IF YOU’RE PAYING attention this morning, you’ll notice something new in your Twitter app for iOS. Instead of seeing a link every time someone you follow starts a broadcast on Periscope, you’ll see that broadcast, live, right in your timeline. Soon, you’ll see it in Twitter’s apps for other platforms too. In Twitter’s quest to be what you might call The Right Now Network—the place where everyone goes to see what’s happening at this exact second—what better way than by showing you live video in the stream?
Closer integration between Periscope and Twitter has been a long time coming. When Periscope CEO Kayvon Beykpour first sat down with Twitter’s Dick Costolo and Jack Dorsey to talk about an acquisition, they started talking about all the things they could do better as compatriots in a single company, rather than as partners. This was the first thing they talked about: integrating streams into Twitter, so many more people could see and easily watch them.