5 awesome women to follow on Periscope

We’re utterly hooked on Periscope. The addictive social media app that allows you to live broadcast whatever your phone camera sees promised to open up our eyes to the world when it was launched by Twitter in March.

To some extent, it’s done that; we’ve seen British synth-pop artist Jack Garratt play an acoustic performance for fans, we watched a ranger at Glacier National Park in Montana share the beautiful views and we’ve tuned in to countless ‘how-to’ tutorials on everything from flower arranging to how to build your business.

We’ve also seen a lot of absolute rubbish. Cruise the map of live broadcasts at any time of day and you’re bound to come across stoners lying around laughing at nothing in particular, friends awkwardly having a camera shoved in their face while they’re trying to enjoy a quiet dinner and the inevitable Dick Cam.

For those of you that are yet to take a tumble down the Periscope, it certainly has throwbacks to the ChatRoulette days but thankfully we now live in an age where most of us have internet and a camera on their phone so you can take the webcam out of your bedroom. Unfortunately, some people didn’t get that part of the memo.

If that’s all you’ve managed to find on Periscope so far, you’re not following the right people. Check out these five brilliant women whose ‘scopes you should definitely be tuning in to.

1. Eleanor Conway

Brits have generally been much slower to jump on the Periscope trend so we were super excited to discover some British humour coming through our phone screens from comedienne Eleanor Conway.

An Edinburgh Fringe regular, Shoreditch Radio presenter and host of ‘Gospeloke’, a karaoke night where you sing backed by a live gospel choir, she’s worth catching at one of her shows as well as on Periscope.

Her joke-filled scopes have covered topics such as ‘who would you bang from The Big Bang?’, ‘fucked up bedtime stories’, and ‘the dumbest news stories of the past 24 hours.’

2. Gemma’s Bigger Bolder Baking

Warning: don’t watch this on an empty stomach! Professional baker Gemma Stafford appeals to our sweet tooth with her mouth-watering recipes, which she usually shares with her 450,000 YouTube subscribers.

She’s taken to Periscope to share sneak peeks behind the scenes of her vlog and teasers of upcoming episodes. If you’ve got any burning (sorry…) baking questions, Gemma is the woman to ask or if you just want to torture yourself by staring at delicious cookies, cakes and ice cream, this is the channel to follow.

3. Kara Swisher

This is one for all the girl geeks out there. Kara Swisher is the Co-Executive Editor of Re/Code, reports for the Wall Street Journal’s tech pages, lives in the epicentre of techland, San Francisco.

On her Periscope channel she broadcasts a lot of interviews and debates to give us an unfiltered insight into the latest in the industry.

She also shares the fun and random moments which come from being a super cool journalist, like the time she had lunch with Jane Lynch (yes, the psychopathic PE teacher from Glee).

4. Caroline Issa

Ever dreamt of sitting front row at fashion week? Caroline Issa, Editor of Tank Magazine and a street style favourite, is one of the fash pack’s early adopters of Periscope.

During menswear show season in June she shared live broadcasts from Givenchy, Prada, Burberry and basically every major show on the schedule.

Come September, we’re planning on following all the action from the womenswear shows through Caroline’s phone screen, catching the new collections before anyone else and pretending we’re a fashion VIP. Except instead of sitting front row in a pair of Jimmy Choos, we’ll be sat in bed in our pyjamas.

5. Heather Anne Campbell

You’ll recognise Heather if you’re a fan of the US series of Whose Line Is It Anyway? She’s a Primetime Emmy Award nominated writer for her work on Saturday Night Live.

She may also have had you in stitches in Drew Carey’s Improv-a-Ganza and Deuce Bigalo: European Jigalo before she joined Periscope.

Couldn’t see her stage show ‘Truth or Dare’ in Santa Monica? Not to worry, she scoped it. Wonder what mischief happens behind the scenes at a radio comedy show? Heather’s scoping it. This kind of behind-closed-doors awesomeness is exactly what Periscope was built for.

If you don’t have Periscope yet, it’s free on iOS and Android.