I’m really stoked to introduce Cameo, a new feature we’ve been working on for the last couple of months. Cameo lets the broadcaster invite viewers to take over their stream for up to 60 seconds. Meerkat is all about powerful spontaneous shared experiences, and Cameo is the strongest manifestation of this vision we've introduced yet. It's also just the beginning.
We’ve been quietly testing it out the past few weeks and it’s really fun — changes the whole dynamic of the stream.
We’ll streaming all day today from @AppMeerkat, tune in and we’ll cameo you in! #CameoParty 😎
I’d love to hear who your dream Cameo would be? Any feedback you have or what you think an interesting cameo use case could be. Leave your comments here.
As a bonus in this update… we’re introducing Facebook graph so you can extend your meerkat network to those you’re friends with or pages you follow on Facebook.
@benrbn This has absolutely been the coolest thing to work on.... so far 😎🙊
Report
@benrbn The Pope. Politicians running for office will absolutely use this (for video town halls) if they're smart, but a world leader with a billion followers is the killer app.
@benrbn Cameo is an awesome feature (on paper) - looking forward to trying it out IRL. Meerkat Library & Facebook connections are spot on too - keep up the good work!
@benrbn has been talking about this movement toward "participatory" apps and experiences since Meerkat blew up 4 months ago. This is their biggest update, giving the audience an opportunity to join the conversation and “take over” the broadcaster’s stream. So smart.
I’ll be hosting a Product Hunt cameo session today at 4pm PST here. Would love to chat with you all. 😊
This looks so cool! My mind is currently exploding thinking of the possibilities.
@benrbn@jsneedles does this show the main stream and the cameo top and bottom (would be great for conversations), or does the cameo take over the entire screen?
I see Product Hunt has an upcoming community cameos stream scheduled. @rrhoover, what do you envision using cameos for?
@ninjudd we're always excited to experiment with new apps and ways to hang with the Product Hunt community. My first Meerkat stream was a walkthrough preview of an unreleased design update to producthunt.com on a Sunday afternoon. Hundreds of people joined instantly and provided feedback in real-time. Cameo will be a much more engaging and fun opportunity to do something similar and give some cool folks an opportunity to share their voice and thoughts.
There's a lot we can do. Maybe we should do Cameo elevator pitches. Other ideas? 😉
@ninjudd hey Justin! thank you! For start you are taking over the entire stream!
Report
@benrbn Yeah. The latency is going to be challenging for interactive cameos. Perhaps using WebRTC to send the video peer-to-peer with the cameo guest and broadcasting the combined video from the stream owner's device would work.
@ninjudd then you'll limit the audience. webrtc are becoming efficient in latency only below 100-150 watchers. but there are cool new technologies that are making the future more feasible now and we are working on it!
Hey Ben + Meerkat team, congrats on the success you have earned so far! I've been following your journey from day 1 and it's been a pleasure to watch you guys grow and expand the app. Can you speak a bit more about the 60 second limitation for Cameo and why you chose to do it that way? I've thought about this feature for a while and envisioned a team of journalists such as the good folks at Mashable or TheVerge sharing a single broadcast between multiple journalists at the same time from different locations or offices. Another good example would be streaming Product Hunt events - if there are 50 events going on at the same time in different cities, it would be interesting if the original broadcaster could allow others from different cities to take over the broadcast and show us their perspective.
The name Cameo fits perfectly with the 60 second limitation, so kudos on the branding - but personally I think the feature is bigger than simply allowing someone to make a brief appearance. Would you say this is just an experiment for now? @benrbn
@madebyildi we start simple. the biggest lesson we learnt from @yevvo (live video product that can tweet live video to twitter, built by MK team) is that simple wins. 60 seconds is an appetizer to a whole radical vision of deeper human connection that happens in real time and in massive scale.
ChatWallette
Aggregations.io
Hovercode
Jason and Tyler 100mph Podcast - Episode 1
ChatWallette
Product Hunt
ChatWallette
ChatWallette
ChatWallette
Product Hunt
Aggregations.io
ChatWallette
ChatWallette
Startup TV
Flutter 3.0
ChatWallette
ChatWallette
Airmail
Tribes