the product had been publically launched. One investor source says the acquisition amount was "sizeable", above $50 million. Another says it fell between $75 and $100 million. A third says the deal was "smallish".

The acquisition was officially announced in a tweet from Periscope and retweeted by Twitter CEO Dick Costolo on March 13 after the rival video streaming app Meerkat was a breakout hit at South by Southwest 2015 (Mar 13-17). Meerkat became the talk of SXSW partially due to Twitter cutting Meerkat off from its social graph just as the festival was starting.^[8]

Periscope was launched on March 26, 2015.^[9][10] Later, on May 2