Ali Mahdi
September 20,
New Media 10
Mr. Barazzuol
An
alysis of Twitch
Twitch is the worldwide most used streaming platform for gaming and non-gaming purposes, but mostly gaming. This platform was created by Justin Kan. It started in 2011 but started to focus mainly on esports and gaming. Kan explained that Twitch had its start as justin.tv, a Startup founded in 2005 when he was studying for a physics and psychology degree at Yale. The original purpose for twitch which was when it was called justin.tv was for vlogging or back then was called “streaming your life”(James Cook 2014). The current purpose for twitch at the moment is for people to stream themselves gaming live while you can watch them play games or do the same, and twitch also allows non-gaming content but mainly focuses on gaming. Twitch which is almost like YouTube has streams and places ads inside streams from time to time while watching. They also make money by subscriptions and in-app currency named “Bits” (Lucas Fortney 2019). Some of the audience decides
to buy this in-game currency to support and get a shout out form streamers they enjoy watching. The process of creation for twitch started with its creator Justin Kan with his first company which was an online calendar called “Kiko software” (Maci 2020) But since it didn’t do very well, so the team sold it for around $250,000. Twitch mostly focuses on ages 13- usually to 18 or over and can vary depending on what the audience is watching. A solid example
could be A 13-year-old watching someone playing Minecraft which Is for all ages and someone 18 could watch someone streaming a game that’s more violent or scary. Twitch also has some unique jargon like “POTG” which means(Play Of The Game), or “Bit’s” which is a form of in-app purchases and is currency users use to support their favorite streamers or get shoutouts by them in the stream live. Some fun facts that can help the users of twitch are: Twitch is a video live streaming service operated by Twitch Interactive, The company was introduced in 2011, Around 81.5% of Twitch users are male, A person spends an average time of 95 minutes on Twitch daily, More than 50% of Twitch users range between the ages of 18-34. That is my thorough investigation on all I could find out about twitch.
work cited:
https://facts.net/lifestyle/twitch-facts
Castro, Alex. “Twitch”. The Verge Jul 22, 2020. https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/22/21333867/twitch-sports-category-launch-streaming-content. 9/19/2020
@Twitch. Twitch. Twitter. May 30.https://twitter.com/twitch. 9/20/2020
Iqbaal, Mansour. Year-over-Year % change in average viewer on twitch. Buissnes of apps. July 23, 2020, https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitch-statistics/. 9/18/2020