Meerkat is an app, currently only for iOS, that allows you to tap a button and start streaming live video out to the world from your iPhone.

Periscope is an app that basically does the same thing and was just released, also for iOS only so far. Twitter bought the app before it was even released.

The battle for the live stream has begun.

Mat Honan for Buzzfeed:

Fire up the app, launch the camera, and the app tweets out a message (if you want it to) that you have gone live. Simultaneously, a notification fires off — with that little look-at-me whistle — to everyone following you on Periscope. As they join in, they can comment on what you’re doing. And because it has super-low lag time — or latency, to use the term of art — people watching can comment on your actions more or less as they happen. It means that people watching the video can change the course of what’s happening.

I just tried it out for this post and got 10 random people, none of whom follow me on Twitter to my knowledge, watching me do basically nothing.

The app allows you to save your video locally afterwards - because I know I'll want to re-watch that amazing footage over and over - as well as store it on the app in the cloud for people to be equally as excited by the amazing video you shot.

Ultimately I think the live video streaming idea will adopted by other companies - Facebook no doubt is already working on something - and it'll become as normal to live stream your lunch as it is right now to put a picture on Instagram.

Screenshots of Periscope

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