Meerkat Learns Buzz Doesn't Always Mean Business

After Meerkat, the live video-streaming application, debuted in February, it got the kind of press that would be enviable for any new business. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd mentioned it in a column. Techcrunch wrote a post about why people love it and why Twitter Inc. should acquire it. The Verge said Meerkat "conquered all" at South By Southwest, a technology conference in Austin, Texas, in March.

But today? Crickets. The application isn't even ranked in the top 1,500 on Apple Inc.'s App Store. Periscope, a live-streaming app that Twitter acquired and rolled out last month, is doing much better -- ranked 169 in Apple's store, according to AppAnnie. Still, neither are runaway hits.

Here's how things are shaking out in the live-streaming wars, according to 7Park Data Inc., a New York-based company that tracks and analyzes application activity on smartphones: