Archive Your Live Streamed Meerkat Videos on YouTube With #Katch
A new hack makes it possible to automatically save your live stream videos -- without ever having to download an app.
By Catherine Clifford •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Meerkat is a particularly buzzy new startup that was built on top of the Twitter platform making it possible for users to live stream video to their Twitter followers. And while the app allows people to download the live stream to their mobile devices, it can be a huge hassle to share after the fact. "Katch" is looking to change that. Calling itself the "record button for Meerkat," the app is built on top of the Meerkat software that allows you to automatically capture that video and save it to YouTube in case you want to have a look later on. Relive the moment kind of thing.
Related: Meerkat Was Just a Side Project. Here's How it Became a Viral Sensation.
The coolest thing about the Katch hack is that you don't need to download an app to use the product. You simply include the hashtag #Katch after the Meerkat that you want to save and the software replies to your tweet with a YouTube link to where your video has been archived.
Meerkat founder Ben Rubin thinks the hack is pretty nifty.
OMG SO COOL http://t.co/KepY67F0bX cc @katchkats ???
— Ben Rubin (@benrbn) March 21, 2015Here's an example of #Katch being used to get a permanent YouTube archive of this impressive Meerkat of the Big Apple skyline.
@tarikh |REPLAY| View from #katch http://t.co/8DfG0YibSt
— #katch (@katchkats) March 23, 2015#Katch was built by the New York-based software team at Seen, a company that uses algorithms to organize and sort data pulled in real-time from social media.
The #Katch hack rolled out at a tumultuous time for Meerkat. Twitter, the platform on which Meerkat is built, just bought a similar real-time video sharing company, Periscope. That leaves some pretty serious questions as to the future viability of Meerkat. Twitter has already disconnected Meerkat's access to Twitter's massive social graph. What that means is that where previously, a new Meerkat user would have all the same followers as he or she has on Twitter, now a new Meerkat user has to build his or her own network of followers in other ways.That's a pretty serious blow to the growth strategy of Meerkat.
Related: Twitter Premieres New Mobile Video and Group Messaging Features
Despite the setbacks, Meerkat is flush with cash after just raising $12 million in a Series B led by Greylock Partners. The raise values Meerkat at $40 million, according to reports.
Considering it was a mere 20 days ago that Meerkat founder Rubin decided to really put some muscle behind what was then an idle fancy, that's a pretty crazy ride.
Today I made a decision to focus whole team on our wild side project Meerkat. --Let's hope this is one of those tweets.
— Ben Rubin (@benrbn) March 3, 2015With Meerkat being pushed out of the metaphorical nest of blue birds, it's a bit of a wonder that Seen decided to make a hack for the Meerkat technology, not the Periscope service. If you are going to build an app on top of another product, wouldn't you build on top of the foundation that seems more stable, all other things being equal?
That's just a matter of access though, says Seen CEO Tarikh Korula. The Seen team "built a hack for Meerkat because it was public and they were supportive. We haven't had a chance to play with Periscope yet because it's still private!" says Korula, in an email to Entrepreneur.
Related: Meerkat CEO on Twitter Blockage: It's Their House, and We Need to Respect That
