Periscope announces 2M daily active users, claims more than 10M have created accounts since launch
We'd like to share an exciting update … Kiruti Itimu / Techweez : Periscope Cares More About “Time watched” Over “Daily Active Users” Metric Nate Swanner / The Next Web : Periscope now has 10 million users who watch 40 years of content daily Casey Newton / The Verge : Periscope now has 10 million users Aaron Mamiit / Tech Times : Periscope Has 10 Million Registered Users Who Watch 40 Years Worth Of Video A Day Ulrich Bachman / Tech News Today : Periscope Nearly 2 Million Daily Active Users Make Twitter Happy Sneha Johari / MediaNama : Periscope claims 10 million user accounts, 1.8M daily active users Sneha Bokil / Fone Arena : Periscope clocks 10 million registered users John Kennedy / Silicon Republic : Twitter's Periscope surpasses 10m accounts, 2m daily users Trevor Mogg / Digital Trends : Periscope hits 10m sign-ups, though apparently it's all about ‘time watched’ Stuart Dredge / Guardian : Twitter's Periscope video app has signed up 10m people in four months Andrew Hutchinson / Social Media Today : Periscope Now Has 10 Million Accounts - Time for Your Brand to Start Live-Streaming? Queenie Wong / SiliconBeat : Twitter removes 140-character limit for direct messages Alice Truong / Quartz : Periscope is pulling ahead of its competitors in live-streaming apps Brent Dirks / App Advice : Twitter-owned Periscope tallies 10 million users Eric Jhonsa / Seeking Alpha : Twitter officially ups DM character limit to 10K; Periscope tops 10M accounts Steven Loeb / VatorNews : Periscope reveals it has 10M total users and 2M DAUs Gary Ng / iPhone in Canada Blog : Periscope Surpasses 10 Million Users, “40 years of Video Watched Per Day” Adario Strange / Mashable : Periscope claims 10 million accounts as live-streaming apps heat up Christopher Heine / Adweek : Periscope Now Has 10 Million Users Who Watch 21 Million Minutes a Day Richard Lawler / Engadget : Periscope's live streaming video reaches nearly 2 million users daily Bree Brouwer / Tubefilter : Periscope Hits 10 Million Users, 40 Years Of Content Watched Per Day Janko Roettgers / Variety : Periscope Now Has 10 Million Accounts, Streams 350,000 Hours A Day Lucas Matney / TechCrunch : Periscope Has 10M Registered Users Watching 40 Years Of Video Per Day See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Periscope arrived as the winner of a two-horse race: Twitter confirmed its acquisition of Periscope just as rival Meerkat's hype peaked at SXSW, then launched it weeks later betting on replays as the killer feature against noisy push notifications. The early warning sign was engagement — after an explosive launch week, daily tweets to streams had already settled near Meerkat's level, leaving open whether the app was a fad or a platform.
This announcement is Twitter's answer to that question: roughly 2 million daily active users out of more than 10 million registered accounts since launch, a retention ratio it can now show advertisers and partners. The follow-on coverage reinforces the arc — broadcast volume kept compounding to 200 million total broadcasts within eight months, and the app pushed beyond phones through GoPro integration for action-camera streaming.
First-order effects
- Meerkat's core pitch — momentum in live video — is directly undercut: Periscope now holds the only published scale numbers in the head-to-head, converting an unresolved rivalry into a lopsided one.
- Twitter gains a concrete engagement metric to attach to its platform story at a moment when the acquisition was still being judged on buzz rather than usage.
Second-order effects
- The 2M-of-10M ratio makes watch-time and broadcast volume the metrics Periscope will compete on going forward — coverage of the same announcement notes the company emphasizing time watched over raw DAU — pushing competitors to report deeper engagement stats rather than registrations.
- Scale plus the GoPro hook positions Periscope as a destination for professional-grade creators (action cameras, event streaming), pulling adjacent hardware makers toward native live-video integrations.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, standalone livestreaming apps lose their viability as independents: distribution inside an existing social graph (Twitter's) proves decisive over feature parity, foreshadowing live video becoming a standard feature of major platforms rather than a product category.
- The metric shift from account counts to watch-time anticipates how the whole industry will be measured — registered users become table stakes while sustained viewing becomes the currency platforms sell.
The trend: Live video is consolidating from standalone apps like Meerkat into features of incumbent social platforms, with watch-time displacing user counts as the metric that matters.