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Twitter had been struggling for a while to attract new users, that might be the reason why the company acquired the live video streaming app Periscope last year. It is available in Android and iOS and it now has more than 10 million users actively uploading their videos. Comments from other users will appear in real-time right on the video. While the app’s approach is to show enough content to make its users want to keep coming back to the app, the company is updating it on both platforms with new features that users have been asking for a while.
As of now, the app only allowed for videos to be taken in portrait mode, but the company knows that there are times when capturing a natural landscape or a large group of people is better shot in landscape mode, at least that was one of the most requested features. The update includes support for videos in this new format and Periscope is making sure that the experience works seamlessly across every platform and even in the web. Plus, the app might launch soon as a TV app, so this format will be better appreciated on the large screen. Landscape videos on a phone will get cropped to preserve the format while holding it in portrait orientation, but users can rotate the phone to watch it full screen.
Other features included in the update include a feature that the company is calling Share Context. Users will now be able to see who shared the broadcast that appears in their home feed, the name of the user will appear at the bottom of the picture. For those users that are visually impaired, Periscope is adding more accessibility features. Finally, there’s a feature called Mutual Follow, this is exclusive to Android devices at the moment, but the company is working on bringing it to iOS devices in a near future. This feature allows users to see a list of mutual friends (people they follow who follow them back) when they start a private broadcast. Chances are, users will want to share their video with this group of people. Still, they can choose a more select group or tap an icon to share it with that whole group.