For the most experienced audience on the internet, it is almost certain that they are aware of the growing phenomenon of ‘streaming’ on various platforms, especially fans of video games. And Twitch? Some famous You Tubers like Auronplay have already moved to this platform with the purple logo, YouTube’s competition, which makes it more interesting to briefly analyze the causes of the boom .
How did Twitch come about?
In 2011, this platform was just a byproduct of electronic sports within Justin.tv, a now defunct website that sponsored various official video game tournaments. Its extremely high growth caused it to become the leader in the sector, even more so after the closure of its direct competitor at the time, Own3d.tv, in 2013.
By early 2014 it was already the fourth largest source of internet traffic in the United States, behind only tech giants Google, Netflix and Apple. It even generated 1.8% of the total internet traffic in the North American country in the periods with the highest peak.
Changes in 2014
2014 was, without a doubt, a key year in the exponential growth and consolidation of Twitch worldwide, passing through a possible purchase by Google (which was pushed back due to the infringement of competition law, since it is owner of Youtube), the sudden closure of Justin.tv, reconverted to Twitch Interactive and, finally, the purchase in September of that year by Amazon, for an approximate price of one billion dollars.
Available platforms and content
Anyone with an iOS or Android mobile operating system can download Twitch. Its main features include the playback of streams in high definition and in horizontal format (more comfortable on mobile). It offers a choice of browsing the most popular streamers . Users can browse by game titles or by popular games. The app also allows users to follow their favorite channels and has an in-app chat that allows viewers to interact with other viewers live.
More and more internet content creators, as well as companies, are interested in Twitch to get their products to their audiences. Will it continue to rise in popularity and stay on the rise?
Finally, as an anecdote, Twitch was the protagonist a few days ago as it was one of the websites that went down for hours due to a Fastly server error . As always, at MGS we continue to keep an eye on all the technological news so that you can find out about the latest news on the scene.
