Posts for 'Twitch'

I’m pleased to present the 474th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

First up this week Colin and I discuss the “detente” that Amazon and Google seem to have achieved, announcing earlier this week that the Prime Video and YouTube apps will be supported on each other’s CTV devices. That’s good news for viewers who have had incomplete experiences.

Then Colin describes a new service Amazon’s Twitch has launched called Twitch Prime. Colin sees it as another opportunity for Amazon to drive value back to the Prime service and even create new Prime subscribers. Last, Colin shares some new data illustrating that even though Prime Video has made progress in video, its original programming is still not at Netflix’s level.

Listen in to learn more!

 
Click here to listen to the podcast (20 minutes, 44 seconds)
 

Click here for previous podcasts

Click here to add the podcast feed to your RSS reader.

The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!

YouTube has thoroughly dominated free, ad-supported online video practically since its launch over 13 years ago. Over the years there have been lots of competitors who have come and gone, unable to compete with the sheer volume of traffic and monetization potential that YouTube offered independent content creators.

But a new battle is escalating for the attention of YouTube’s most important creators. Twitch, the e-gaming streaming site Amazon acquired 4 years ago for nearly a billion dollars, is making aggressive offers to YouTube’s top creators to help broaden Twitch’s appeal. Per a Bloomberg article yesterday, and others that have preceded it, Twitch is offering creators minimum guarantees that can run to several million dollars per year, plus shares of ad and subscription revenues.

continue reading

I'm pleased to present the 280th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

First up this week, we discuss binge-viewing’s soaring popularity, most recently illustrated by a new study from TiVo, which found 92% of respondents saying they had binge-viewed at some point. (TiVo defines binge-viewing as watching more than 3 episodes of a series in a day.)

No surprise, Netflix dominates, with 66% of binge-viewers saying they use the service to watch their favorite shows. Interestingly, respondents said that half of their binge-viewing occurs alone, reflecting the broader trend of how personalized and fragmented TV has become given the broad range of options.

Supporting that concept is data from Twitch, the live-streaming gaming site that Amazon acquired, showing that 21 million viewers watched its E3 coverage, more than double the level of 2 years ago. There was a peak of 840K concurrent viewers, 16 times as big as E3’s attendance. The popularity of Twitch, and soon YouTube Gaming which will be huge as well, both illustrate how live-streaming gaming is peeling audiences away from traditional TV viewing.

Listen in to learn more and happy July 4th!

Click here for previous podcasts

Click here to add the podcast feed to your RSS reader.

The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!

September is here and that means summer 2014 is in the rear-view mirror. For online video and the broader video ecosystem, it was another busy few months, as viewers around the world continue to shift their consumption patterns, with many companies scrambling to keep pace. Below I've distilled my list of the 10 biggest online video stories of the summer - read on and let me know if I've missed something!

continue reading

Amazon will acquire Twitch, the live-streaming video game platform, for $970 million. Until very recently Google was heavily rumored to be acquiring Twitch. Twitch is Amazon's 2nd-biggest acquisition ever, after its $1.2 billion purchase of Zappos in 2009. Twitch enables users to live-stream and record themselves playing video games, which tens of millions of monthly visitors watch.

Twitch is Amazon's biggest investment in online video to date and follows other video initiatives including Prime Instant Videos, an escalating slate of original programs, numerous high-profile licensing deals (including for various HBO programs and for the PBS drama "Downton Abbey") as well as the recent launch of the Fire TV connected TV device.

continue reading