Twitter’s Periscope will soon support livestreaming from drones

Periscope users are getting some new features designed to make their livestream broadcasts more impactful. The Twitter-owned company said that over the next few weeks, you’ll not only be able to search for broadcasts by title or topic, you’ll also have the ability to control the longevity of your broadcasts (read: save). In addition, Periscope named DJI as the first drone company to support its livestreamed videos.

Better searching and saving

While the Search and Save features might seem similar to existing features, the company is quick to explain that there are key differences. Previously, you were able to search for livestreams produced by people you follow, but “in the coming weeks” — within the global feed — you will be able to expand that to search based on topics or titles. Whether you want to know who’s broadcasting live from the Olympics or find out more about that political rally, cultural event, or whatever else is going on — even if you’re searching by hashtag — this could make it easier.

Twitter has added a pre-populated set of categories, such as #Music and #Travel, for you to choose from. Creators interested in helping surface their livestreams can just add in the relevant hashtag to their broadcast’s title, or they can choose the topic on search after hitting the broadcast button.

By broadening its discovery capability, Twitter is making it easier for you to keep up with live events from all over the world. Right now, in the Periscope global feed, you’re shown just a highlighted list of people featured — or you can view available streams by map, but that’s a mixture of everyone currently at that location. What if I wanted to see who was broadcasting live about the wildfire taking place in Alberta, Canada? Improving the search capability to query based on title certainly makes things a bit easier.

Beyond discovery, Periscope will soon let you better manage how long your videos actually remain on the service. Last week, Twitter announced the launch of a public beta program that would save Periscope streams longer than 24 hours if you use the #save hashtag in the title. Turns out that was just part of the update, as the company said that now all broadcasts will automatically be saved permanently to your Periscope profile, and also in tweets. You’ll have complete control over this setting — you can choose to have broadcasts auto-delete after 24 hours or delete individual broadcasts whenever you want.

When you save a Periscope stream, you’ll get the video, comments, and hearts.

Flight of the Periscope drones

Following its integration with GoPro earlier this year, Periscope is going after the drone market, picking up one of the better-known manufacturers: DJI. By doing so, Twitter is upping its game against Facebook, which has opened up its livestreaming API to third-party camera makers and developers, and, like Twitter, has put a great deal of resources into the live broadcast space. Of course, there’s no love lost between the two companies, which are vying over the title of best source for “live events.”

To enable this update, connect your iPhone to any of the select DJI drones — specifically the DJI Inspire, Phantom 4, Phantom 3 Professional or Advanced, and Osmo — that support it, and Periscope will pull in the device’s video feed. You can switch between the iPhone camera and GoPro in your broadcast, and Twitter said that you’ll be able to narrate from a bird’s eye view or even sketch on the broadcast to highlight different sites.

Twitter is betting a lot on Periscope –the assumption being that Periscope can put the platform into a clearer context and move the needle forward in terms of user growth, though that hasn’t exactly happened yet. But while Twitter itself hasn’t seen an uptick, it’s clear that its live broadcasting arm has — in March, Periscope shared that it has aired more than 200 million streams in just its first year, with half of them created in just the first three months of 2016.

These latest updates gives users better understanding and control over their broadcasts while also keeping them guessing about the creative aspects of live video.