Video livestreaming app Meerkat has garnered a huge amount of attention in a short period through its use of Twitters ecosystem to enable people to comment on live video as it happened.

Now Twitter has launched a rival to the service, Periscope, which it acquired earlier this month for a reported $75m (£50m), enabling users to stream footage from their own mobile devices to followers, while viewers can comment and send hearts to the streamer.

One of the key differences between Periscope and Meerkat, which recently raised $12m in funding from Greylock Partners, placing its valuation at around $40m, is that Periscope videos can be viewed again later, whereas once Meerkat streams finish they are gone.

While Meerkat may have seized the zeitgeist, Twitter is banking on its wide reach to promote Periscope, as well as its popularity with celebrities as a platform, with astronaut Chris Hadfield, skateboarder Tony Hawk, magician David Blaine and actor Aaron Paul already using the service.

Both Periscope and Meerkat could be headed towards problems, however, with questions already being asked about the legal status of attendees using the apps at sports matches where lucrative television rights are in place, or at gigs where streaming multiple songs could constitute a performance that the musician should be paid for.