Justin.tv Shuts Down Amid Reports Google Is Acquiring Twitch

An anonymous reader writes Twitch today announced that the Justin.tv website, mobile apps, and APIs are no longer in service. A very simple explanation is given for the shutdown: since rebranding the company to Twitch Interactive in February 2014, all resources are now focused on Twitch.tv. The news today will almost certainly further fuel the rumors that Google is acquiring, or has already acquired, Twitch. Purchases are often followed by consolidation, as well as cutting off any excess limbs.

Comments

Noooooooooo!

[genner]

Nooooooooo! First they stop private channels now this.

Re:Noooooooooo!

[i kan reed]

Not to worry, as soon as google cements their monopoly, you'll be free to watch any advertisement video you want. You can choose to watch the ads your friends share, or the ones that are merely placement ads in popular video series.

Re:Noooooooooo!

[NotDrWho]

Just relax and let the ads do their work. Resistance will only make it hurt more.

Re:Noooooooooo!

[i kan reed]

Who's sick of Jewish influence in this country?

Neo-nazi shitheads.

Re:Noooooooooo!

[Dishevel]

Check out how they must mod me down out of hate to hide the fact that their ideology is based on not accepting those who do not accept what they tell them to.

Soon, a few companies will own all your base

[NotDrWho]

Headline "Five Corporations Now Own Entire Internet," coming soon.

Re:Soon, a few companies will own all your base

[JustOK]

It's cute how you think there is more than one.

Re:Soon, a few companies will own all your base

[shadowknot]

Sorry, reply to undo moderation mistake.

Re:Soon, a few companies will own all your base

[i kan reed]

Of course there will be. But they'll be in not-quite enforced back room trust agreements about salaries and pricing. You know, like already happens.

Re:Soon, a few companies will own all your base

[hobarrera]

Which are the other two new companies?

Re:Soon, a few companies will own all your base

[synthparadox]

I wouldn't be surprised considering 10 corporations own practically all of the common consumer brands.

Re:Soon, a few companies will own all your base

[ArhcAngel]

In other news Google has today announce they are rebranding Twitch.TV to Network XXIII (23 for the Roman Numeral illiterate)

Re:Soon, a few companies will own all your base

[GrumpySteen]

That's not really true. Look at the women's makeup, for example. There are hundreds of brands available, yet the infographic shows only three.

Pick any category of product there and you'll find the same thing; lots of alternative brands exist but aren't show.

All the infographic does offer is an idea of how diverse those ten companies' products are. It doesn't show anything about what's actually available in the marketplace.

Re:Soon, a few companies will own all your base

[Noah Haders]

Meme mishmash. Should be all your base are belong to five companies.'

Re:Soon, a few companies will own all your base

[Grizzley9]

That's not really true. Look at the women's makeup, for example. There are hundreds of brands available, yet the infographic shows only three.

Pick any category of product there and you'll find the same thing; lots of alternative brands exist but aren't show.

All the infographic does offer is an idea of how diverse those ten companies' products are. It doesn't show anything about what's actually available in the marketplace.

I don't think you are seeing the whole graphic then. There are numerous owned by P&G and many owned by L'Oreal (Nestle). There will always be smaller, even regional brands but they make up such a small part of the market to not be significant.

Re:Soon, a few companies will own all your base

[ArhcAngel]

Then you are not familiar with the show. In it the world is run by a few mega corps that basically stay in power by keeping their media ratings higher than their competitors thus reaping the highest ad revenue. Network XXIII being the one of the biggest. The first episode has one of their own reporters investigating why a guy spontaneously combusts only to learn its because Network XXIII's latest ad technology (Blipverts, which are 30 seconds ads compressed to 3 seconds so the viewer will not be tempted to change the channel) short circuits the victims nervous system. All pretty well spelled out in my OP and relevant to the GP headline.

So, it has come to this...

[HideyoshiJP]

I fully expected plenty of ass-hattery to come from this acquisition. I wasn't aware, however, that justin.tv would have any outcome from this. I don't know why I didn't see it coming, with them being under the same corporate entity. I can't wait to see what other crap comes down the pipe.

Oh crap

[Cidtek]

Where am I going to get college football without having to go to some dodgy site that want me to download some software first?

Hasn't this been planned for months?

[Fencepost]

I was never a user of justin.tv (and don't use Twitch either), but the impression I've gotten was that this has been coming for a long time - basically anything with more than 10 views was archived off elsewhere, and they killed a bunch of background stuff back in June I think.

Shouldn't this be titled "Justin.tv completes its scheduled shutdown on schedule"?

Re:Good

[bhcompy]

People like Jacksonville Jaguar fans who were blacked out in their local market for home games and wanted to see the football game?

Sounds like ABC / NBC / FOX and others

[Joe_Dragon]

There they start buying up TV channels and owning a big lot of them.

also look at what happened to tech tv

Re:Sounds like ABC / NBC / FOX and others

[Lumpy]

Tech TV was Leo Laporte, and Leo took his game to TWIT and has the largest internet TV empire out there right now.

What is/was it anyway?

[wonkey_monkey]

Twitch today announced that the Justin.tv website, mobile apps, and APIs are no longer in service.

Oh, dear. What was that when it was at home, then?

Re:Good

[lennier1]

It had its uses back in the day, but when they started the whole "This channel has reached the maximum number of free viewers for your country" bullshit to badger people into signing up for a paid account that stopped as well.

what will microsoft do

[stimpleton]

Quite a few games and systems use the twitch api to stream games. Minecraft is one. Xbox is another. Microsoft will be forced to start their own "windows 8 mobile" version of a twitch.tv.

No suprise....

[Lumpy]

Youtube has a larger user base and now has live available to most users.

Justin.tv has no chance of fighting that.

Re:Where to go now? Livestream, UStream?

[BitterOak]

vaughnlive.tv and ivlog.tv are better than either of those. Vaughnlive.tv has an interface most like Justin.tv, while ivlog.tv is more like the now defunct blogtv.

Re:Where to go now? Livestream, UStream?

[k6mfw]

I first used Justin but then later all I would get is a freeze frame with a cartoon of a dinosaur on top of image, "our monkeys are working as hard as they can to get it fixed" or something like that. So I then went to Ustream which seems to work fine except I never could get audio along with video, though I'm using the free version (maybe they don't send sound?). Livestream looks pretty good but for people to see it you have to get paid version. ParadigmDVD has nice Livestream streaming videos from dance competitions, nothing special on their end (I forget if they use PC or Mac) simply connect and use software from Livestream. They feed SDI from the cameras.

Re:Google has already trampled all over twitch...

[buckfeta2014]

relevant source: http://boingboing.net/2014/08/...