Feature Story – Twitch.TV

If you’re looking for a place to, not only watch people play games, but to actively be involved in their show and have a chance to talk to them right there and then, then Twitch.TV is the number one live-streaming site for gamers often called the ESPN of online gaming. It’s the place for anyone to live-stream their content whenever they wish to from playing games to drawing, to having news shows and discussions, or to be apart of an active, contributing audience. With over 15 million daily active users,  2.2 million monthly broadcasters and over 241 billion minutes of gaming content that has been live-streamed on Twitch.TV, one would ask how live-streaming has turned Justin Kan’s, co-founder, “terrible idea” into a billion-dollar company and how this gained the attention of millions of people.

Justin Kan is an American Internet entrepreneur, investor and Yale graduate. When Kan came out with Justin.TV back in 2007, the idea was for it to be a place where people stream live-vlog videos. However, the attraction it had was half and half. People hated the reality show concept, but they were interested in creating their own online video streams. So, Justin.TV decided to give people the ability to live-stream their own stuff for others to watch. Gaming was one of the many ideas that people wanted to do on Justin.TV and it started off as a small community. Justin.TV though wasn’t getting any bigger over the next few years, so Kan and his partner asked each other if they had to focus on one category that a lot of people like to watch on Justin.TV, and if they could invest in that, which category would it be? Turns out gaming was the biggest category and so Kan and his partner started asking the people who live stream their gaming content ways the both of them can help them improve their content and streaming videos. People wanted to make money for it, have better resolution for video and to be able to do it full-time. So, this was how Kan and his partner created Twitch.TV in order to specialize in video game live streams.

Once Twitch.TV launched in 2011, it’s grown immensely. Because of Twitch.TV, it’s as if gaming can now be considered a “sport” as people are granted the access to watch tournaments live-streamed and have specific schedules, depending on the live-streamer themselves, to go online just watch their favorite streamers. Nearly half of the Twitch users spend more than 20 hours a week watching live-streamers. In 2014, of all the share of live-streaming traffic, Twitch.TV took up 43%, showing that Twitch.TV dominated the video streaming space online according to a Business Insider report. People are making a living off of just streaming their gameplay on Twitch.TV through subscriptions, ads, and donations. Some of the celebrities, whom have thousands of followers, earn up to $100,000 annually from their streams. In the end, the company shut down Justin.TV in order to put their focus into Twitch. Who would have thought that watching other people playing games would be the highest amount of internet traffic today.