We’ve seen the increased use of drones by hobbyists all over the world and it has seen drone making companies like DJI or Parrot come up with cheap and also rather costly drones at various pricepoints. Although they bring the debate about the airspace regulations and all, it is rapidly gaining popularity all over the world, so much there are sites where they upload photos taken by their drones.
Major social media platforms have however used drones in completely different ways rather than the norm. Facebook has been reported testing drones that will be used to connect the unplugged population to the internet. Google on the other hand has been reported to have filed paperwork for drones to be used to connect people without internet access just like Facebook. Twitter however has decided not to follow the footsteps of Google and Facebook by using drones in a completely different way.
According to a report by CNBC, Twitter was apparently granted a patent for a drone that will be used to take photos and videos to be shared on the timeline. In addition, users will be able to control it and stream what it captures. Since the company owns Periscope, it would be logical to use the drone to stream an event and later on upload to Vine for short videos. A spokesperson was quoted as saying “Two words: Drone selfies” which is interesting since they actually gave a demo at Cannes last year on their blog
The actual importance of this patent is yet to be determined since it can be used quite effectively to livestream events straight to Periscope and Twitter so that people can tune in. We have to wait and see if Twitter makes this official next year.
