Twitch.TV is one of the fastest growing content services in the world, matched only by YouTube and Netflix for year-on-year traffic growth. The young startup appears to have some issues internally, making them want to sell.
Google appeared to be the first suitor, offering $1 billion, already owning the largest video service (YouTube) and offering enough infrastructure to boost Twitch significantly, but it looks like terms could not be finalised, perhaps because of Amazon.
Amazon stepped in later to offer a slightly lower $970 million bid (which most media outlets are saying is $1 billion) and Twitch.TV has went with the online commerce giant, instead of Google, pleasing many fans of the gaming broadcaster.
Even though Amazon might lack the global experience, the infrastructure is all there. Amazon Web Services powers Netflix, Reddit, Pinterest, Foursquare and thousands of pharmaceutical/enterprise servers.
This is on top of Amazon owning their own digital streaming platform, Amazon Instant Video. Categorisation is another strong point of the company, being able to tag all types of content and make simple user experiences.
All of this adds to an excellent choice for Amazon, and a much less controversial one. Google might be one of the best companies in the world, but YouTube has been a thorn in many content creators and viewers side, with several decisions turning sour.
Amazon has been growing out their gaming library for the past two years, offering simple free-to-play games and adding gaming functionality on the Kindle TV. Twitch.TV will no doubt integrate with Kindle TV and players will be able to stream from that device in the near future.
Twitch.TV should run exactly the same for the next few months, as Amazon ties up the deal. Once it closes, we expect Amazon to keep Twitch.TV separate, offering more support on the back-end.
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