YouTube Buying Twitch For $1B?

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YouTube buying Twitch for $1 billion? What's with all these billion dollar acquisitions lately?

Google’s YouTube has reached a deal to buy Twitch, a popular videogame-streaming company, for more than $1 billion, according to sources familiar with the pact. The deal, in an all-cash offer, is expected to be announced imminently, sources said. If completed the acquisition would be the most significant in the history of YouTube, which Google acquired in 2006 for $1.65 billion.
 
Oh god, no. This is almost as terrible as Oculus. Fuck. Guess I am done with twitch.
 
Seems like the perfect match for me. Twitch.tv with the scaling, reliability and cross platform compatibility of YouTube.
 
Hey let's start a company and just create a crap ton of apps and websites and see which one of these big companies buys them for a billion+.
 
Seems like the perfect match for me. Twitch.tv with the scaling, reliability and cross platform compatibility of YouTube.

Exactly. Kiddies that are kneejerking "ermagerd the sky is falling" don't understand this is business, not fanboy high school. Twitch's CEO stated they simply couldn't keep up with their explosive growth and needed help scaling, and probably turned down Microsoft's offer because they didn't want it turning into an xbox shitshow.

Youtube's proven global video delivery infrastructure lets them piggyback to meet that need.
Twitch isn't going anywhere, its not going to get subsumed and integrated into Youtube.com -- Google's not that braindead.

There's also a lot of kneejerking and assumptions that copyright holders will compel the new owner to go after streamers that use copyrighted material -- sorry but that's just not going to be technically feasible on hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions of REALTIME video streams.
 
Don't see why ContentID can't be scaled up for Twitch. They already do it for live YouTube streams. Just look into the Star Citizen Happy Birthday Song snafu. And yes, this is why I want this deal to not happen.
 
Twitch isn't going anywhere, its not going to get subsumed and integrated into Youtube.com -- Google's not that braindead.

Not sure how you can come up with that assumption. Google's history begs to differ.
 
Exactly. Kiddies that are kneejerking "ermagerd the sky is falling" don't understand this is business, not fanboy high school. Twitch's CEO stated they simply couldn't keep up with their explosive growth and needed help scaling, and probably turned down Microsoft's offer because they didn't want it turning into an xbox shitshow.

Youtube's proven global video delivery infrastructure lets them piggyback to meet that need.
Twitch isn't going anywhere, its not going to get subsumed and integrated into Youtube.com -- Google's not that braindead.

There's also a lot of kneejerking and assumptions that copyright holders will compel the new owner to go after streamers that use copyrighted material -- sorry but that's just not going to be technically feasible on hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions of REALTIME video streams.

You're arguing one assumption, with another. Just because you name call, doesn't make your assumption smell any less like ass.
 
Exactly. Kiddies that are kneejerking "ermagerd the sky is falling" don't understand this is business, not fanboy high school. Twitch's CEO stated they simply couldn't keep up with their explosive growth and needed help scaling, and probably turned down Microsoft's offer because they didn't want it turning into an xbox shitshow.

Youtube's proven global video delivery infrastructure lets them piggyback to meet that need.
Twitch isn't going anywhere, its not going to get subsumed and integrated into Youtube.com -- Google's not that braindead.

There's also a lot of kneejerking and assumptions that copyright holders will compel the new owner to go after streamers that use copyrighted material -- sorry but that's just not going to be technically feasible on hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions of REALTIME video streams.

You are making too many assumptions and are giving them way to much credit. We will see what happens, but I just don't see twitch tv's future in such a positive light.
 
Exactly. Kiddies that are kneejerking "ermagerd the sky is falling" don't understand this is business, not fanboy high school. Twitch's CEO stated they simply couldn't keep up with their explosive growth and needed help scaling, and probably turned down Microsoft's offer because they didn't want it turning into an xbox shitshow.

Youtube's proven global video delivery infrastructure lets them piggyback to meet that need.
Twitch isn't going anywhere, its not going to get subsumed and integrated into Youtube.com -- Google's not that braindead.

There's also a lot of kneejerking and assumptions that copyright holders will compel the new owner to go after streamers that use copyrighted material -- sorry but that's just not going to be technically feasible on hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions of REALTIME video streams.
A lot of people were hoping Twith.tv could turn into a competitor for YouTube. Having YouTube buy them out smells of monopoly.
 
Exactly. Kiddies that are kneejerking "ermagerd the sky is falling" don't understand this is business, not fanboy high school. Twitch's CEO stated they simply couldn't keep up with their explosive growth and needed help scaling, and probably turned down Microsoft's offer because they didn't want it turning into an xbox shitshow.

Youtube's proven global video delivery infrastructure lets them piggyback to meet that need.
Twitch isn't going anywhere, its not going to get subsumed and integrated into Youtube.com -- Google's not that braindead.

There's also a lot of kneejerking and assumptions that copyright holders will compel the new owner to go after streamers that use copyrighted material -- sorry but that's just not going to be technically feasible on hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions of REALTIME video streams.

"Proven" in the sense that streaming anything on YouTube above 480 buffers to hell.
 
A lot of people were hoping Twith.tv could turn into a competitor for YouTube. Having YouTube buy them out smells of monopoly.

No shit. I find complains about your own product's explosive growth absurd. Google will no doubt turn it to shit once everyone calms down. We've seen that movie a thousand times.
 
Buyout Twitch, internet fast lanes become the norm, Google can rest easy knowing their empire of user created video streaming will probably never face a competitor...just waiting on the spin on how this will be good for everyone. All that needs to happen now is Facebook or EA buys Steam and Newegg buys HardOCP and I quit the internet....
 
"Proven" in the sense that streaming anything on YouTube above 480 buffers to hell.

You need to find a competition ISP and mobile carrier. Both of mine can stream 1080p without buffering and on Verizon LTE it's done buffering the whole 4 minute video by the time I play through ~15% of it.
 
Does anyone else think this is a super low price? Considering Instagram sold for 1 billion and it had 0 worthwhile content. While twitch has many archives that are worth rewatching like 24 live stream dumbness or record breaking runs.
 
Mandatory google+ account required I guess.

Hell with google +
 
Not sure how you can come up with that assumption. Google's history begs to differ.

Do you have a specific case in point for "history begging to differ"?

I remember when Google bought Youtube in 2006, and the comments section on engadget was full of people worried about Youtube being folded into Google Video. Didn't happen. They apparently understand brand value.
 
Does anyone else think this is a super low price? Considering Instagram sold for 1 billion and it had 0 worthwhile content. While twitch has many archives that are worth rewatching like 24 live stream dumbness or record breaking runs.

That was my first thought... why would they sell for that? In one sense a billion dollars cash is a lot of money, but in Google terms it's really not so much.
 
That was my first thought... why would they sell for that? In one sense a billion dollars cash is a lot of money, but in Google terms it's really not so much.

Would you A. Take $1 billion or B. Risk getting nothing/less for the chance of getting more?

Personally I think TwitchTV has been becoming trash for a while now. Mandatory delay and an insane amount of ads is just stupid. The concept is great, but I am not interested in viewing 15-30 seconds worth of ads every time I switch to a different stream.
 
It always seemed amusing to me that a video game streaming service (with all the latency issues involved in that formula) would be called "twitch" :p
 
Zarathustra[H];1040839652 said:
It always seemed amusing to me that a video game streaming service (with all the latency issues involved in that formula) would be called "twitch" :p

Never mind, I thought they were actually streaming games you could PLAY, not like a TV site.
 
Zarathustra[H];1040839655 said:
Never mind, I thought they were actually streaming games you could PLAY, not like a TV site.

And that being said, Twitch is apparently the fourth largest source of internet traffic during peak times in the United States, behind Netflix, Google, and Apple....

Do not understand...

Where is the fun in watching someone else play a game? I think I would be bored to tears in about 30 seconds flat.

Kids have way too much time on their hands when they don't even WASTE it well. :p
 
watching someone of similar skill play the game without obnoxious commentary saves me the time of having to have a machine to play them, buy the game (saves cash), and the like
 
Zarathustra[H];1040839664 said:
And that being said, Twitch is apparently the fourth largest source of internet traffic during peak times in the United States, behind Netflix, Google, and Apple....

Do not understand...

Where is the fun in watching someone else play a game? I think I would be bored to tears in about 30 seconds flat.

Kids have way too much time on their hands when they don't even WASTE it well. :p

Maybe you should check it out before making uniformed comments?
 
Zarathustra[H];1040839664 said:
And that being said, Twitch is apparently the fourth largest source of internet traffic during peak times in the United States, behind Netflix, Google, and Apple....

Do not understand...

Where is the fun in watching someone else play a game? I think I would be bored to tears in about 30 seconds flat.

Kids have way too much time on their hands when they don't even WASTE it well. :p

One word: female twitch streamers
 
Zarathustra[H];1040839664 said:
And that being said, Twitch is apparently the fourth largest source of internet traffic during peak times in the United States, behind Netflix, Google, and Apple....

Do not understand...

Where is the fun in watching someone else play a game? I think I would be bored to tears in about 30 seconds flat.

Kids have way too much time on their hands when they don't even WASTE it well. :p

It is TV for gamers. I'm old as hell and love turning on a stream of a guy with a great personality and watch him beat others over and over again in some form of PvP. You couldn't pay me to watch TV unless it is a live sporting event. Some of the streams have loads of in excess of 130,000+ people watching one person when it's a tournament.

If the streamer is partnered with Twitch, they get paid per person that watches an advertisement. On the low side you can make $3 per 1,000 people watching your stream per ad play. Many of the partners make a lot more than this and the longer ads pay a lot more. Most streamers play a 3 minute block of ads per hour. Some streamers make $20,000 a month just off people watching their ads.

You can have subscribers also. Those are people that pay you $5 per month to watch you ad free and to get cool things like personalized emoticons. You get $3 of the $5 per sub that you accumulate. Streamers I watch have in excess of 2,200 subs. That's $6,600 a month.

Then people like to donate to you. I have seen male and female streamers receive in excess of $100,000 donations from a person. If that doesn't make you scratch your head they also have Amazon referral links, gaming sponsored links, giveaways, etc. A streamer with a good personality can rake in the cash.

So like I said, just think of it as watching a TV star. That's all it is.
 
I feel like I'm the only one on this site that has never heard of twitch.
 
with youtube pulling all the lets play videos for copyright infringement wouldn't literally 100% of twitch content get removed per youtube rules?
 
Not sure how you can come up with that assumption. Google's history begs to differ.

Google has ruined more than one acquisition. At best we're going to be seeing Contact ID takedowns without any recourse for content creators, just as what's been happening with Youtube. That's bad.

Youtube and many other Google services have been getting worse over the last two years. Everything Google has shipped since Chrome has been half-baked "beta" nonsense that most other big techs wouldn't get away with releasing. Any other company would be roasted for releasing the mess that is Android. Google doesn't even suffer repercussions of releasing bad products or cancelling ones that are liked (ie - RSS) because they're too profitable with too many people (at least on tech boards like this) making excuses for them.

Twitch has actually improved substantially over the last year. It thrived partly because it was an ALTERNATIVE to Youtube, and now it may be absorbed by them. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.
 
with youtube pulling all the lets play videos for copyright infringement wouldn't literally 100% of twitch content get removed per youtube rules?

Forget that, people who are posting their own original content are getting their own channels banned thanks to Content ID.

Funny story. Live streaming sometimes happens on Youtube. The best example was the recent Hugo Awards. As they were showing clips from nominee films, the stream goes down. Why? Content ID flagged the channel for streaming unauthorized content. It fell under Fair Use and was a part of the program. But nope, show's over, thanks!

Users that are completely in the right have no recourse and no way to talk to a human being about it, even when it falls under Fair Use. Why? Google finds it much easier to appease media corporations instead of going case by case with their users that create content. The same users they pay poorly while taking the lion's share of ad revenue from.

Its a disaster.
 
Buyout Twitch, internet fast lanes become the norm, Google can rest easy knowing their empire of user created video streaming will probably never face a competitor...just waiting on the spin on how this will be good for everyone. All that needs to happen now is Facebook or EA buys Steam and Newegg buys HardOCP and I quit the internet....

Didn't you know? Monopolies are just peachy when Google is involved.
 
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