Periscope hires editor-in-chief to curate its best feeds

Live-streaming app Periscope has hired its first editor-in-chief to help pick out the best of its feeds. Evan Hansen will be taking on the new role, leaving a similar position at Medium after moving to the platform-slash-publisher from Wired.com three years ago. Hansen told CNNMoney that his job at Periscope will mean "curating [the] best feeds to start, surfacing the most interesting content to the people most likely to want to see it."

Periscope is being outflanked in live video by Facebook

There's likely to be more to it than just that, though, especially if Periscope wants to compete with Facebook's live video offering. As The Verge's Casey Newton pointed out last week, Facebook has moved fast and aggressively into the format, putting its live video front and center in its app, and enticing celebrities and media outlets to broadcast with promises of bigger audiences. Facebook's videos also stick around after being streamed, while Periscope's disappear into the ether — a big advantage that helps users find and share content after the fact. Not everything goes viral the moment it starts streaming.

Hansen hints that there will be more to his position than just picking streams — "It is new territory with lots of potential room to develop," he told CNN — but isn't giving away any details for the moment. His role could include highlighting live video as a feature of Twitter in general, or reaching out to publications for potential partnerships, but we'll have to wait and see to find out exactly what Periscope will do next.

• ViaFelix Salmon (Twitter)
• SourceEvan Hansen (Medium) CNNMoney