Watch the MET Gala live from Katie Couric’s POV, view a sunset in Maui or peer into a party in Sao Paulo with Periscope, a crazy hot app just launched with a million+ users, backed by Twitter. Turn your phone into a TV.

What It Is:

Watching dated cute kitten clips on You Tube is so yesterday.  The age of live broadcasts is here and it being “televised” by your smartphone. Backed by Twitter, Periscope app – with over 1 million users in its first 10 days – allows users to broadcast live from anywhere, giving you the experience of watching live TV on your phone. Plus, you get to comment and watch comments pop along the way. “Explore the world in real time through someone else’s eyes” is what Periscope says. My favorite place to start is the “Most Loved” list.

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This technology totally threw HBO off in the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight last week, where Periscope users broadcast views from their impossible to get,  multi-thousand-dollar seats for the world to watch, without paying the $100 PPV fee.  Sure the quality was fly-weight but you saved $100. AND, in this instance, it was a copyright violation – not cool. But, there is something to this.  Periscope is about giving you a platform to show the world what you’re seeing, where ever it may be and letting others watch.  IT lets you tweet out your feed. Are you watching history happen, right on the ground? Watching Justin Bieber flip out in the Meat Packing District? Stream what you’re seeing on the Periscope app and let others watch and comment without tuning into TMZ, CNN (or Fox News, in my case).

The Fine Print:

There’s a lot of raw power here in the concept of live streaming video, but it needs to be harnessed still.  There are alternatives to Periscope, including Meerkat, which ups Periscope by having a Google Android app available (Periscope is currently an iTunes-only app). There are functions like search that will soon allow you to find broadcasts near you, like that Nick Jonas concert you couldn’t get to. Thanks to promised functionality and an Android app, Periscope will help you discover content from around the world, friends or neighbors that you won’t want to miss.

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There are a few hates on this thought including:

[blocktext align=”center”] Im a fan of the app but it definitely still can be faster. The scrolling can be smoother….There should be a way to not have streams that have foreign language cause some people won’t understand….Lastly the storage, I really hope it can use less then what it is now in an upcoming update  – Chriis_M [/blocktext]

Where To Get It:

Periscope on iTunes (soon to be on Android)