Twitter now lets you sign up for its Periscope live streaming app without using Twitter
Twitter has just released another notable update to Periscope, a month and a half after the launch of the live streaming app.
Arguably the most significant change brought about by the update is the added ability to sign up for Periscope using a phone number instead of a Twitter account.
To be sure, Periscope still recommends signing up via Twitter so that it can easily suggest users for you to follow based on your Twitter social graph. But if you’d rather not link your Twitter account or if you’re one of the seven people in the world who prefer to not have one, you can now sign up for Periscope by entering your phone number and the verification code that will be sent to it.
The latest update to Periscope also adds the ability to change your profile picture. Just tap your avatar in your profile to take a new profile picture or choose a photo from your camera roll.
Moreover, Periscope now lets you tap on a comment and hit the reply button to respond to a user with a message that automatically includes his or her @username. It now also indicates that a broadcaster has blocked a user in the comments.
You can now sign up for Periscope using your phone number.
The new version of Periscope also includes the following minor changes:
- Twitter verified badges now appear in the users section, and in search
- Your list of following/followers is now sorted by recency (instead of alphabetically)
- The ‘Broadcasts’ section of your profile now shows your full broadcast history (to you only)
Periscope was released in late March, just a month after the launch of its chief competitor, Meerkat, which itself was recently updated with phone number verification and address book integration along with other improvements.
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