> Twitch succeeded because, as justin.tv, they were in a position to notice rising demand for gaming livestreams.
So, for an alternative view:
This is not an unfair advantage at all. I was in exactly the same position. We however thought that having game sessions streamed was terribly boring (none of the people in our office were gamers), and so, instead of catering to this niche (which I'm sure hit us well before it hit justin.tv simply because we started much earlier) we threw the gamers out and concentrated on the people.
They found another home and Justin absolutely ran with it, he recognized the opportunity that we squandered and I'm very happy that he made it.
There is absolutely nothing unfair about any of this.
And VCs were already funding fantasy sports, casual gaming and other game related activities, they just never made the link with screencasts that Justin did.
But long before then they already won the lottery in the sense that they got more money to work with than anybody in the space up to that point. The biggest deal in that space up to then was probably spotlife, a Logitech / Philips collaboration around the theme of live video, they picked up $30M.
So, for an alternative view:
This is not an unfair advantage at all. I was in exactly the same position. We however thought that having game sessions streamed was terribly boring (none of the people in our office were gamers), and so, instead of catering to this niche (which I'm sure hit us well before it hit justin.tv simply because we started much earlier) we threw the gamers out and concentrated on the people.
They found another home and Justin absolutely ran with it, he recognized the opportunity that we squandered and I'm very happy that he made it.
There is absolutely nothing unfair about any of this.
And VCs were already funding fantasy sports, casual gaming and other game related activities, they just never made the link with screencasts that Justin did.
But long before then they already won the lottery in the sense that they got more money to work with than anybody in the space up to that point. The biggest deal in that space up to then was probably spotlife, a Logitech / Philips collaboration around the theme of live video, they picked up $30M.