Social Media

How Meerkat's fighting against Periscope: Apps

Periscope app, left, and Meerkat app
Source: Periscope, Meerkat

Shortly after live-streaming app Meerkat launched to much fanfare earlier this year, Twitter started its own rival app—Periscope.

Twitter further attempted to checkmate Meerkat (which streams off Twitter's platform), by cutting the start-up off from its social graph—which stopped Meerkat users from importing Twitter followers onto their platform.

But none of that means that Meerkat has given up the fight.

The company launched a developer platform and API last week, helping developers who have been building companion tools for the live-streaming app. With dozens of developers so far, here are some of the most curious Meerkat apps that have launched so far.

Meerkat Roulette

Meerkat Roulette is randomized live-stream companion tool. Much like randomized video chat app Chat Roulette, both simulate a spin of the wheel and generate a random Meerkat live stream. However, for a less spontaneous experience, Meerkat Roulette's Twitter feed features notable streamers to follow as they start streaming.

Katch

Billing itself as the record button for Meerkat, Katch allows users to save and organize their Meerkat streams. Videos can be uploaded automatically to YouTube using the hashtag #katch in a title or comments of any stream. Once the stream is over, Katch also tweets out a link to the now-saved video. Without the help of this automated tool, users who want to save live streams from the Meerkat app must manually upload it themselves.

Meerkat Stats

Meerkat Stats as well as Meer-katalytics are tools that let users check their streaming analytics. Meerkat Stats provides leader boards for users, both live and dormant as well as statistics on comments, frequent watchers, likes and restreams.

Yo Meerkat

Last but not least—Yo Meerkat sends users a "yo" to the user when Twitter friends start a stream, keeping with the ephemeral nature of the live-stream market as well as closing some of the gap left after being cut off from Twitter's social graph in March.

Read More Facebook to buy Meerkat? One 'insider' says yes

Meerkat's most recent update also allows users to push live and upcoming streams to Facebook, as well as use emojis in stream comments. The company also added features like phone and address book integration for better social discovery as well as a "mobbing" which allows streams to be featured if they are mobbed with followers.

Disclosure: CNBC's parent company, Comcast, is an investor in Meerkat.