Youtube is going to buy Twitch for one billion of your earth dollars.

[Merusk]

It's not, especially for the reason Amazon is buying it.  They're going after eyeballs for advertising dollars and as the Marketplace report last night said, Twitch is 80% of all streaming traffic for the coveted 16-29 demographic.

However, anyone with ANY sense of the culture and audience knowledge would already know that minimum of 70% will be running adblockers. So Amazon just made several folks rich on a hell of an oopsie.

They're also going to start losing people as they implement the required DMCA take-downs for songs playing in the backgrounds.

[Trippy]

It's harder to block the ads if they are being inserted into the video streams like YouTube does.

[Mithas]

I'd prefer that over how they play now. I think you'd have fewer people blocking them.

[schild]

It's harder to block the ads if they are being inserted into the video streams like YouTube does.

I beg to differ. For the user end there's no difference. I've yet to see an ad on either site since installing ABE.

[Fordel]

The only ads that bother me on twitch are the ones that BREAK the fucking player. They'll get halfway through the ad then just stop and I'll have to refresh the page for the player to work again.


What amazon needs to do though, is make it so when a streamer has a sponsor or ad for a <thing>, there's a little clicky that goes "buy the <thing> at amazon!" and it just goes into your amazon cart. Then their drones can ship it directly to the user and they'll never even have to change browser tabs!

[Rendakor]

It's harder to block the ads if they are being inserted into the video streams like YouTube does.

I beg to differ. For the user end there's no difference. I've yet to see an ad on either site since installing ABE.

This right here. I had my mind blown a year or so ago when I was watching YT at a friend's house and there was an ad; I've had AdBlockPlus installed for so long I didn't even know that was a thing.

[ezrast]

I did always wonder why they can't just slip the ads into the video stream itself rather than relying on the client to pull up a whole separate chunk of media. Dealing with different regions and whatnot would be non-trivial but not in a way that strikes me as fundamentally insurmountable.

[Venkman]

Depending on the site/app, the video serving and ad serving platforms are likely different, and from different companies and therefore different priorities. In part this is because ads served during pre- and mid- roll events change all the time (similar to TV broadcast) whereas the video itself doesn't. Trying to combine those into a single stream inspires Ghostbusters thinking

[Numtini]

Relevant article that's honestly a surprise to me and I've both streamed and watched streams on twitch. The TLDR is twitch has more eyeballs than CNN or MSNBC and is occasionally breaking MTV's ratings. All in what's essentially the ultimate demographic for advertisers.

What amazon needs to do though, is make it so when a streamer has a sponsor or ad for a <thing>, there's a little clicky that goes "buy the <thing> at amazon!" and it just goes into your amazon cart.

I am terrified by Amazon at the same time as I'm awed by them. Not to mention paid by them. If there's anything they know how to do, it's sell stuff.

[Fordel]

That surprises me not even a little bit. No one under 40 watches TV anymore, not unless it's like HBO or <sports>.

Last year I watched:

Agents of SHIELD
Continuum
Leaf Games
The Weather Channel
Various Cartoon Channels with my Nephew

That's about it. If I want random background noise while I fold laundry or whatever, I turn on twitch or youtube to watch some asshole yell at his friends for sucking at video games. Half the time I end up watching Continuum and SHIELD on their websites too.

[Yegolev]

Are you sorting out streaming services from TV?  Do you lump in recorded shows from "TV" with the TV crowd?  There's a fuzzy area where I could either stream Game of Thrones or watch it on HBOGO.

If you're talking about preferring the typical Youtube Channel nonsense over scripted, professionally-produced entertainment, then that's something else.

[HaemishM]

The TLDR is twitch has more eyeballs than CNN or MSNBC and is occasionally breaking MTV's ratings.

Anyone who has watched any of those channels would know why this is happening. All of them are fuckawful wastes of I want to say "talent" but I know that's not the right word.

[Fordel]

Are you sorting out streaming services from TV?  Do you lump in recorded shows from "TV" with the TV crowd?  There's a fuzzy area where I could either stream Game of Thrones or watch it on HBOGO.

If you're talking about preferring the typical Youtube Channel nonsense over scripted, professionally-produced entertainment, then that's something else.

I don't count Netflix and whatever as TV.

But yea, I prefer youtube/twitch nonsense over watching that rerun of SG-1 for the 8th time. TV can't keep up anymore.

[naum]

Hope I'm correct in being delighted it was Amazon and not Google, that ended up swallowing it. And that Amazon will leave it alone other than making it easier to click into Amazon store pages for various gear, music, and game goods.

If it was Google, they would have kludged things up by integrating into Google+ single signin (like the disaster with youtube, that really messed up things for many).

[patience]

So the big 3 were CBS, ABC and NBC.

In 10 years it will be Google, Amazon and who else?

Youku?
Netflix?
Blip?

[KallDrexx]

Yahoo 

[Numtini]

Apple. Apple sells a whole lot of music, but it also sells a whole lot of books and movies.

[Yegolev]

Apple is the HBO of that list.

Being harder, generally speaking, to start a business in this era, we might just have Google and Amazon.

[Merusk]

Yeah, there's no other big streamer coming. Apple, Netflix, Hulu etc will remain premium chanels as their model is already pay-to-watch.

Internet is replacing (and therefore defunding) cable faster than the cable companies can enact obstructionist laws to prevent it. Sometimes the gridlock of the political system can be a force for good.  This is, of course, why they're fighting so damn hard to keep their only trump card; being the pipeline.

[Lakov_Sanite]

He who controls the tubes control the webs.

[satael]

Yeah, there's no other big streamer coming. Apple, Netflix, Hulu etc will remain premium chanels as their model is already pay-to-watch.

Internet is replacing (and therefore defunding) cable faster than the cable companies can enact obstructionist laws to prevent it. Sometimes the gridlock of the political system can be a force for good.  This is, of course, why they're fighting so damn hard to keep their only trump card; being the pipeline.

I don't think Hulu will be in the top 3 since they've failed to go international so far. Netflix has managed to do that and might be the third (after Google and Amazon) big one or Apple if they manage to push themselves more into the non-apple hardware market.

[tazelbain]

TW/HBO. If they can they can take their blinders off, they are in a great position to be serious player.

[Torinak]

Yeah, there's no other big streamer coming. Apple, Netflix, Hulu etc will remain premium chanels as their model is already pay-to-watch.

Internet is replacing (and therefore defunding) cable faster than the cable companies can enact obstructionist laws to prevent it. Sometimes the gridlock of the political system can be a force for good.  This is, of course, why they're fighting so damn hard to keep their only trump card; being the pipeline.

Comcast has already successfully shaken down Netflix for extra money. If you have both, you're paying Comcast for your internet, and paying Comcast extra for the privilege of using Netflix's paid service.

[Merusk]

Quite. I keep hoping that was a strategic move on Netfix's part and they'll pass along the cost to consumers along with a line-item on each months bill. "Comcast mandated fee"

Yeah, there's no other big streamer coming. Apple, Netflix, Hulu etc will remain premium chanels as their model is already pay-to-watch.

Internet is replacing (and therefore defunding) cable faster than the cable companies can enact obstructionist laws to prevent it. Sometimes the gridlock of the political system can be a force for good.  This is, of course, why they're fighting so damn hard to keep their only trump card; being the pipeline.

I don't think Hulu will be in the top 3 since they've failed to go international so far. Netflix has managed to do that and might be the third (after Google and Amazon) big one or Apple if they manage to push themselves more into the non-apple hardware market.

I didn't mean to imply they'd be tin the top 3 of streaming services, just went with a familiar name for pay-to-stream services that are content aggregators.