Last year, mobile live streaming apps instantly became popular. Leading the charge were apps like Meerkat and Periscope. While Periscope has stuck around, things haven’t been that good for Meerkat. It may have been one of the most popular apps for a few months last year but it has now reached the end of the road. The developers of Meerkat have officially pulled this app and it will now remain offline.
Life on Air – the company that developed Meerkat – confirmed that it has officially pulled the app because it wants more time to focus on a new group chat app called Houseparty.
Ben Rubin, the co-founder of Life on Air, told TechCrunch that Meerkat may have just been pulled from the app store but the company actually made the decision to shift direction six months after the app was launched. “The category of broadcast (one-to-many) wasn’t breaking as a daily habit…it’s too far away from the everyday user,” he added.
That might very well be one of the factors why Meerkat wasn’t able to sustain its popularity and users, but Twitter’s Periscope contributed to its demise as well. It’s now possible for users to live stream from inside Twitter’s main app and that was perhaps one of the biggest blows it dealt to Meerkat.