Now, that's a clever tie-in for a debut.
Livestreaming app Meerkat launched an embeddable player Friday, so that content it broadcasts can be viewed on other digital services. And its first offering of its embeddable-player content will work hand-in-hand, simultaneously with the Discovery Channel's wildly-popular Shark Week event, beginning July 5.
The Meerkat player will reportedly add behind-the-scenes content from the week on Discovery's DLive web page. Shark Week content will also be fed to Meerkat users through Discovery's @SharkWeek Twitter account.
According to Discovery, the Meerkat user experience for Shark Week will include: "Finbassador" shark experts (photographers, educators and conservationalists) sharing their inside stories, a shark feeding from Baltimore's renowned National Aquarium and "Shark on the Street" Q&A session.
Once Twitter purchased livestreaming startup Periscope this past January, it didnt' take long to use its new acquisition to wage war against Meerkat. Although Meerkat was rocked by the purchase, this is just the kind of thing it needs to get back to a fully-healthy state. Or at least try to.
Meerkat co-founder Ben Rubin told Tech Crunch the app wanted "one great example" to spark its new embed feature. The company would be hard-pressed to find a better hook than Discovery's Shark Week. The embedded Meerkat clips should be all over the Internet across several digital services, beginning July 5, and that can only open the door for a brighter future.
"We just want to be the livestreaming button to everywhere and empower creators," Rubin told USA Today. "The past month was our highest in traffic ever and we continue to watch the community grow. One of the ways to keep the momentum is empowering our users."
