Tech Trend 247

It was history and I was struggling to find a place to see it unfold. 

The U.S. House of Representative's Democrats were staging a sit-in—the first of its kind in this video-driven digital age— trying to force House Republicans to vote on a pair of gun control bills.

Whatever side of the aisle you're on, this was (and is) must-see TV. Except it wasn't on TV. On Wednesday morning, as Rep. John Lewis of Georgia and a small group of other Democratic legislators sat down on the House floor, C-SPAN, the public-service cable network that will stream sometimes painfully dull congressional activity, sometimes gripping congressional testimony and at other times chats about books, suddenly lost what may have been its most compelling feed ever.

Not us

A tweet pinned to the top of C-SPAN's Twitter feed notes that they do not actually have any control over the House of Representatives video feed. That control sits in the hands of the House Recording Studio, which is under the control of the House Majority Leadership (currently the Republicans). The cameras go on when House Speaker Republican Paul Ryan hits the gavel and opens a House session and they go off when the gavel goes down again to signal the end of the session. 

Of course, it's unlikely Ryan and other House Republicans would have seen it in their best interest to turn the feedback on when the sit-in began.

Fortunately, various on-the-floor representatives and their staff were already live streaming the sit-in through Twitter's Periscope and Facebook Live.

C-SPAN chose to pick up those feeds and deliver them straight to TV. 

While I tracked the sit-in through Twitter throughout the day and even caught some Periscope snippets and the live streams directly on Twitter, I didn't really watch the feed until late Wednesday night.

I was following the #NoBillNoBreak hashtag on Twitter and realized that for as interesting as the tweets were, things were heating up in real time on the floor. I wanted to see it live.

I found C-SPAN's web-based feed and started watching. What I saw was remarkable. By the time Ryan returned the House session to order, as the Republicans tried to vote on unrelated bills, the House cameras turned on and C-Span switched from grainy Periscope to the crisp official feed. But as the vote went forward a C-Span anchor took calls, C-Span was effortlessly playing live streams from Periscope and Facebook on the lower third. 

Democrats were shouting down the Speaker of the House with "No Bill, No Break!" and soon singing "We shall overcome." It was the most gripping live politics show I'd ever watched.

Big for C-SPAN, too

"It was an unprecedented, milestone moment," C-SPAN Communications Director Howard Mortman told me. 

"We knew something was happening on the floor, but the feed was down," said Mortman. C-SPAN producers noticed the streaming video from members of congress on their social feeds "and the decision was made to put that on air."

C-SPAN has used streaming video in the past, but only to add color to other C-SPAN coverage.

"But this is unprecedented, to have this kind of video sustained from Periscope and Facebook Live has never been done," said Mortman. 

He could not, by the way, tell me if they used more Facebook Live or Periscope video. The stream did start with California Rep. Scott Peters' Periscope of the sit-in. Mortman said they showed that feed for a while before switching to Facebook Live.

Periscope by a nose?

However, in the hours I watched through the night and even on Thursday morning, most of what I saw were Periscope feeds. And Twitter reported that streams from Peters and fellow Californian Eric Swalwell generated at least 1 million views.

Which makes this an important moment for Periscope and a reminder, perhaps, of why we loved the streaming platform in the first place.

Ever since Facebook launched Facebook Live, its own streaming video service, Periscope, whether in fact or perception, has been relegated to second-class citizen status.

Part of that perception has to do with media companies focusing virtually all of their streaming attention on Facebook's product (most are getting paid to do so). These media companies, including Mashable, are going all-in on Facebook Live not solely because it makes financial sense, but to maintain consistent access to the platform's vast, worldwide audience. It's still not, however, the best platform for real-time news.

Periscope parent Twitter is not, as far as I know, paying for anyone to use its product or fill Periscope with content, but it has done work recently to make the service more present and available. Periscope feeds now play live right inside the Twitter stream — certainly something that helped with the House sit-in visibility — and, second, there's now a live video feed button right inside Twitter. It's still Periscope, but now you no longer have to open the app.

These were smart, strategic moves, but when most of the media that uses your tool to spread news is using someone else's live video product, it may have been too little, too late.

We're back

Not since the Pacquiao vs. Mayweather fight have we seen something so forcefully thrust Periscope back onto the national stage.

This is Periscope's moment to shine.

"This is unprecedented, to have this kind of video sustained from Periscope and Facebook Live has never been done."

C-SPAN continued to cherry pick Periscope streams of House Democrats taking the floor, one after the other to call for gun legislation, hours after Ryan and others have left. He adjourned the session late Wednesday night and Democrats ended their protest Thursday morning, 25 hours after it began. Streamed over Wi-Fi or cellular coverage, the video quality was all over the map.

"We’re talking about technology that's not of the level and quality that you normally get from a C-SPAN production," said Mortman. But their goal is to get the best streams available and to broadcast content from a diverse set of representatives.

The democratizing platform

I don't know if this sudden surge in Periscope's profile will have any impact on its future fortune, but it serves as reminder of the rather distinct difference between Facebook Live and Periscope. The majority of the Facebook user base posts privately. They all have access to Facebook Live, but are not used to or adept at posting publicly. 

Periscope and, more importantly, Twitter's user base posts publicity by default. It's democratic and Periscope was probably the most natural place for the House Representatives and their handlers to turn when they wanted to get the word out, especially after C-SPAN's feed was cut.

As for C-SPAN, they seem sold on streaming video as another content source. Mortman told me that the streams have given them access to the House chamber in ways that weren't possible before. 

"It presents an opportunity to be able to add more video to our coverage," he added.

Whether or not that means more airtime for Periscope and Facebook Live feeds is unknown. C-SPAN continued to air sit-in streams until the very end, 25 hours later.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

As Democrats began a sit-in Wednesday morning to protest the lack of action on gun control legislation, the House of Representatives went into recess. Recess means no TV cameras allowed in the chamber, which in turn meant no cable news coverage of the historic sit-in still occurring in the House.

And yet without media access, the story exploded. As C-Span was forced to stop rolling its cameras, the story quickly moved to social media with the hashtag #NoBillNoBreak and later #DemocraticSitIn. Pictures of representatives sitting on the floor were posted all over the Internet, people were retweeting representatives' tweets, tuning into Internet live streams and sharing their thoughts on Facebook.

With no television cameras allowed, the phenomenon offered a rare opportunity in 2016: To see how an ongoing news story spreads and evolves when its chief drivers are almost exclusively limited to social media. Here's how it played out, and what the key takeaways are for today's most dominant social video platforms:

Periscope

The live streams began as Representative Scott Peters started broadcasting the sit-in through Periscope.

Before Wednesday, Peters told The Guardian he had never used Periscope before and it was suggested to him by one of his staffers. Since the TV camera blackout was still in place, Peters' broadcasts were then picked up by C-Span and other media outlets.

In years past, a media blackout like the one on Wednesday would mean the public wouldn't get a live view of what was happening inside the House chamber. But this is the era of social media, where a single tweet can find a worldwide audience.

Because Periscope is built on Twitter, the House sit-in played to the strength of that platform: Live, breaking news has always lived first on Twitter, relaying events in real time. It didn't hurt that the media basically lives on Twitter. Periscope generated a lot of the initial attention for the sit-in and, even more remarkably, kept it through the next day.

In response to all the interest, Periscope even created a channel to follow everything being broadcast from the House chamber.

Thanks in large part to Periscope, the world was able to watch the sit-in live and instead of just reading about it. Peters also suggested to fellow participants to start broadcasting alongside him, which added fuel to the growing fire.

Facebook Live

Participants soon started broadcasting via Facebook Live, too, including Senator Cory Booker.

Facebook Live typically has a larger reach than Periscope in terms of viewership, which helped spread the word beyond the Twitterverse and make it part of mainstream conversation. While there's less of a conversation on Facebook, it's a very effective medium for showing an event to the widest possible audience. 

Both Periscope and Facebook Live now archive all broadcasts by default, but an ongoing stream has more staying power on Facebook since it can live at the top of many people's feeds. Certainly, Twitter has moved toward algorithmic-driven feeds as well, but its most engaged users favor more of a real-time experience. That's why the sit-in broadcasts on Facebook have hundreds of thousands of more views then Periscope.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday highlighted how live Internet video, and Facebook Live in particular, helped the sit-in reach a wide audience, with more than 3 million views on Facebook Live alone.

Twitter and Instagram

Consistent posting to Twitter kept fueling engagement with the world outside the House chamber, with images and video clips from participants getting thousands of likes and retweets. 

The sheer amount of content being shared to and spreading around Twitter was how the news of the sit-in spread the fastest, quickly becoming a trending topic and remaining so even after the sit-in ended 24 hours later. 

Popular Twitter users quickly jumped on the hashtags, with supportive tweets and funny pictures getting huge impressions and further spreading the word, from Kim Kardashian to President Barack Obama.

While some Instagram posts were shared through Twitter, they didn't get quite the same engagement on their native platform.

Snapchat

Congresspeople were even sharing news and scenes from the sit-in on Snapchat, including Booker, Representative Eric Swalwell, Representative Beto O'Rourke and more.

Snapchat is the most intimate social network, and all of the Snapchat stories coming from Congresspeople on the floor made the whole event more personal. It's one thing to get the bird's-eye view from C-Span's cameras, and another entirely to feel like you're on the floor with them.

Content on Snapchat isn't as easily shareable as on Twitter and Facebook, but its audience is entirely different. Snapchat users tend to skew younger, so the Representatives sharing to that platform helped bring the sit-in to the attention of people who otherwise not know about it. Authenticity rules the day on Snapchat as well, and the Democrats righteous indignation (whether you agree with it or not) certainly plays well to its audience.

Ironically, the media blackout became the best catalyst for making the sit-in a social media hit. The inherent interactivity of social platforms means the demonstration became a conversation, as opposed to yet another political event happening way over in Washington, visible on TV but still removed from our lives. With social as the driver, it was in our apps, our phones, our "social graphs" — occupying the same space as our dinner plans and vacation photos. That probably wouldn't have happened if the cameras kept rolling.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Live-streamed Internet broadcasts are the hottest thing in social media right now, and Periscope generated a lot of that heat when it launched in 2015. 

While Periscope broadcasts were previously only stored and viewable for 24 hours, the app is now testing out a new feature where users can choose to save videos indefinitely.

The new feature is currently in open beta, which means anyone can test it out right now, CEO Kayvon Beykpour announced in a broadcast (of course) on the service. By putting "#save" in the broadcast title, the recorded clip live on for as long as you choose. Of course, previously, there was a workaround and you could store the videos offline.

During the announcement, Beykpour said the "#save" designation in broadcast titles will go away once the feature leaves beta and becomes an official part of the app. For the time being, "#save" can't have any prefixes or suffixes attached to it in the description.

The "#save" designation in broadcast titles will go away once the feature leaves beta

Naturally, this isn't great news for third-party app Katch, which made a business out of allowing users to save Periscope broadcasts to be posted elsewhere.

This turn from temporary to optionally permanent falls in line with Periscope's efforts to build out the platform, including its workforce. Periscope recently hired veteran tech reporter/editor Evan Hansen to begin curating and highlighting content on the app and develop an editorial team. He left a similar position at Medium as head of content labs.

With growth into areas that lean toward editorial content and content curation, it makes sense that Periscope is testing out a #save feature. If a broadcast is particularly popular and could stand to live a long life and bring in a large number of viewers over time, why not facilitate longer lifespans for videos?

With this change, it seems like Periscope is following in the steps of Facebook Live, which has always allowed users to save videos indefinitely after the broadcast is over. But in April, Beykpour told Mashable his company doesn't focus on competition like that.

"If we spent our time worrying about competitors, we wouldn’t actually build anything of value to the world," Beykpour said.

If anything, it looks as if Periscope is taking a cue from Snapchat, which also moved from purely-temporary image and video sharing to longer-lasting features and editorial content curation with stories and Discover.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.