Not really; the consensus view within the company was that the justin.tv website wasn’t long-term sustainable and the company needed a narrower focus.
There were three segments with sizeable viewer counts at the time: sports, video games, and social streams. The people streaming sports probably didn’t have the necessary permission from the copyright holders, so that was only possible through the DMCA safe-harbor provisions; obtaining the rights ourselves didn’t appear to be a viable option.
The entire company basically split into two divisions: the social division turned into SocialCam, which had some moderate success, and the gaming division turned into Twitch.
Wow, that is a great insight of them. Usually my managers want to do MORE disparate things, and spread more thinly. It's nearly impossible to get them to cut anything and focus on a mission.
There were three segments with sizeable viewer counts at the time: sports, video games, and social streams. The people streaming sports probably didn’t have the necessary permission from the copyright holders, so that was only possible through the DMCA safe-harbor provisions; obtaining the rights ourselves didn’t appear to be a viable option.
The entire company basically split into two divisions: the social division turned into SocialCam, which had some moderate success, and the gaming division turned into Twitch.