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How TwitchTV Built a Vibrant Community Around Game Streaming


If you’re ditching cable, there are many alternative content destinations online. If you’re a gamer, one of those is probably TwitchTV.

TwitchTV was started in June 2011 by Justin.tv founders Justin Kan and Emmett Shear. Since launch, TwitchTV has built an audience of 16 million visitors per month, with a growth rate of about 11% per month, according to Kan. Not only that, but those on the site stay and watch for an average of 47 minutes.

What are they watching? Usually, live broadcasts of gamers playing Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, or competitive esports like StarCraft 2, Halo and Street Fighter X Tekken.

Kan compares the rise in e-sport popularity to the rise of poker 20 years ago. While poker was a game many had enjoyed at home for years, the advent of cameras that could display the players’ hands to the television audience turned it into a spectator sport. Similarly, gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry, and now the technology is allowing people to stream their own content and spectate more easily.

“Poker started to be shown on ESPN. We are the ESPN of e-sports,” Kan said.

“Don’t wait for someone to represent you. Start your own stream and get involved.”

TwitchTV differs from ESPN in that anyone with the right tools can stream their own content. Marcus Graham, better known as djWHEAT, has been streaming games to spectators for the last 10 years. He said TwitchTV has seen a rise in the number people of streaming games, from double-digits to an individual streamer with thousands of watchers. Not only that, he says gamers are learning they can make money from their streams — sometimes enough to supplant a full-time job.

SEE ALSO: Move Over, Super Bowl. Spectator Gaming Reaches Millions Online

TwitchTV helps users monetize by allowing them to place ads in their streams. Kan said the advertising system was unique because streamers could place as many ads as they wanted in places that made sense with the content.

“I’m excited to be the ultimate level of tech entrepreneur. I set my own schedule and create my own content,” Graham said. “Now so many other people realize they can do this, too.”

Graham said TwitchTV is working on tools that will make it even easier for gamers to share their content, and he hopes that the next-generation consoles will feature tools making it easier to stream games. It’s not only about the tools though; gamers running streams have to learn how to entertain, engage and capture a loyal audience.

TwitchTV offers its streamers tools to interact with their audience, most importantly a chat that runs on the right side of their stream. It’s the main way for the streaming audience to interact with what’s being broadcast, and with each other. Graham said people come into his chats to talk to each other as well as to be entertained. He also sees people drop in even if he’s not broadcasting just to chat about games.

He also said some popular content creators are allowing their TwitchTV subscribers to play matches against them on the stream.

“It’d be like if you were a huge basketball fan and got to play a game against Michael Jordan.”

Jared Rea, the community manager for TwitchTV, said interactions the players and audience have with each other are what allow the community to grow as a whole, even as they host such a varied amount of game content.

“Almost like San Francisco’s culture and community varies from block to block, TwitchTV’s community varies wildly,” said Rea. “All the jokes in the fighting community are very different than the Minecraft community. But if you hang around, you’ll start to see a lot of familiar faces across communities.”

Rea’s job at TwitchTV, along with a whole community team, is to address and balance all the needs of this microcosm, as well as to surface the best content from each of them to feature on the main site.

“There’s a big push and pull sometimes between the casual and hardcore gamers, but at the end of the day I try to know as much about everything. I fight for the users,” said Rea, who is also a former game journalist and has been involved with the gaming culture for years.

TwitchTV’s explosive growth can be attributed to the strong community and the democratization of content creation — it gives gamers a place to belong, said Rea. He said the common gamer mentality has always felt a little out of the mainstream.

“Don’t wait for someone to represent you. Start your own stream and get involved,” he said.

The user empowerment has helped TwitchTV expand rapidly. Graham called the growth “astronomical,” and he doesn’t think it will be long before TwitchTV becomes more mainstream.

“I don’t even have to hope too hard in some cases,” he said. “The numbers are attracting eyeballs that weren’t looking at us before.”

Some of those eyeballs are big commercial advertisers, said Kan. He said more brands than before are sponsoring shows and players, and there is an emergence of big networks like Major League Gaming.

Even with the rapid growth, Rea said those interested in becoming part of the TwitchTV community will find it welcoming.

More About: esports, features, Gaming, streaming, TWITCH, twitchtv

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from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/03/20/twitchtv-gaming-community/?utm_source=feedburn...

Todd Park Appointed Second U.S. CTO

redletterdave writes "On Friday, President Barack Obama appointed Todd Park, a 39-year-old former entrepreneur and data scientist, to be the new Chief Technology Officer of the United States. Park takes over for Aneesh Chopra, the first U.S. CTO, who resigned earlier this year. Park was formerly the CTO of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services since 2009, where he helped bring 'big data' to healthcare by helping create an open health care data platform similar to the National Weather Service, which could feed data to commercial websites and applications. Before joining the Obama administration, Park helped co-found AthenaHealth and Castlight Health, and also served as a senior adviser to Ashoka, a global incubator for social entrepreneurs. One of his ventures, Healthpoint Services, won the 2011 Sankalp Award for the 'most innovative and promising health-oriented social enterprise in India.'"

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from Slashdot http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/03/09/2113255/todd-park-appointed-second-us...

Tweet seats deserve to be booed out of the theater

Marketers, when they hit, can identify the seed of a product, service or organization and plant it in fertile soil where it will grow like mad. They can tease out the implications of the object they're charged with publicizing or find the motif that others are most likely to riff on. But when they fail, they can fail in the most mortifying fashion. All around the country, the marketing staff at theaters big and small are embracing the "youthquake" in the grooviest way I've seen in years. They are offering up "tweet seats" to the kids.

It is an operatically stupid idea.

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from Ars Technica http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/03/tweet-seats-deserved-to-be-booed-...

Social TV Fans Cheer ‘American Idol’ Singer’s Antics During Judge’s Harsh Critique


The funnyman on this season’s American Idol took his antics to another level Wednesday night, boosting his appeal among users of Peel’s Idol Interactive Experience, a second-screen engagement platform that lets viewers “cheer” or “boo” contestants and judges in real time.

TV discovery app Peel‘s data (see graphic above) of last night’s top 11 performances reveals which singers are most likely to be safe or be eliminated during tonight’s results show.

Finalist Heejun Han, who was at the bottom of the pack in last week’s chart, catapulted himself near the top of the sentiment heap with his playful rendition of Billy Joel’s “My Life.”

Han lead his performance (watch below) with a staged false start, telling the pianist and band to speed things up after the accompaniment started off too slow for his liking. Han proceeded to rip off his bland tuxedo in favor of a colorful get-up. Fans had mixed reviews (see second graphic) throughout his live performance, but they “cheered” for him intensely while the judges gave their critiques.

“Are you happy that you took the piss out of that song?” judge Steven Tyler asked Han. “The music business will kick your ass. At some point, you’ve got to take it a little more serious.”

Peels users simultaneously “booed” the judges’ commentary of Han, whose antics in previous rounds were praised by fans.

The remaining 11 contestants tackled Billy Joel songs with help from guest mentor Diddy. Leading the overall chorus of boos were underwhelming performances from DeAndre Brackensick, Erika Van Pelt and Joshua Ledet.

Could Peel users’ boos predict who’s going home? It’s possible. Last week, one of the bottom three most-booed contestants was voted off by America.

Front-runners Jessica Sanchez, Phillip Phillips and Colton Dixon continue to please Peel users, with Dixon coming out on top this week for his version of “Piano Man.”

“As for the judges, the Peel community again disagreed strongly with Jennifer Lopez, who received the most boos of the three judges and the lowest approval rating,” Peel’s VP of marketing Scott Ellis told Mashable. “But in a surprising turn, Steven Tyler was the judge most in-tune with Peel users last night, with a 73% approval rating.”

More About: american idol, apps, Entertainment, mobile apps, Music, second screen apps, Social Media, social tv, TV

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/03/22/american-idol-heejun-my-life-social-buzz/?utm_...

Klout Doesn’t Really Measure Influence [STUDY]

Self Confident Guy


A new study about digital influence says Klout and other social media measurement tools don’t really define how users influence their networks.

All too commonly, sites like Klout and PeerIndex claim to measure influence — and maybe they do measure influence. But what does digital influence really mean?

Brian Solis, author of The Altimeter Group report, says social websites that rank users’ social media influence don’t measure influence like they claim to do. Rather, Solis says a user’s social media score measures the “capacity to influence.”

“Scores can be measures of social capital, but not true influence,” he said.

Solis came up with his own definition of digital influence: “the ability to cause effect, change behavior, and drive measurable outcomes online.” Solis conducted qualitative research by interviewing vendors, conducting software demos, and reviewing brands with piloted digital influence programs.

He also says brands don’t really understand influence.

“While these tools use sophisticated algorithms to calculate a corresponding number, they do not take into account all of the complexities of influence and the nature of relationships between people in social networks,” Solis says. “As a result, brands are potentially misallocating precious resources based on the lack of understanding of what influence is and the role influencers play within customer markets.”

Klout said it was well aware of Solis’s report before it was published — the company even had an advanced copy. But Lynn Fox, Klout’s spokeswoman, would not say whether Klout agreed or disagreed with the report.

“The report reinforces that we came in early on and we are furthest along in the process of measuring influence in this market,” Fox said.

How Klout Found Success by Focusing on Users

The 33-page report outlines the three pillars of influence, which is the ways brands become influencers, Solis said. The pillars — reach, resonance and relevance — determine how a brand or person can cause change or effect in their social network. A social media score alone does not mean a brand is an influencer, he said.

“The Pillars of Influence contribute to social capital, which indicates the likelihood to influence behavior, but a “score” does not predict the resulting actions or outcomes,” Solis said. “A score of 74 only represents the capacity to influence, but other variable come into play as defined by the Pillars of Influence.”

Azeem Azhar, the CEO of UK-based social media influence ranking site of PeerIndex, said the study is a great conversation driver, but the conclusion of the study doesn’t mean much. Social media rating sites are all in the realm of influence and the rankings branded as measured influence aren’t misleading users, Azhar said.

“We are in a semantic battle here rather than a practical battle,” Azhar said. “I don’t think there’s much difference between the capacity to influence and influence itself.”

He illustrated this with an anecdote about martinis. If a person drank martinis the past 10 Friday nights, it’s likely the person will drink a martini the next Friday night, he said.

“Or we can say it’s likely you have the capacity to drink a martini,” Azhar said. “I don’t see a difference.”

Klout openly says on the site has an algorithm to measure influence. The algorithm has come under scrutiny in the past, but Klout says its scientists and engineers work to make sure your influence score is accurate.

“Influence in general is a challenge to define, but the point is that the data exists and influence is the ability to drive action,” she said. “Our focus right now is continuing to unlock influence for consumers.”

Does this report uncover the limitations of a social media score, or is this a semantic battle? Are the three social media pillars needed to be a digital influencer? Tell us in the comments.

Photo courtesy of iPhoto, AlijaAlija

More About: klout, Social Media

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/03/23/klout-influence/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_med...

Callnote Records Skype Calls and Saves the Audio to Evernote Automatically [Downloads]

Win/Mac: We've discussed a few ways to record Skype calls in the past, but they tend to be pretty hit-or-miss. As long as the audio is the only part you're worried about, CallNote can record your calls and then save the audio file to your Evernote account immediately as soon as it's finished recording. More »


from Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/5895808/callnote-records-skype-calls-and-saves-the-audi...

Notch Wants To Make a Firefly-Inspired Sandbox Space Game

silentbrad sends this snippet from PCGamer: "After stepping back as lead designer of Minecraft earlier this year, Notch has been considering what to do next. ... While he's still deciding exactly what he wants to work on, he told us that he'd quite like to do a sandbox space trading game like Elite, 'except done right.' Notch is aiming for something with a bit more character than the classic trading sim. Instead of being the spaceship, you'd be a character inside the spaceship. 'I want the space game that's more like Firefly,' he said. 'I want to run around on my ship and have to put out a fire. Like, oh crap, the cooling system failed, I have to put out the fire here.' He hasn't decided to make the game yet, and doesn't mind if someone else takes up the reins. 'If someone steals the idea before me, that's totally fine. I just want to play that game,' he said."

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from Slashdot http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/03/23/215244/notch-wants-to-make-a-firefly...

Twitter Does Not Actually Predict Box Office Sales [STUDY]

Hunger Games


Twitter has developed the reputation of being able to predict the future — from box office sales to presidential primary results and even the stock market. But according to researchers at Princeton University, Twitter might not be able to foretell how well films will perform after all.

A new report called “Why Watching Movie Tweets Won’t Tell the Whole Story” found that monitoring tweets related to movies is not a reliable source for what could actually happen at the box office.

The news comes as analysts predict a record-breaking opening weekend for the movie The Hunger Games, based on active chatter about the book-to-film trilogy.

“We found that data from Twitter — while valuable for the unprecedented access it provides into the public psyche — is not necessarily representative of the larger online population, as seen from the results of our studies on ratings computed from movie tweets compared to International Movie Database (IMDB) and Rotten Tomatoes ratings,” study co-author and professor of electrical engineering at Princeton University Mung Chiang told Mashable.

SEE ALSO: Social Media Supports ‘Hunger Games’ More Than ‘Potter,’ Less Than ‘Twilight’ [CHARTS]

Chiang, along with two postdoctoral research associates Soumya Sen and Felix Wong, analyzed about 10 million user tweets with movie keywords from Twitter between February and March 2012 (around Oscar season) and data using machine learning techniques to label tweets based on their temporal context (before, during and after watching a movie) and opinion (positive or negative reviews).

“Twitter users tend to be much more positive in their reviews and comments for films overall,” Chiang said. “But they are less positive than IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes reviews for Oscar ‘Best film’ nominated movies.”

In addition to sentiment analysis, it looked at how well certain films performed at the box office via data on IMDB.

“We found that if a movie received high ratings in IMDB — by over 70% approval — and a lot of buzz on Twitter, then it usually does well at the box-office in the long run,” Sen added. “But otherwise, predicting box-office success is difficult. Movies with a lot of hype on Twitter and low IMDB ratings can be successful or unsuccessful at the box-office. It’s harder to predict.”

Overall, the study found no clear evidence that shows a direct link between Twitter hype, ratings and box office sales.

“The most surprising finding was that Twitter data may not be representative enough of the total population, so it is somewhat risky to use the site for forecasting,” Sen said. “More sophisticated techniques may be needed to understand the applicability of such data sets, such as the metrics we developed to understand the extent of the difference between Twitter users and other online rating side users.”

Do you think Twitter can predict big trends? Let us know in the comments.

More About: Social Media, Twitter

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from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/03/23/twitter-box-office-predictions/?utm_source=fee...

Best Headset with Attached Microphone? [Hive Five Call For Contenders]

Whether you're getting your game on, hopping into a Google Hangout, or videoconferencing with friends or coworkers, you need a good headset to hear the action and be heard by other people listening. The trouble is, there are tons of great options. This week we want to know which headset (with an attached microphone) you think is the best all-around model for the job—one that offers great audio quality and voice clarity to the people on the other end. More »


from Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/5895691/best-headset-with-attached-microphone