Twitter's Periscope has announced that it is now allowing users to watch live streams up to 24 hours after they have aired on desktop.
The feature was made available on mobile shortly after the launch of the app, and it has now been extended to include those on desktop. The announcement follows criticism that streams often end before users have the chance to watch them. The new feature should help remedy this issue.
To play the stream, users simply have to click a Periscope link, which will take them to the website in their browser. They can then see the stream by simply pressing the play button.
Periscope is still a very young app, having only been launched a few months ago. This means it's likely that more features will be added to the app in the near future. For example, some users are calling for the ability to embed streams into their websites and pages. Others are calling for the 24-hour replay time limit to be removed completely. That would make the service much more like YouTube, in the sense that users could potentially search Periscope for videos they want to watch.
Periscope itself is designed specifically for Twitter users, allowing them to stream content directly to their followers. It's not the only live-streaming app out there — Periscope's competitor, Meerket, also lets users stream to their Twitter followers.
The two apps signal the movement of the Internet toward higher-bandwidth content like video, as opposed to simple images. This seems to be widespread across the Internet, with the likes of Facebook autoplaying videos and YouTube becoming increasingly popular.
Periscope and Meerket also highlight a growing concern over piracy — something that was especially evident during the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao boxing match, with thousands streaming the match for users who would otherwise not be able to watch it.
The news also comes only around a month after the Android version of Periscope was launched, opening the service up to hundreds of millions of potential users. Many of these users are likely to be media and celebrity personalities, with Periscope growing as a way to promote and market content.
Of course, video streaming is also very appealing to the likes of YouTube, with streaming increasingly becoming an important part of the website over the past few years — especially when it comes to things like gaming. Indeed, YouTube recently launched an app dedicated to game streaming and related content called YouTube Gaming.
