Timeline of Twitch.tv

This is a timeline of Twitch.tv, a live-streaming platform focusing on video gaming.

Big picture

Time period	Key developments at Twitch
2011–2014	Twitch launches as an offshoot of Justin.tv and becomes the most popular e-sports streaming service by a large margin.
2014–2016	By early 2014, Twitch becomes the fourth largest source of Internet traffic during peak times – surpassing MTV at peak times, and MSNBC during non-peak times.[1] Twitch is acquired by Amazon.com. By January 2015, Twitch reaches 100 million viewers per month.[2]

Full timeline

Year	Month and date	Event type	Details
2006	October 1	Company	Justin.tv, the parent company of Twitch, is founded.[3]
2007	October	Funding	Justin.tv raises $8 million in Series A.[3]
2011	June 6	Company	Justin.tv spins off its gaming division as Twitch, which officially launches in public beta.[4]
2011	July	Product	Twitch launches its Partner Program, which allows popular content producers to share in the ad revenue generated from their streams.[5]
2012	September	Funding	Twitch raises $15 million in Series B.[6][7]
2013	September	Funding	Twitch raises $20 million in Series C.[8]
2013	October	Competition	Hitbox.tv, a live-streaming competitor to Twitch, launches.[9]
2014	February 10	Company	Twitch's parent company Justin.tv, Inc. is renamed Twitch Interactive, reflecting the increased prominence of the Twitch over Justin.tv as the company's main business.[10]
2014	February 12	Audience	Twitch Plays Pokémon, a crowdsourced attempt to play Pokémon Red using a system translating chat commands into game controls, goes viral. The channel reaches over 6.5 million total views on February 17, 5 days since its introduction on February 12, and averages concurrent viewership between 60 and 70 thousand viewers, with at least 10% participating.[11][12]
2014	May	Acquisitions	Google holds talks about the possible acquisition of Twitch.[13]
2014	August 6	Product	Twitch announces it will start deleting archived broadcast recordings from its site after 14 days (60 days for partners or paying Turbo subscribers).[14] Hitbox.tv responds by saying that Twitch is out of touch.[9]
2014	August 25	Acquisitions	Amazon announces it will acquire Twitch Interactive for US$970 million. Twitch CEO Emmett Shear says that "We chose Amazon because they believe in our community, they share our values and long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster".[15][16]
2014	December 9	Acquisitions	Twitch announces it has acquired GoodGame Agency, an organisation that owns the esports teams Evil Geniuses and Alliance.[17][18][19]
2015	January	Product	Twitch introduces a royalty-free music library featuring tracks from various independent labels cleared for use in streams. It starts with 500 songs from labels such as Monstercat and Spinnin Records.[20][21]
2015	January 13	Competition	Dailymotion, a French startup, starts streaming live gaming video.[22]
2015	February	Popular Use	Twitch starts streaming poker, a game where the World Series of Poker drew 1.2 million viewers on average for its most recent live televised event.[23]
2015	March 24	Security	Twitch is reportedly hacked, resulting in users’ passwords being leaked.[24]
2015	June 10	Product	Twitch rolls out a private messaging system called Whisper, allowing users to send private chat messages without leaving their current chat.[25]
2015	August 26	Competition	YouTube launches YouTube gaming, introducing full streaming to YouTube.[26]
2015	October 28	Product	Twitch launches a second non-gaming category, "Creative", intended for streams showcasing the creation of artistic and creative works.[27] This starts off with a Bob Ross painting marathon.[28]
2015	November	Popular Use	Major League Gaming entices Nadeshot, the #1 Call of Duty star and captain of OpTic Gaming, to leave Twitch.tv to exclusively stream on twitch competitor mlg.tv.[29] A year later, he calls the decision a "mistake".[30]
2016	February	Integration	Amazon debuts a free game engine called Lumberyard that enables developers to create new video games with built-in Twitch integration to more easily connect with gamers.[31]
2016	March	Popular Use	Twitch begins to stream all episodes of Julia Child's The French Chef, inaugurating the food channel on the site.[32]
2016	March	Product	Forge raises $4.5 million in funding in an attempt to become the Vine of gaming – a way to broadly disseminate short gaming clips.[33]
2016	April 22	Product	Twitch introduces a new 'Friends' feature.[34]
2016	May	Popular Use	ELeague, a professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league, begins pitting well-known gamers against one another on Twitch.[35] ELeague creates the image of successful online e-sports in TV.
2016	May	Partnerships	Revlo - a service enabling livestreamers to engage with/monetize their fans (founded by a Thiel Fellow and advised by Justin Kan), raises seed round.[36]
2016	May 26	Product	Twitch launches clips so gamers can quickly share short videos of moments, allowing users to easily share 30-second portion video from others’ live streams.[37]
2016	August	Competition	Facebook starts allowing people to livestream their Blizzard-based games off of Twitch on its Facebook Live platform.[38]
2016	August 11	Competition	Microsoft acquires Beam, a livestreaming service (founded by a 18-year old Thiel Fellow) that gives viewers the ability to watch and play along with their favorite game streamers in real-time.[39][40]

References

1. "Charting the Rise of Twitch". The New York Times. 2014-08-27. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
2. "Twitch's Viewers Reach 100 Million a Month - Digits". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
3. "Justin.TV". Retrieved June 23, 2016.
4. Alex Wilhelm (June 6, 2011). "Twitch TV: Justin.tv's killer new esports project". The Next Web.
5. Tassi, Paul (July 27, 2011). "JustinTV Lets Gamers Earn Cash with New Twitch Partner Service". Forbes.
6. Dean Takahashi (19 Sep 2012). "Making every gamer famous, Twitch raises $15M to expand its eSports webcasts". VentureBeat. Retrieved 1 Oct 2013.
7. Alexander Sliwinski (20 Sep 2012). "Twitch receives $15 million investment to expand eSports broadcasts". Joystiq. Retrieved 2 Oct 2013.
8. "Twitch". CB. Retrieved June 20, 2016.
9. "Twitch CEO Admits Screw Up, Hitbox Jumps To Acquire Disillusioned Streamers". Inquisitr.com. Retrieved June 23, 2016.
10. "AS TWITCH GROWS, JUSTIN.TV INC. IS RENAMED TWITCH INTERACTIVE". Fast Company. 10 February 2014. Retrieved 31 July 2014.
11. "How Twitch is crowd-sourcing an amazing Pokémon multiplayer game". Polygon. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
12. "Twitch Plays Pokemon captivates with more than 6.5M total views". Polygon. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
13. "Google in Talks About Possible Acquisition of Twitch". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
14. "Top Twitch broadcasters are considering livestreaming alternatives -- here's where they may end up". Venturebeat.com. Retrieved June 23, 2016.
15. "Amazon, not YouTube, reportedly buying Twitch for over $1 billion". The Verge. 25 August 2014. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
16. "Amazon to Buy Video Site Twitch for More Than $1 Billion". The Wall Street Journal. 25 August 2014. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
17. Twitch. "Twitch to Acquire GoodGame Agency — Twitch Blog". Medium.
18. Te, Zorine (2014-12-09). "Twitch Acquires Evil Geniuses' Agency GoodGame". GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 2014-12-10.
19. "Amazon Dives Deeper Into Games, Acquiring GoodGame, an E-Sports Talent Agency". The New York Times. December 2014. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
20. "Twitch adds a music section, free tracks to make up for copyright crackdown". PC World. Retrieved 15 January 2015.
21. "Amazon's Twitch Gaming Unit to Allow Streaming Music - Digits". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
22. "Dailymotion Takes On Twitch and YouTube in Streaming Game Footage - Digits". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
23. "Amazon's Twitch Site Bets on Poker". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
24. "Twitch hacked: game streaming website's user details compromised". Independent. 24 March 2015. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
25. "Twitch rolls out a private-message system called Whisper". Engadget. Retrieved June 20, 2016.
26. "Watch Out, Twitch: YouTube Gaming Just Went Live". Wired.com. Retrieved June 20, 2016.
27. "Twitch launches "Creative" category, eight-day Bob Ross Painting marathon". Ars Technica. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
28. "Bob Ross Painting Marathon Is Coming to Streaming Service Twitch - Speakeasy". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
29. "No. 1 With a Bullet: 'Nadeshot' Becomes a Call of Duty Star". The New York Times. November 15, 2014. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
30. "Competitive Call of Duty Star Says Leaving Twitch Is His "Biggest Regret"". Kotaku.com. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
31. "Twitch Could Be a $20 Billion Dollar Company Inside Amazon – Backchannel". Https:. Retrieved August 28, 2016.
32. "Julia Child Marathon to Stream on Twitch as Gaming Site Widens Focus". The New York Times. March 15, 2016. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
33. "Forge Scores $4.5 Million for Prospect of Being the Vine of Gaming - Venture Capital Dispatch". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
34. "Twitch transforms into a social network with new 'Friends' feature". Https:. Retrieved June 20, 2016.
35. "ELeague Adapts TV to the Gaming Sensibility". The New York Times. May 24, 2016. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
36. "Revlo raises $1.1 million to let livestreamers engage and monetize their fans". Venturebeat.com. Retrieved August 28, 2016.
37. "Twitch launches Clips so gamers can quickly share short videos of their favorite moments". Retrieved June 20, 2016.
38. "Forbes Welcome". Forbes. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
39. "Microsoft acquires Beam interactive livestreaming service - The Official Microsoft Blog". Financial Times. August 11, 2016. Retrieved August 28, 2016.
40. "Microsoft acquires gaming startup Beam run by 18-year-old - Aug. 12, 2016". CNN. Retrieved August 28, 2016.