Meerkat, the popular service that lets users live-stream video to their Twitter followers, is now on Android, ahead of Twitter -- its top competitor and the very company it relies on to drive its service.
Meerkat brought its app to the Google Play store on April 30. The free app supports Android 4.2 and up and is currently in beta, so it might need to have some issues worked out before it sheds its beta tag. Meerkat hasn't said when it will launch an update to the app, but it has already proven somewhat popular, tallying between 100,000 and 500,000 installs, according to Google Play's wide-ranged tracker.
There is a bitter battle between Meerkat and Periscope to be the live-streaming option of choice for users. By getting to Android first, Meerkat is going for a first-mover advantage to nab users and keep them put.
In March, Twitter announced the launch of its own livestreaming platform, called Periscope. Like Meerkat at the time, Periscope was only available on iOS and Twitter said that an Android version was "in the works."
In the month or so that Periscope has been available, it's proven popular, according to Twitter. The company said on Wednesday during an earnings call that the livestreaming service had nabbed 1 million users within its first 10 days of availability. It's unknown how that has translated to Meerkat usage, but the tide seems to be turning against the livestreaming startup.
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