Periscope Disappears Tomorrow, Legacy Lives On In Twitter

Social networking giants are known for copying or buying up what may appear to be trendy at that time. Some become almost household names but a good number also fade into obscurity. Twitter doesn't seem to have much luck in that area, with Vine and now Periscope's demise. The latter will officially vanish from the mobile and Internet world tomorrow but its functionality will survive within Twitter even if its name will no longer ring a bell a few years down the road.

Acquired by Twitter in 2015, Periscope capitalized on the booming live streaming market, offering a convenient way to do it all from a smartphone, no PCs required. Although live streaming is still a popular and sometimes lucrative industry, it has unfortunately become so common that almost every social network had its own platform, including Twitter. What that meant was that Twitter users had very little incentive left to hop onto a different app for something the main app already offers anyway.

That meant that Periscope's own user base shrunk considerably and it eventually no longer made sense to keep the service running and keeping the code updated. Last December, Twitter decided to cut its losses and the service will be officially shutting down on April 1. For the platform's remaining loyal fans, that's no joke.

On that date, Pericope's apps will disappear from the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store. The service will also no longer be available so the app won't work if you find some way to get it installed on your phone. All that will remain will be the website where you'll be able to still watch public videos for posterity.

Of course, Twitter already has its own Live streaming functionality, most likely taken from Periscope, so its DNA still lives on. More interestingly, the Periscope team will be working on Spaces, Twitter's next big gamble, which will create an audio chat room experience to take on the fledgling Clubhouse.