Meerkat brings its livestreaming app to Android - beating Periscope to the punch

The wait is over, Android owners, Meerkat is officially available on your Android phone.

Meerkat announced its open beta for Android on Thursday, according to Mashable, allowing anyone interested in testing the app to sign up.

You'll need an email and Twitter handle to be able to test the Meerkat for Android beta, but as it's an open beta anyone who requests access will be able to join.

While livestreaming has increasingly gained traction among the tech press, news organizations, and celebrities on Twitter, the two most popular livestreaming apps - Meerkat and Periscope - have only been available for iPhone owners until now.

According to data from analytics firm Zignal Labs shared with Business Insider, Meerkat garnered approximately 1,100 mentions on Twitter from April 9th - April 13th, with 85% of those mentions being from people mentioning they liked the service. Periscope saw 1,800 mentions on Twitter during that same time period, but only 71% mentioned they liked the service.

So while Twitter's Periscope has surpassed Meerkat in popularity, livestreamers seem to have a more positive attitude toward Meerkat, and with Meerkat coming to Android before Periscope, this could represent an important point in the battle between the two livestreaming apps as Meerkat tries to gain some much-needed additional users.

You can sign up for the open beta of Meerkat for Android by clicking here.