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Twitch Introduces New VOD Features & Copyrighted Music Blocking System

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The popular live video streaming site for gamers has announced dramatic new features that could have major consequences throughout its community.

UPDATE: Twitch has recently responded to the issues highlighted in this story, making what was known at the time of this writing old by the time of its posting. The changes reflected since then have been updated below this original account of events.

Some big, possibly community-effecting changes are being planned for Twitch. The popular live video streaming site, which caters to video game playthroughs and major gaming tournaments has revealed on Wednesday new guidelines about their Video-On-Demand system, and a controversial copyrighted music tagging software that mutes any rights-violating videos.

Let’s address Twitch’s new VOD system first, which will have some new welcomed features for broadcasters and viewers: such as higher quality videos, the ability to watch archived content on smart phones and other platforms, a new and easier way of exporting videos to YouTube, plus more options that promise to make video discoverability all the better.

In exchange for these new features though, Twitch will be removing the option for users to save their livestreams as archived videos forever. Beginning three weeks from now, Twitch will delete all broadcasts for nonpaying Twitch members after 14 days; turbo members, meanwhile, can have past broadcasts saved in their library for up to 60 days.

Only highlights, which can stretch for up to 2 hours in length, can be saved from being deleted past their Twitch-mandated expiration date. The culling, so to speak, will begin in three-weeks time, so it’s important to hurry and trim down any broadcast to fit the 2-hour highlight specification, preventing it from getting erased. Like, right now would be best.

A good part of Twitch’s upheaval of their archival system is based on new research complied by the company, which found that 80 percent of its storage capacity is composed of past broadcasts that never get watched. Even more justifying, archived videos that do get watched, users only do so within the first 14 days of a video’s posting 84 percent of the time.

With the high cost of storage, keeping so much unwatched content was a financial burden with no real benefit to Twitch. And keeping the archival status quo harshly limited the audience a playthrough could reach due to their extraneous length. Up till now, Twitch app users on Xbox 360, iPad, and smart phones could only view live broadcasts on Twitch.

That changes now that most saved streams will be limited to highlights, opening up the full buffet of video content on their site, be it through an Internet browser, a video game console, or on a mobile device/tablet to everyone with online access. So ultimately, a good thing for views and perhaps a small headache for broadcasters who are now given few options in regards to archival methods.

Now a real potential big headache? That would be Twitch’s new audio tagging system, which scans and targets licensed audio in a video that infringes upon any copyright claim (thankfully, live broadcasts are exempt from this software). In place, the tagging system will now mute any copyrighted material in a video for 30-minutes.

YouTube has a similar copyright catching method in place for its videos, and for the content creators   there, it has been a great thorn in their collective sides, giving full unchecked power to license holders for even the slightest of violations.

Twitch is still fleshing out these new policies issued on Wednesday, and have said to be openingly hearing feedback through its social channels. And judging from the immediate, heated reaction from Twitch users, some of whom include popular Let Play-ers with massive followings, since these new policies have been revealed, the company is getting it thoroughly.

UPDATE: Twitch has apparently come out and course-corrected some of its latest decisions in the past few hours.

Through their official Twitter account and official blog, the company is reportedly eliminating the 2-hour limit on highlight videos (giving back some archival functionality to its broadcasters), and the addition of a VOD audio removal appeal button that is meant to ease the concerns over the misuse of the newly in-placed copyright music tagging system.

We will keep you up to date on any further announcements from Twitch as they become known

Source: Twitch.com

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Google Buy Twitch For $1B – How Will That Change YouTube?

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Having to compete with livestreamers and popular gaming channels, Google have purchased Twitch for $1 billion to increase their video influence.

Gaming isn’t just about the playing any more – it’s about the thrill of a quick succession of button presses that gets you the winning kill in Call of Duty, or the trickshot that scores a magnificent goal in FIFA or the play that outsmarts your opponent to get to checkmate in an online game of chess if that’s really your thing. Hey, no judgement from me. In short, these days gaming is very much about the spectacle which is why folks like PewDiePie rake in $4 million a year from humble beginnings as a YouTuber who just liked to make videos about the games he was playing. And we know a lot about how these YouTubers are making money and how journalism is very much migrating to the service but outside of YouTube, millions are also being made using Twitch, with many gamers preferring to watch the hottest slices of gaming action live rather than videos that are pre-recorded, edited and displayed hours later for a delayed audience to see. YouTube was having to compete in a big way against popular streamers displaying eSports matches (such as games in League of Legends) so if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em which is exactly why YouTube’s parent company, Google, has just bought Twitch for $1 billion.

That figure might seem like a high price but in actual fact, Google has got itself a bargain deal here as the burgeoning rise of eSports means that more and more people are watching streamed eSports shows and streamed eSports games every single day, with Twitch being included on PS4 and Xbox One which only helps to further drive up the numbers of its 50 million monthly active users. And it’s also a great investment from the company as having Twitch in their back pocket now allows them to encourage more gamers to use their site as well as Twitch’s efforts will now be supported by Google and YouTube’s multi-billion dollar backend rather than a well put together team that was searching for investors as their growing popularity led to growing costs.

For existing YouTube users though, don’t expect revolutionary change but rather a much more subtle one. The video site already caters to music lovers in a big way with shows such as the YouTube Music Awards and streamed concerts showing that, so we can just expect eSports tournaments and gaming events to be promoted in a big way too which is fine if you’re into that and the banners that usually promote these events are only a clicked ‘x’ away from making them disappear anyway. Furthermore, YouTube is especially good at recommending things for us based on our individual tastes so if your video history suggests that you hate gaming like it’s the worst thing to happen to you since Arrested Development got cancelled, then, I wouldn’t expect YouTube to shove gaming streams in your face either.

Source: Variety

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YouTube to Buy Twitch for $1 Billion

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In the face of Twitch’s continued success, YouTube are reportedly set to buy the livestreaming service for $1 billion.

No matter how much you, I, or YouTube deny it, the video landscape is changing. For gamers in particular, there are several avenues down which we can travel down in order to see glorious gaming footage play out right before our eyeballs. Many of us will head to YouTube to watch trailers in full 1080p HD, but when we want to see the games we love (or are interested in) in action, minus the post-editing sheen or without the constant commentary of a Let’s Play video, then we head to Twitch, where anything goes as long as its live. Indeed, Twitch has brought us many a gaming nugget, from game announcements, to hour long streams of unreleased titles to new gaming experiences in themselves, such as Twitch Plays Pokémon and now, YouTube are reportedly set to buy the livestreaming service for $1 billion.

While it’s easy to explain the decision as ‘Twitch is successful, YouTube wants in on that’, the reason may be more complex. While YouTube is owned by Google and it does allow for YouTube livestreams as well as Google Hangouts, Twitch is still a significant piece of the video viewing pie that YouTube likely can’t ignore any longer. But the company hasn’t just had to convince Twitch’s founders that they will continue to improve the service for gamers (rather than turning it into a corporate cash cow that has lost sight of its core audience) as YouTube has also had to fend off competition from Microsoft and several venture capitalists who have all put their names in the hat as potential buyers.

However, despite YouTube being considered as “the best” buyout option for the company by the team behind Twitch, they are also said to be looking at investment funding as opposed to a total sale of the company. Not only this but sources explain that the “deal isn’t imminent” suggesting that despite being the frontrunners in the buyout options, YouTube’s purchase of Twitch is still a long way from final.

We’ll keep you posted once we know more.

Source: Polygon

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Google retiring iGoogle, Google Mini, others for ‘spring cleaning’

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Google retiring iGoogle, Symbian Search app, Google Mini, others for 'spring cleaning'

To everything (Turn, Turn, Turn). There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn). Sometimes those seasons can get a bit convoluted, however -- or such is the premise of Google's "Spring cleaning in summer" post, outlining the end of a handful of tech offerings. Because heck, even a company as big as Google has to pick its battles. On the chopping block this time out are the Google Mini enterprise search system, the Google Talk Chatback widget, Google Video, iGoogle and the Symbian search app. Of course, the company won't be leaving people hanging entirely. Google's pushing users toward existing properties like the Meebo bar for Talk Chatback and YouTube for Google Video (which already stopped taking uploads a while back), the latter of which will be fully integrated into the more popular video offering come August. More info on what all this means in the source link below.

Google retiring iGoogle, Google Mini, others for 'spring cleaning' originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Jul 2012 16:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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