Concurrency

#Meerkat became a trending topic yesterday. VCs, actors, musicians, founders, and even a US Senator all jumped into the live streaming pool…

#Meerkat became a trending topic yesterday. VCs, actors, musicians, founders, and even a US Senator all jumped into the live streaming pool, and for many who jumped in with them, the internet felt fresh again. This week I wrote a few thoughts about why live made the internet feel less lonely. Barely a week old and something had struck a nerve. For some, Meerkat was shifting from trend to verb.

I want to explore a couple questions. One why and one what. TLDR: My answer to both is concurrency, but I’ll get there.

Why Now?

We've seen this show before. I watched the inauguration of our President live on Ustream. I saw Bono jam live on YouTube. Be honest. We all watched the Shiba Inu Puppy cam. So what? Why is now different?

Turns out the world changed since Obama came into office. Social networks became denser, data networks accelerated, AWS and others continued to drop prices for compute cycles and content serving at scale. All important shifts, but here’s the big kicker…

Isolate 2008–2014 and the picture is much more clear. The other day, Josh Elman, a good friend and one of the smartest guys I know, posted this:

It got me thinking. Was Meerkat growing because of concurrency on Twitter, or was it something else? Twitter is the world’s town hall, so it is a natural forum for live, synchronous video to thrive. We’re there already talking about the world as it happens, organizing around #s in realtime. Live mobile video here made sense.

Meerkat rooms become living hashtags.

But step back. Have you ever upvoted something on Product Hunt, watched a video on Buzzfeed, or listened to a song on Spotify and wondered “Who else is doing this same thing right now?” You have the sense that other people are out there online, but how many? Who? Now? You see people pointed face down at a mobile screen all day long walking in the streets, many on Twitter, many on other apps. Meerkat shows the power of concurrency on Twitter, but observing a busy sidewalk shows us the power of concurrency on iOS and Android.

If a tweet can send you to a Meerkat room to open up a distinct app and join into a conversation, what happens when it’s embedded natively into their platform? (I’m excited to see the growth once that friction is removed, which feels inevitable at this point.) But take that line one step further. What happens if livestreaming is embedded into EVERY app?

The popularity of Layer is showcasing that native chat is the current killer enhancement to mobile apps because it enables community and communication. Could synchronous video streaming be the next? If the notification came in that Alexia Tsotsis was live on the TechCrunch app, or Mike Isaac on NY Times Now, or David Lidsky on the Fast Company app, talking about their latest post, would you tune in? Now what about your favorite Pinner or Instagrammer? Not in a different app, but right there. Built natively into the context where they fit and surrounded by their community. I bet many would. Why? Because we’re always tied to a smart phone, consuming the same things at the same time. We just didn’t know we were all doing it concurrently, till now.

What Next?

The graph above shows no signs of stopping. Researchers estimate there will be 6B smartphone connected humans by 2020. That’s a whole lot of people who never experienced a world of live streaming video pushed out over cable, now connected to high speed internet and high resolution screens. What happens when those 6 Billion get the message to tune in to the same feed? When something so compelling demands the attention of every connected person? I have no idea what that moment will be, but after this week it feels like it’s not far off. For those who have tuned into a livestream over the last week, you know there is a level of intimacy and connectivity that reminds me of a public FaceTime with friends sitting around a campfire. I’m excited to see how large that campfire can get. Thousands? Millions? Billions? Globally? Possibly. Concurrently.

Follow me on Twitter at @Mazzeo and I’ll keep you posted next time I go live.