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Meerkat is dead but its creator's new Houseparty app is the life and soul

By Ben R.

Updated: Sep 30, 2016, 7:33 PM

Meerkat's fate was sealed when rival Periscope was acquired by Twitter

Meerkat was one of last year's big success stories. The live streaming app was a major hit, but the concurrent emergence of Periscope meant that only one was likely to stick. With Twitter having purchased Periscope for a reported $100 million, Meerkat has gone the way of the Dodo, or to use a more appropriate analogy, the Betamax.

Periscope's acquisition was always likely to mark Meerkat's demise, and so it has proved; the iOS app has been officially canned and we expect the Play Store version to soon follow suit.

Meerkat is dead but its creator's new Houseparty app is the life and soul

With plenty of VC funding still at his disposal and a team clearly capable of churning out a decent app, CEO Ben Rubin noted earlier this year that his company would shift direction to a new social media-focused enterprise. This has spawned an intriguing new app called Houseparty.

Houseparty, like Meerkat, is focused around live streaming. You make a virtual group, or Houseparty with your friends and whenever you fire the app up, you can all communicate face to face. It's a bit like video conferencing with less of the businessy connotations, and positions itself as an improvement on IM group chats that often get clogged with messages.

It's a sad day for Meerkat, but there's little time to mourn with the Houseparty that has apparently already begun. If you'd like to check it out, tap the links provided below.