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Twitch is one of the most popular live streaming services in the world- an online service used to watch popular live video broadcasts. With an Alexa ranking of 34 Twitch was founded by Amazon, Justin Kan, and Emmett Shear. The platform started in June 2011 and mainly focused on gaming services in the beginning. Twitch is operated by Twitch interactive and is a subsidiary of Amazon. Twitch later expanded its services to art, music, TV series and talk shows from just video gaming.
Popularity
In 2017, Twitch attracted more than 15 million visitors a single day. They had over 2 million broadcasts, which were watched for about 355 billion minutes. The gaming influence of Ninja played a big role in Twitch’s success in 2018. And the popularity of the rapper Drake, they got about 635,000 viewers to a single stream in 2018. Another video broadcast of Drake, performing in eSports event, got him about 667,000 views. Twitch received one of the highest internet traffic competing for each of its competitors in North America.
Age Restrictions and Parental Controls
Online live streaming services can only be accessed by people above the age of 13. And teenagers under 18 can only use the service with parental permissions – in such cases, and the parents must read and agree to the Twitch terms of services.
Twitch comes with a warning for offensive contents or contents inappropriate for teens, but they don’t apply filtering service. Parents can’t even limit their children’s viewing time and limit them to particular channels, unlike platforms like YouTube kids. However, parents can apply a PIN or password and allow their children to get access to the service only when they want. One can also disable the chat or the whisper services to stop their children from chatting with strangers.
How to Watch Twitch
You can watch Twitch on its official site and there are apps available in Android, iOS, Xbox, Sony PlayStation, Google Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, etc.
You can create your account and follow your favorite channels and perform in the live Twitch chat session. You can browse through different categories like games, popular, communities, discover, creative, etc. to look for channels you’d like to watch. You can also follow the platform’s social media handles to know about the latest updates and know more about Twitch streamers.
Twitch Prime
Twitch services also allow their users to get the Twitch Prime membership to get ad-free streaming service, download contents, discounts on certain games. Users with Amazon Prime membership automatically gets access to the Twitch Prime membership and vice-versa.
Removing Memberships
Twitch also allow their user to delete or remove their Twitch accounts in case they don’t want to use it any further. You can always cancel Twitch Prime Membership and can stop the auto-renew process of the Twitch membership.
Features
Social Network
Since its launch, Twitch has been uploading new features and ways for their streamers to connect once another and is almost like a social network. Users can follow and message each other. Each of them would get their chatroom and check their chat history and reply to each other more comfortably. Almost like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, Twitch users can post status updates, comment, share, and like each other’s posts. Through the Twitch Chat, you can react and respond to live streaming.
Earning from Twitch
Many of the Twitch users make their full time living through their channels. Being a streamer, you can earn on Twitch through some of the paid services, micro-donations, advertisements, and sponsors. You need to work hard to reach that level of success.
TwitchCon
Twitch also organizes annual conventions known as TwitchCon by the end of October and September. They celebrate their streaming culture on their annual conventions. They promote their culture and services through the conventions. They arrange discussion panels and workshops regularly. The first TwitchCon attracted more than 20,000 attendees in San Francisco.
Why Twitch? Twitch’s Competitors
Twitch is by far one of the biggest platforms which bring gamers and other content creators in one place. No other Live streaming services have a social network as strong as Twitch. With extra support from a popular Company like Amazon, Twitch gains more popularity and users day by day. Live reactions and broadcasts are other reasons for Twitch being more popular. You can also start streaming on Twitch if you like gaming. All you need a decent gaming PC and good Internet.
Twitch is the first platform to give live and dedicated streaming to gamers. People love watching live gaming. Being the first in its field, Twitch gained a lot of popularity. Twitch also allows its users to monetize their streaming, unlike its competitors like YouTube Gaming. Microsoft is one of Twitch’s biggest competitor, with Xbox and Windows 10 PCs, Twitch has several other competitors like SmashCast. But with its features and popularity in hand, Twitch is still considered to be the winner in this field.
Summing Up
Twitch is one of the best Online Streaming services. Along with dedicated live game streaming, Twitch also offers categories like art, music, and talk shows. With its attachment to Amazon, Twitch is one of the most popular in its field. The Twitch Social Network allows you to connect with streamers and chat with them.
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