I’ve been a Facebook user for years. However, I can remember that when I first started using it I wanted to use it for “personal” networking. I wanted to post pics of my family so that only my family and friends would see them. However, I started getting lots of friend requests from people I didn’t know! Let’s call them “Fans”. These are people that follow me as a public figure on social media and at live events, but people that I’ve never met. For weeks I just kept those requests in the queue without approving or declining them. I didn’t want to be rude and decline them without explanation, nor did I want to approve “strangers” and have them seeing things that were personal to me. Finally after the requests pilled up in the hundreds, I gave up on using Facebook for personal use and started approving everyone. Then I discovered this hidden Facebook feature that made all the difference in the world!
Twitter launched Periscope on March 26th, 2015 and so far it has been a hit with many. It’s estimated that Periscope has 12 Million Users. It even got Apple’s prestigious “App of the Year” for 2015. Yes, all things are pointing to Periscope only getting better from here on out. However, Periscope is in an ever increasing crowded field. While we don’t see Meerkat in the new much anymore, there are others like Blab and yes the 800 lb gorilla, Facebook. Facebook has dipped their two into the live streaming pond a little at a time. Well recently, they waded out a little farther by starting to turn on Live Streaming in their regular Facebook iOS App for “regular folks”. I say “regular folks” because before this advancement, Facebook only allowed Public Figures (and people with Verified Pages) to stream in their Facebook Mentions App. Now keep in mind that this is a slow rollout. You may not have it yet. This feature only started rolling out since December 14th, 2015. I only just got the feature (a button shows up when you have it) right around Christmas day. I have other friends that still don’t have it yet. Whether you have it yet or not, you will ultimately have this ability (at least in the iOS App). It’s just a matter of time as they turn on more users each day.
The Periscope App Could Learn a Few Things from the Facebook App
The average Facebook user has no idea how Facebook really works when it comes to the content that the post. Facebook is a business! While it’s free for users to join and share content with their friends, family and colleagues, Facebook actually makes its money by advertising to its users. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a simple model. You can use the service for free and the only price you pay is seeing ads (unless you have an ad blocker). Yes it would be fine if it stopped here, but it doesn’t.
A good video has great light and good sound. A great video is short, great content, good light, good sound AND STEADY. A shaky unstabilized video may cause your viewers to stop watching for fear of getting motion sickness. While smartphones can capture great video quality these days, the small form factor is hard to hold steady if you are moving or walking. The iPhone 6s Plus can shoot stabilized video and I can stabilize it in post with Adobe Premiere Pro CC. However, if you’re walking your video may be so shaky that the stabilization methods above may not be enough. That’s where a gimbal comes in…
I’ve been getting into LIVE Broadcasting more and more over the past few months as things like Periscope, Live via Facbook Mentions and Twitch.TV continue to gain popularity. I put this page together to help my fellow live mobile broadcasters with gear recommendations to make your broadcasts better. As new gear comes out I’ll continue to update the page. To visit this page in the future point your browser to terrywhite.com/scopekit. Be sure to follow me on Periscope for tips and tricks and more.
This past weekend I had the honor of giving away a NEW TW Broadcaster Pro to one of my followers. I announced the winner LIVE on Periscope and you can catch the replay here:
Periscope is Twitter’s live streaming social media network. With Periscope on your iPhone or Android phone you can live stream to your followers and guests anytime you want, 24 hours a day. Periscope and apps like it empower regular people to broadcast to a worldwide audience for the cost of your data plan/internet connection. I find myself using it more and more and watching “scopes” from others when I have few spare minutes here and there throughout the day. As much as I like what Periscope has done in the short amount of time they’ve been up and running (March 2015), there is definitely room for improvement. I had started a wish list of features that I want to see, but I figured I would invite my Periscope followers to weigh in on what they wanted to see. Hey Periscope! Together we came up with this list:
The ability to bring someone into your scope. For example, if I’m scoping from an event it would be cool to say “now let’s see what’s going on on the other side of the convention center with Larry.” I would hand it over to Larry and he would be live from his phone on my broadcast. I could take control back at any time.
We would REALLY like the ability to scrub, fast forward/rewind replays. As it stands now if you have to leave a replay at some point, when you return to watch it later you have to start over from the beginning.
We want the ability to see the complete list of viewers at the end of a broadcast. This was a feature in the early days, but now we can only see the names of the last few people that joined. I would love to see the COMPLETE list of all viewers.
Time to word wrap the comments so they don’t go all the way across the screen. Comments are great, but often the content suffers because the comments in landscape go all the way across the screen. Yes I know we can hide them, but I still want to see them on one side.
Ability to schedule a broadcast. I like the instant nature of Periscope, but it would be cool if people could have a little advanced notice. Not everyone can drop what they’re doing to tune in. So I’d like to be able to say “Watch me on Periscope today at 5PM to see……”
Put a “stop broadcast” button on the main display. As it stands now you have to swipe down to reveal the stop button. It would be cool to have the option to display it on screen at all times. Yes I know if that were the case some might press it by accident, but really so what. They would learn and not do it again or turn it off in the prefs.
Ability to keep broadcasts longer than 24 hours. Right now Periscopes expire after 24 hours and disappear forever. It would be nice to have the option to keep them longer. For now I’m using katch.me and it seems to offer all the things that Periscope should be doing on their site.
Ability to save videos WITH the comments/hearts. Periscope can save the raw video from your broadcast to your phone’s camera roll. However, it will be just the video/audio without the comments and hearts. It would be great to have the whole broadcast with all the feedback intact. This would make it easy to repurpose it on other sites.
Fix the Saved Videos issues. OK, this is not really a new feature request. This is a cry to fix the existing feature above. You can save the raw video to your camera roll, but since they implemented the landscape broadcasting feature it’s really messed up. Landscape videos show up vertical on your camera roll (at a 90° angle), worse when you flip to the selfie camera the video is recorded the opposite way and totally unacceptable the saved videos are very very low res. At this point you might as well turn this feature off as the vides are pretty much unusable.
Ability to show other content on your smartphone (pictures/videos). It would really be cool to bring up a photo or video from your device and show it in your broadcast.
Share links at the end of a broadcast that people can tap/click on. A lot of times we’re talking about products, websites and services and it would really be cool if the broadcaster could share links at the end that people could actually tap on and go to.
Ability to follow someone on Twitter. It’s odd that a Twitter owned product doesn’t allow you to follow people on twitter from Periscope. I can view people’s profiles and usually their Periscope user name is the same as their Twitter handle, but there is no direct way to follow them on Twitter.
Manual control of the camera and focus. One of the most frustrating aspects of using Periscope in less than ideal conditions is that it offers zero control over the camera. If you were to shoot a video or still with your iPhone you could tap to focus and even hold down your finger to lock the focus and exposure. None of these controls exist while you’re in Periscope.
Recently Watched Tab – This was suggested by one of my followers and I like it. It would be cool to see which broadcasts you recently watched so that you can get back to the replays and follow those broadcasters that you’re not already following.
Groups – Periscope allows you to do private broadcasts to “some” of your followers (this also needs to be fixed), but it would really be cool to be able to private broadcast to a group or share a broadcast to a group.
Profile Views – How cool would it be to see who’s viewed your profile?
Ability for the broadcaster to type comments – I didn’t get the usefulness of this suggestion at first. Then I realized that there have been times that I’ve been broadcasting in places where I couldn’t really talk. It would have been great to be able to answer questions via text comments instead.
Filtering for banned words. I’m quick to block someone from my broadcasts if they are being rude, disruptive and attacking me or others. It would be great to have the ability to create list of banned words to prevent the comments from being made in the first place.
Private messages. As it stands now if you type a comment everyone sees it. Sometimes you may want to send a private comment to a broadcaster such as contact info.
Show the duration of a replay. When you start watching a replay there is a tiny progress bar at the bottom of the screen, but you have no idea how much time is left.
Ability to manually scroll back comments. Sometimes comments go by that we miss. It would be great to have the ability to scroll back the comments and/or slow them down
Allow web viewers to login and do Commenting and give Hearts on the Web
The latest update to Twitter’s live broadcasting app, Periscope brings the long awaited landscape orientation that it so desperately needed. I have a renewed interest in using Periscope and now have the choice to broadcast in portrait or landscape based on what’s best for the content I’m showing. I’m also noticing more and more people getting on board. That’s why I created this NEW video that goes into detail about How to Get Started on Periscope and it even includes a live Periscope broadcast to show how much fun you can have using Periscope:
I shared some tips in the video, but here are some tips that every Periscope user should know:
Make sure you have sufficient bandwidth. The Periscope app itself does a test before even allowing you to start your broadcast, but I like to know even earlier. So I run the Speedtest App to check my speed. You probably want at least 2mbps upload speed to have a good experience.
Create a compelling title for your broadcast. Remember that you’re competing for the attention of your viewers. If they see an Untitled broadcast or a title that is weak or not very descriptive then they will likely not tap on it to watch. For example I could have titled this post “Periscope tips and tricks”, but “The Ultimate Cheat Sheet On Periscope – 10 Killer Tips” sounds way better. Bonus Tip: Add a few emojis to the title so that it stands out even more.
Time to Break Your Egg. When you first sign up to Twitter or Periscope your profile pic will default to a picture of an egg.
You need to change it before doing your first broadcast. Unless I know your name, I will likely never tap to watch or follow anyone with an default profile pic. I will dismiss you/it as spam.
Introduce yourself every time you broadcast. This is one that I have to remember to do each time. You might think “why do I need to introduce myself? These are my followers.” That’s true, but what you have to remember is that a lot of people may be watching you for the first time that have not followed you yet. They saw your tweet, they saw someone else’s share, or perhaps they saw your broadcast on the Periscope map. They don’t know you!
When I read my buddy Scott Kelby’s post yesterday on “7 Reasons Why Photographers Need to Be on Instagram” I was reminded why I like this platform so much. I’ve been active on Instagram since January 2012. At first I looked at it as “oh boy, one more thing to have to post to.” That was before I realized that I could use Instagram as my starting point any time I want to share a photo. Unlike most other sites, Instagram allows me to simultaneously share to my Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare (check-ins), Email and Flickr. If for no other reason I’d use Instagram for this feature alone. However, Instagram actually became the social media site that I visit the most. For some reason (maybe it’s because I’m a visual person), I’m way more likely to scroll my Instagram feed to see all the posts from the people that I follow than I am on Facebook and Twitter. Even when I don’t post, I will still scroll through my Instagram feed checking out posts of others all the way down until I get to the post I saw last. To make the sharing experience even better to Twitter and my Facebook Fan Page, I created an IFTTT script that if I tag my Instagram post with #f it will post it directly to my Facebook Fan Page (as opposed to my personal Facebook page) and #t to post it as a NATIVE Twitter pic instead of just a link to the Instagram post.
Instagram is no longer just for squares. Probably one of the biggest reasons for photographers to rejoice and start using Instagram more is that Instagram now supports landscape and portrait images/videos directly in the Instagram app. I no longer have to use the Squaready Pro app to get the full image into a square format.
Here are 10 Photographers to Follow on Instagram
They each have a unique style and often post pics that make me pause when I’m scrolling my feed:
You might remember my post a couple of weeks ago comparing the NEW Live from Facebook Mentions to Periscope. After doing a few more broadcasts to both services I quickly realized that I usually have a larger number of views on Facebook. I thought that it would be great to be able to stream to both services simultaneously. That way I could finally address both my large Twitter/Periscope following as well as my large Facebook following at the same time. This would of course require streaming from two devices. I could use my iPhone 6 Plus and an iPod touch. The real question was, how would I hold both devices at the same time and keep them steady? I went in search of a “dual tripod head mount” and I found this one on Amazon. I ordered it, but when it arrived I wasn’t that happy with it. For one it was bigger and heavier than I hoped and the bigger problem was that the devices were spaced out too far apart for broadcasting the same thing up close.
That’s when I challenged my friends over at Arkon Mounts to make something better! Not only did they accept the challenge, they showed a mock up the very next day.
The mock up was night and day better than the one that I had put together and even better they would bring it to Photoshop World and hand it to me to try. After I used it for a day I was thrilled with it. It was everything I wanted, but that wasn’t good enough for Aaron. Aaron was concerned that the devices could possibly pop out. He had his company overnight their better smartphone grips (the ones used on their motorcycle mounts) and replaced the ones on mine with the stronger ones.
The TW Broadcaster Pro was born
Check out this video review that I recorded over the weekend:
I did several simultaneous live broadcasts to Periscope and Facebook Mentions Live. As I was walking around the show I got lots of double takes as people assumed I must be shooting 3D video.
Even if I wasn’t streaming to both Periscope and Facebook at the same time, I’d still use this to broadcast to Periscope in it’s current vertical video format and use the second device to record standard 16:9 wide video.
This mount is just freaking awesome with lots of uses. Of course it can be mounted on a tripod too.
It’s also versatile enough to be converted into a single mount (the TW Broadcaster) for those times when you only need to mount one mobile device.
The Bottom Line
I’m thrilled to have this new product which perfectly fits my broadcasting and recording needs. I’m deeply honored to have it named after me as well. Even if you’re not interested in this particular solution you should definitely check out the mounting solutions at www.arkon.com. If you have a need to mount a mobile device, camera, etc, on to something they’ve likely already built a solution for you. If you are interested in the TW Broadcaster Pro you can order it here. Or if you’re interested in the single mount (also great for selfies) TW Broadcaster model you can order it here. You can even take 10% off anything you order from their site with my discount code “twhite”.
