Twitter Limits Meerkat's Access To Its Social Graph: Don't Ask Why

Anu Passary, Tech Times 14 March 2015, 10:03 am

Soon after it acquired Periscope on Friday, March 13, Twitter went ahead and blocked rival Meerkat's access to its social graph, killing off a few features.

In case you're wondering what Meerkat is — it is a live video streaming app that is Twitter-centric. Meerkat launched barely a few weeks ago and has gained quite a fan following in this short period amassing nearly 120,000 users.

The livestream app is pretty easy to operate and piggybacks on Twitter. Users can broadcast whatever is happening in their environment to Twitter audiences with a few taps on their mobile device. These broadcasts can be scheduled ahead of time or even instantly transmitted. When the streaming happens, Meerkat users' Twitter followers are notified of the broadcast.

Viewers have the option to re-stream or like a particular broadcast as well as leave comments/tweets on the stream. Meerkat has been built on Habric, which is Twitter's developer platform.

However, Meerkat relies on its integration with Twitter, which could be a hurdle for the service in progressing forward in the event Twitter looks to foray into live video broadcast itself. With Periscope on board, Twitter has done exactly that — clipped Meerkat's wings by cutting off access to its social graph.

"We are limiting their access to Twitter's social graph, consistent with our internal policy. Their users will still be able to distribute videos on Twitter and login with their Twitter credentials," said a Twitter spokesperson.

With Twitter limiting Meerkat's access, the livestreaming video app gets a big blow prior to the South by Southwest festival. Meerkat was hoping to use it as a platform to get acceptance from a larger audience.

On Friday, March 13, night Ben Rubin, Meerkat's co-founder, confirmed that Twitter had disengaged the app's ability to pull information pertaining to a user's follower base.

5/ and a sad day for the Twitter developer community who build amazing products that help us connect with each other ( @fabric )

— Ben Rubin (@benrbn) March 14, 2015

The app's users will no longer have the ability to automatically connect their Twitter followers to Meerkat accounts. Rubin also suggested that Twitter's move is an indication that it feels threatened by Meerkat's growing popularity.