Happy Friday, friends!

One thing we know about ourselves is this: we’re not early adopters. Meaning, we’re not the people who go to movies on opening night or wait in line at the Apple Store for the latest gadget. We’re Redbox and Netflix people. We wait until the newest iPhone is out so we can grab the older one at a discount. Sometimes, waiting is a benefit. Sometimes, though, we probably wait too long.

Enter Periscope, the latest social media platform to hit the Internet. It’s been around for months (as far as we’re aware). Our friends have been on it for at least that long, but we’ve been sitting on the sidelines, waiting (as we do) to find out if it’s here to stay before we make a splash in the water (that’s a submarine joke because we’re talking about a periscope… funny. eh?) But, when we were in Nantucket last week, some of our friends strongly encouraged demanded that we dive in earlier than we’d planned and just go for it. And we finally got convinced! So for those of you, like us, who were wondering what Periscope is all about, here’s what we can say:

Periscope is owned by Twitter (we’re horrible at Twitter!!) It’s a social media platform that lets users broadcast live videos from their phone and their followers to like and comment while the broadcast is live. Once the broadcast is ended by the user, the video stays active on that users accounts for re-rewatches within the first 24 hours. Then, it gets deleted to keep Periscope from having to buy all the servers in the world to store the data. Our user name is amyandjordan!

Aside from “what the heck is this thing?” here were the other reservations that held us back from joining earlier! Maybe you feel the same way! So our excuses?

1. We were b-u-s-y.

We were in the middle of our busiest shooting and teaching season ever when Periscope became a thing, so we didn’t think we had time to learn anything new until the summer. In actuality, we probably did, but it was just one more thing to think about and when we’re slightly sleep-deprived, everything just feels like a much bigger deal than it is!

2. Creepy Creepsters Creepily Creeping

We heard that a lot of spammers were hijacking broadcasts and posting nasty, inappropriate comments – which can’t be deleted in real time – so that weirded us out a little bit. We’ve heard Periscope is working to solve that problem, though, so that’s good for all of us who’d prefer not to have creeps creeping all creepily on our broadcasts! They’ve also added a “block” feature for that reason!

3. We wanted to make it personal and educational, like Mr. Rogers.

We weren’t sure how to make it worth your while as a viewer. From the start, we’ve always been committed to quality content on our blog and anything we do in the social media or educational realm, and since we didn’t have time to really think though how we could best serve people through this new medium, we didn’t try. Looking back, we still feel like that’s a good decision, because we never want to waste your time or ours.

So, having that cleared off the table, here’s why we decided to make a go of it:

1. We LOVE writing. But we love video, too.

We’re both writers and we write this blog together every single weekday. We think words are powerful and they’re here to stay, just like blogging is. It’s something you can read at work (sorry bosses!), while your waiting for an appointment, over coffee in the morning, or after the kids go to bed at night. But, we also love video. We think it’s equally as powerful in a different way, and being able to see someone’s face and hear their voice is something that was rarely available five years ago unless you saw someone in-person. Technology is a pretty amazing thing.

2. The live factor is spontaneous and that’s so fun!

If Periscope recorded all of our videos for eternity and left them up for people to view, we don’t think it’d be as cool. There’s something so fun about hearing a ding on your phone and knowing you get to hang out with someone and all of the others viewers right then and there. Wherever you are, wherever they are, wherever everyone else is, we’re all connected via one live stream. That’s never really been done before in such a universal and easy way. So, we’re going to try and do it a few times a week to start. We want it to be different every time. We’re not going to always announce it. And it’ll be a mix of all sorts of broadcasts to keep things interesting.

3. We love connecting with you, and we want to help, too.

Seriously, that might sound cheesy, but it’s true. There are so many people we love all over the country and the world who we don’t get to see nearly as often as we’d like, and for as much as we’d love to FaceTime or Skype with hundreds of people every week, there just aren’t enough hours; but, Periscope allows us to kind of do that with hundreds of people at once, which is the next best thing in our book! Also, we’re teachers at heart. We always have been and always will be, and we’re going to keep giving away free tips and tricks on our blog, through our newsletter The Monday Minute (which is totally different than the blog and not published online), and now through Periscope. So, if you’ve ever wanted to see us shoot an engagement session live for a few minutes or get your question answered by us in-person but haven’t had a chance to come to our workshop (yet!), this is another way for us to make that happen on a small scale.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes Periscope of a commercial styled shoot we did earlier this week. Jordan answered questions live while Amy photographed. We had about 120 unique viewers LIVE with us, which is so much fun! This would be an example of Periscopes that are designed to educated and inform and help, as opposed to the one below, which is designed to be fun and make people laugh!

4. You’ll get to see a different side to us sometimes. Here’s a recording of our first broadcast from Nantucket just so you can see what we mean…

So, from now on, when you see CROC ALERT pop up in your Periscope, you’ll know what to expect. The rest of the time, we’ll be speaking in English American accents about things that matter. But… if you WANT to see Jordan’s Crocodile Hunter impression during ANY Periscope video, just make sure to ask for it in the comments! He’s always happy to oblige!

We can’t wait for you to follow along on Periscope at @amyandjordan! Jordan’s going to be a groomsman AND shoot a wedding this weekend, so join Periscope NOW for a cool behind-the-scenes look at what that’s like!

Happy Friday!

Amy & Jordan