Twitter account no longer mandatory for Periscope use

Live streaming video from your phone is such a stupidly genius idea, that many people are probably kicking themselves for not coming up with a solution themselves. While the concept is not new, the innovation of Meerkat and Periscope is their simplicity and ease of use. In other words, sometimes it is the execution that makes something take off.

As far as I am concerned, Meerkat is dead -- replaced by the arguably superior Periscope. Since Twitter owns Periscope, it pulled a wise, yet evil move -- block Meerkat from tapping into the social network. Today, in an odd announcement, Periscope announces that a Twitter account is no longer needed for the video service. Why do I call this odd? Periscope could drive Twitter account sign-ups -- why impede that?

"Until now, you needed a Twitter account to signup. For existing Twitter users, we recommend signing up via Twitter (we'll help suggest people to follow based on your Twitter social graph), but we've also added an option to signup using your phone number", says Team Periscope.

While I suppose some people don't feel comfortable associating their Twitter profile with Periscope (or don't have a Twitter account at all), I would think most people would rather share that then their phone number. Would you want to disclose your phone number?

Changing a profile photo seems like a no-brainer type feature and quite frankly, I am surprised it was not an option before (I never tried to change it). The team explains, "we think you look great, but by popular demand, we added an option to change your profile picture. A tap on your avatar in your Profile will prompt you to change your photo to one in your Camera Roll, or to take a new photo".

In addition to the aforementioned changes, Periscope also gets updates to user interaction. You can easily reply to a user in chat by tapping their comment and then tapping "reply". More importantly, however, you can publicly ban users. While you could ban someone before, it will now announce it to the other viewers. This should hopefully curb idiotic activity through shame.

Are you a Periscope user? What do you think of these changes? Tell me in the comments.

Photo Credit: Memo Angeles/Shutterstock