Experts talk about how new technologies are disruptive. Think of the impact of Uber on the taxicab industry. But often the results are such that we should be talking about  constructive technology.

Case in point: This week the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives shut down TV coverage of the opposition party’s protest. In response, smartphone-wielding protesters resumed coverage using Periscope. The app allowed those in the Periscope community to view the proceedings in real time.

The issue here isn’t whether or not the protest was reasonable or legal. Almost everyone agrees that it was news and that Periscope made it possible for the news to get out. This represents another step forward for mobile journalism (MoJo).

If you’d like a clear introduction to Periscope, here’s a short video tutorial by Steve Dotto:

 

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Aside to the amateur videographers who covered the proceedings: News footage almost always should be shot in the landscape or horizontal orientation. Otherwise, when the footage is archived on a site such as YouTube.com, the image will be reframed in a way that leaves out some of the picture, resulting in ugly black bars. Some defenders of vertical video claim that people are used to holding their phones in the portrait mode. That’s true, but it’s also true that rotating the device 90 degrees is not difficult, and the results are spectacularly better.