A Look at the Rise of Meerkat at SXSW

In an effort to eliminate a competitive service at SXSW, Twitter may have actually drawn more attention to the already wildly popular Meerkat.

Twitter has had a contentious relationship with third party services recently. Twitter cut third party developers off from their search API, and third party services like Twitpic have been essentially made redundant by expansions to Twitter’s business model. At SXSW Twitter blocked live streaming app Meerkat, likely because the service will directly compete with Twitter’s new live streaming venture.

Indeed, Meerkat was wildly successful at SXSW this year. Meerkat used Twitter to let users connect with friends, and while there was initial cooperation between the Meerkat and Twitter teams, Meerkat was eventually cut off.

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