It would seem pretty unlikely for Josh Elman, an early employee at Twitter, to not have caught wind of the deal, but who knows.
I'm guessing they still saw (and see) potential for Meerkat, as one day of buzz for Periscope does not a successful product make. Plenty of ways to compete still, it just got a bit harder.
People keep making comparisons to other social networks, but in this case the two products are way too similar to coexist. Influencers will decide what platform they like best. You can't exactly do a simultaneous broadcast on both apps at the same time.
Just seems like if you were in the loop it would have been an unnecessary risk to invest now without waiting to see how the market responded to a Goliath competitive offer.
I'm guessing they still saw (and see) potential for Meerkat, as one day of buzz for Periscope does not a successful product make. Plenty of ways to compete still, it just got a bit harder.