From Baruch New Media
Jump to: navigation, search

Media has existed with us for a long time. There have been countless occasions where people have turned to media in order to get information, complete tasks, or even just for sheer entertainment. A new type of media that has been quite the talk is Streaming Media. Streaming media allows users to learn and enjoy countless pieces of work created by another individual for their own entertainment. Although it had only come into popularity in recent years, Streaming Media still continues to grow and may soon become something big. For many local stations and popular cable networks, streaming of shows is available almost immediately. For instance, CW shows such as Flash, Arrow, and The 100, are all available within hours on the CW website and phone app. The difference here being that you still would have to sit through (or click-through) advertisements on these platforms, unlike streaming only services.

History

Streaming Media had not always been around. Before Streaming Media, individuals had gone out to movie or play theaters for entertainment or read books in order to gain more information. Streaming Media started in 1993, where a band named "Severe Tire Damage" first played their music live on the internet. There were other similar achievements as well, such as RealNetworks streaming a baseball game in 1995, a symphonic concert in the Paramount Theater of Seattle being streamed in 1995, and even Word Magazine streaming their soundtracks in 1995.[1]

Development

Microsoft created ActiveMovie in 1995, which was the first program that allowed for streaming media. Later on, Microsoft's Windows Media Player took over the functionality of ActiveMovie in its version 6.4 update. Apple did not fall behind in this marketing field. Apple developed a program named QuickTime 4 in 1999. Although streaming media is easy today, users had sometimes required all three programs in order to run the files they downloaded back then, since each file was in a different format that only one of the three programs could run.[2]

Later in 2002, Streaming Media had taken a turn for a unified adoption of a single format for media, which was Adobe Flash.[3]

Modern Day Streaming

In modern times, there are plenty of ways to watch videos that are streaming. Two of the most used streaming media websites are YouTube and Twitch.TV. These two sites are similar, but also different at the same time. YouTube allows users to watch videos of virtually anything that they can search up. Videos on YouTube can go from being entertaining to informational to downright creepy or weird. Twitch.TV, on the other hand, is mostly for live streaming. Although live streams can be recorded and watched later, most users on Twitch.TV go there to watch live streaming of video games.

YouTube is a great example of Streaming Media

YouTube

YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. These three co-founders had been former employees of PayPal.[4] The idea of YouTube had been created as early as 2005, where it was to become a website based on a dating site called Hot or Not.[5] When YouTube had first started its career, many users just posted whatever videos that they wanted, which gave the founders the idea to allow anyone and everyone to post their videos on the site. In the end, YouTube seems to have been created by the end users instead of the founders.

Content

YouTube provides viewers with a variety of different content. It ranges from informational to entertaining to weird. The most popular content on YouTube are gaming videos and viral videos, both of which have many frequent viewers that sometimes watch one single video multiple times. There is also a different type of video, similar to a gaming video,that is also popular called a "Let's Play."[6] "Let's Play's" are videos where the person playing the video game plays while talking to the viewer, which usually creates funny scenarios where the player actually messes up because they concentrate too hard on thinking of good content to talk about.

Viral Videos

YouTube has been known to create many viral videos, as it is in a easy-to-use format for anyone and everyone to enjoy. Some examples of viral videos include Gangnam Style, Justin Bieber's Baby ft. Ludacris, Kony 2012, Charlie Bit My Finger, and the many Harlem Shake videos.

Gaming

There is a separate feature within YouTube commonly referred to as "gaming." This allows gamers to stream their gameplay in-real-time; viewers are able to chat inside a chat-box while they watch. The interface of YouTube Gaming is dark, allowing the audience to focusing more on what is going on in the stream than anything else.

Netflix Logo

Netflix

Netflix, Inc. is an American provider of on-demand Internet streaming media available to viewers in North and South America, the Caribbean, and parts of Europe (Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom), and of flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States, where mailed DVDs are sent via Permit Reply Mail. The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California. [7]

"Content" Netflix offers content that is both available for instant on demand streaming and by DVD-by-mail. Netflix first offered online streaming rentals in 1997. [8] Most of its library of video content comes from paid TV deals of titles from Relativity Media, DreamWorks Animation, Open Road Films, FilmDistrict, The Weinstein Company, and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.[9]

Netflix also creates its own original content of television series for its streaming service. Some popular titles includes House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Turbo F.A.S.T., BoJack Horseman, Sense8, Lilyhammer, Arrested Development (4th Season), and Hemlock Grove. [10]

Recently Netflix has made a deal with the E! Talk Show host Chelsea Handler for a 2016 appearance. If this goes through, this would be Netflix's first talk show on its streaming service which can become another way Netflix is revolutionizing the television industry. Instead of airing all the episodes at once, like Netflix's other content, Handler will come out with shows on a weekly basis. Since talk shows are not syndicated for television because no one is really interested in watching a show about last weeks topics, it will interesting to see how Netflix's takes this on. [11]

TwitchTV is another type of Streaming Media

Twitch.TV

Twitch.TV was created in 2011 by Justin.TV, which is comprised of the two founders Justin Kan and Emmett Shear. It was created to allow users to stream video gaming and e-sports content with ease.[12] Twitch.TV sees about 45 million unique viewers per month worldwide with each individual viewer watching about an hour and a half each day. [See here for more background information about Twitch] [13]

Content

Twitch.TV sees a diverse amount of content, similar to YouTube. Twitch.TV has many people playing video games while talking to viewers through a chat interface that is easily accessible. Viewers can ask questions directly to the streamer and they can expect a response in an adequate amount of time. Twitch.TV also allows users to watch any stream that they might have missed through the recorded streams section of the site, although most users prefer to use Twitch.TV for watching live streams exclusively.

Front Page

Partners of Twitch can apply to be featured on the front page which can be the most promising or threatening opportunity for a stream. Channels that are featured will always have an influx of more than 3,000 different users, and if the the channel can not accommodate this many viewers, it will leave a bad impression on the quality of the stream. Sometimes Twitch admins will come into a partner's channel that has a trending theme to feature them on the front page. For example, a streamer that is doing a 24-hour stream for the release of a new game, or a holiday themed family-friendly stream would be ones that make the list.

Features

Followers

Followers are the most basic form of supporting a streamer. It is completely free and offers the option to notify you when the particular streamer begins a stream. Follower counts for new streamers are important to becoming a partner in order to get subscribers, and earn revenue. The people a user follows is displayed in their profile, so others can check out new interesting streams.

Subscriptions

Users can subscribe to their favorite streamers to show their support for a fee of $5 a month. The perks of being a subscriber is the use of custom emoticons, custom badge avatar, ad-free viewing, and of course you are supporting your favorite streamer, allowing them to provide better quality content. Recently Twitch has implemented a new system that tracks how many consecutive months a user has re-subbed to a streamer. Once the user reaches the milestones of 3-month, 6-month, 1-year, 2-year subscriptions, their badge will change depending on what the streamer chose to upload for the badge. The custom emoticons are created by the streamer and can be used all across twitch by subscribers to represent the streamer they support. Generally a lot of streamers do raffles for subscribers (sometimes even followers) giving away gift cards, promoted products, or a chance to play with the streamer. [14]

Turbo Member

Twitch Turbo is a recent addition to the memberships offered on the platform. Twitch Turbo is account-specific, so it applies throughout all the channels and not just the one you are subscribed to. The perks are: Ad-free viewing, a new custom set of emoticons, a Turbo badge, extended chat colors, increased video storage for your broadcasts. [15]

Cheers

Cheers are the newest form of supporting a streamer. Users can purchase "bits" and donate them to streamers to "cheer" them on when something amazing happens, or just because they feel like it. Every cheer has a equivalent monetary value of one cent to the receiver, and Twitch sells them in the thousands (with a markup). Streamers can creatively use the bits system in anyway they want. For example, a giveaway every thousand cheers, or a special performance for the musical streamers. Cheering is still being tested in its beta phase, but it is available in many countries to gather data and improve the system. Cheers also serves a second purpose :security for donation frauds that harm streamers. Because the internet is anonymous, it is hard to punish individuals for abusing refunds and charge-backs. Every now and then, donations in large amounts ($100+) are donated but with the intention to refund it through the credit company (Paypal, Visa, etc). This harms the streamer because they have to pay a percentage of the donation as a fee. There have also been cases where taxes have been paid for the donations before the charge-backs occur, so the streamer suffers yet another loss. Bits can not be refunded when donated, so the risk of charge-backs falls onto Twitch.TV instead of the partners. [16]

Clips

Clipping the best moments of your Twitch experience has never been easier since Twitch added a simple button to make a short clip of the previous 25 seconds and next 5 seconds of a stream. Users can capture these moments and share them with anyone who missed it or doesn't watch streams on Twitch. It's almost like a [vine]. Or users can make compilation videos for YouTube. Every clip is saved to the account, so users can always go back and re-watch as they wish. [17]

E-Sports

Twitch.TV is most popular for its hosting of eSports entertainment. Twitch.TV streams many different eSport associated games such as DOTA2 and League of Legends. Twitch.TV also sponsors eSports events for Major League Gaming. Twitch.TV streams all the major tournaments year-round for Counter Strike Global Offensive live, drawing in hundreds of thousands of viewers. DOTA 2 and Counter Strike Global Offensive have peaked at around one million unique viewers, along with the audience in the live arena. The majors are like the SuperBowl of eSports, generating enormous ad revenues, micro-transactions, and spreading the passion of eSports.

Partnerships

When a Twitch.TV streamer meets certain criteria, Twitch.TV allows them to create a partnership that allows the Twitch.TV streamer to partner up with the site in order to earn revenue off of their streams. The requirements[18] for Twitch users are:

  • Average concurrent viewership of 500+ (not just a one-time peak)
  • Regular broadcast schedule of at least 3 times a week
  • Content that conforms to our Terms of Service and DMCA Guidelines

while the requirements for newcomers that have precorded videos (eg: Youtube) are:

  • Average views per video: 15,000+
  • Subscribers: 100,000+
  • Content that conforms to our Terms of Service and DMCA Guidelines

As of Dec. 2016, there are about 17,000+ members of the Twitch.TV community that are partners.[19]

Charitable Events

Twitch has been the platform of choice for many charitable events. There are individual channels that help support charities as well as organizations that use Twitch as their medium to gather viewers.

Speed Demos Archive

The most notable event is the Speed Demos Archive's (SDA) "Games Done Quick" event. There are two annual events hosted by SDA: Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) in the winter, and Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ) in the summer. These event began in 2011 and raised over $100,000 for CARE and the Cancer Prevention Foundation. SDA exponentially grew in popularity every year it was hosted. Donations totaling $100,000 a year quickly turned into $700,000 in 2013. Just one year later in 2014, SDA earned a total of $1.75 million for Cancer and Doctors Without Borders. Every year since, SDA has earned more than $2 million for charities. SDA combines the fun of playing games, watching games on Twitch, and fundraising for charities into one incredibly successful event. [20] [21]

Bob Ross Birthday Anniversary Marathon

In 2015 October 29th, Twitch exercised the rights they acquired to live stream Bob Ross's TV show "The Joy of Painting." It was an opportunity to expose younger generations that did not grow up knowing Bob Ross's calming painting sessions. It was a huge success with more than 50,000 concurrent viewers on Bob Ross's channel in Twitch's Creative section. There was a reported 5.6 million unique users that watched the painting sessions. From then on, Twitch decided to re-stream one season of "The Joy of Painting" from 3 PM PST to 9:30 PM PST. Twitch announced that they would split the proceeds from subscriptions between Root Division (Twitch's organization that supports local artists and teaching children art), St. Jude's Cancer Research, and its own Creative section to reinvest and improve the channels. [22]

Notable Channels

GeekandSundry is a popular channel that donates their proceeds to charity. They host many events every year with guest stars to attract viewers. It is a group of people playing different games (video, tabletop games, twister), and having fun together. They also sell merchandise on their website based on their channel. In 2015 Geek & Sundry raised a total of $115,204 for The Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. [23]

Twitch Plays Pokemon

On February 12, 2014, Twitch Plays Pokemon was started by an anonymous programmer. Twitch Plays Pokemon is a social experiment utilizing instant-streaming technology in new media and integrating commands by users in one game of Pokemon. The creator allows users to control the game character by typing commands such as “up”, “down”, “start”, “A”, etc. Users are able to watch the game’s progression as a spectator or contribute as a commandeer. The following of this experiment has also led to creativity of watchers creating lores and stories for the characters in the game, including a pseudo-religion of “Anarachy” where they praise messiahs such as “Lord Helix” and “Bird Jesus”.

This experiment gained much exposure in February and March, peaking at 121,000 simultaneous users at one time. After finishing the original Red Version of the game, the experiment went on to complete Pokémon Crystal, Pokémon Emerald, Pokémon FireRed, and Pokémon Platinum.

Vine

Vine.jpg

Vine was released in 2012 by Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov, and Colin Kroll.[24] It was created to allow users to publish 6-second videos to share with friends and the online community. Vine videos can be shared on other social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.


History

Within months, the mobile app was acquired by Twitter for $30 million in October 2012. On January 24, 2013, the mobile app was launched on Apple's iOS App Store. By April 9, the app became the most downloaded free app on the App Store. [25] Following the success of the iOS app, Vine was released on Android's own Play Store on Jun 2, 2013.


Marketing

Since the inception of the app to popular culture, Vine has been used for advertisement to promote products and brands. One of the pioneers of this tactic is Lowe's Home Improvement. Starting as early as May 2013, Lowe's released a series of home improvement videos called "Fix in Six".[26]

References

<references>

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media
  2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media
  3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media
  4. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2005-11-21-video-websites_x.htm
  5. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570795-5,00.html
  6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Play_(video_gaming)
  7. http://ir.netflix.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1065280-14-6&CIK=106528
  8. https://pr.netflix.com/WebClient/loginPageSalesNetWorksAction.do?contentGroupId=10477&contentGroup=Company+Timeline
  9. http://ir.netflix.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1065280-14-6&CIK=106528
  10. http://mashable.com/2014/01/07/netflix-original-series-2014/
  11. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/business/media/chelsea-handler-to-host-late-night-style-talk-show-on-netflix.html?_r=0
  12. http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/11/justin-tvs-video-gaming-portal-twitch-tv-growing-fast/
  13. http://twitchmediagroup.com/
  14. "Subscriber Badge Guide", Twitch
  15. Rachel Kaser, "New to Twitch? A Complete Guide to Buying Subscriptions", Make Use Of
  16. "Guide to Cheering (Beta)", Twitch
  17. "How to Use Clips", Twitch
  18. http://www.twitch.tv/partner/signup
  19. https://www.twitch.tv/p/partnerfaq
  20. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_Demos_Archive
  21. [https://gamesdonequick.com/tracker/events
  22. "After Pulling In 5.6M Viewers, Twitch Is Keeping Bob Ross On The Air", TechCrunch
  23. "Geek & Sundry 2015 In Review"
  24. http://allthingsd.com/20121009/twitter-buys-vine-a-video-clip-company-that-never-launched/
  25. http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/9/4204396/vine-number-one-us-app-store-free-apps-chart
  26. http://www.businessinsider.com/lowes-brilliant-use-of-vine-for-tip-2013-5