In this day and age, you can follow what is happening from all over the world from where you are thanks to the increased social media use and telcos improving their infrastructure so as to connect more people to the internet.
Periscope is known for its livestream focused service, where one can watch and comment on several livestreams that are happening all over the world. This has been adopted by regular people , known companies and celebrities alike to share a livestream of what they are undertaking at the moment. In today’s case however, I came across a tweet that gives a link to a Periscope account (Herd Tracker) that will livestream the events from the spectacle:
The Great Migration is underway! Watch it live via @HerdTracker ! http://t.co/GdD3iHjbid #MaraLive #MakeItKenya pic.twitter.com/hvpdphGloO
— Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency (@MakeItKenya) September 29, 2015
This is a partnership between HerdTracker, and Make It Kenya, which is an initiative of the Ministry of East African Affairs, Commerce & Tourism. The live broadcasts will be about 10-20 minutes each and so far, there are 5 previous broadcasts that are directly related to the wildebeest migration. The event will be broadcasted live from today until 5th October (next week on Monday and alternatively, there is a live feed in Herd Tracker’s website that uses Google Earth to point out the various crossing points and lodges.
The government had promised to ramp up its social media use across several of its departments and this specific initiative will be seen as a move to leverage on social media to market the country to an even larger audience as a preferred tourist destination. Recently, Samburu National Park got the Google Street View treatment, but this was aimed for people to interact with the wildlife in the park, especially the elephants.
