Stream platforms: a new way of communicating

It is undeniable that the digital business is advancing and has a great role in today's society. This causes an infinity of trends related to the digital business to appear in search of being relevant and change our lives.

Every day more companies invest in the digital field, which is no longer something futuristic and distant, but something current that surpasses everything previously known. These companies see in the digital world a highly profitable business because it is a long-term guarantee, since the digital business has just been born and seems timeless.

If a company invests in a digital trend, it is assured that it will make a profit, either now or in the near future. In addition, as it is something relatively new, it is key to position yourself quickly to take advantage of the competition that comes later. If a company is a pioneer in developing its own space on a new platform or digital business trend, it will have an advantage for those companies that join that same platform later. Furthermore, companies that are not digitized will not be adapting to the environment that is changing around them and, as if it were an animal species, they will end up becoming extinct sooner or later.

There are many trends that exist related to the digital business, but the one that most catches my attention due to the amount of money it moves is the trend of e-Sports, specifically streaming platforms, where YouTube and Twitch stand out. With this platforms, anyone with a camera and microphone can create content to entertain without the need for a whole team or expensive material.

Youtube and Twitch are the are the most used platforms for online broadcasts. Image: IGN Latam

YouTube was the pioneer

YouTube was born in 2005 as a platform that allowed users to upload videos and for people to see them whenever and wherever they wanted. Over the years they implemented the live function and all the major streamers used to work on this platform to broadcast their content live or delayed. YouTube had been the first platform to allow the creation and upload of this type of content and it took over the monopoly of this sector. As the digital world has grown, YouTube has been getting richer and richer, and it began to use policies that content creators or youtubers did not like, but they could not stop using YouTube to upload their videos due to the lack of competition that this had.

The student surpassed the teacher

It was then that another platform with similar conditions began to grow: Twitch. This website was born directly as a site to broadcast live content and offered content creators better economic and working conditions. The content is better paid according to the visits and the platform does not have failures when it comes to notifying the followers if there is new content (a big problem with YouTube is not that it pays less than Twitch, but on many occasions it does not warn that it is has uploaded the content or does not promote it well, which makes the creators of the videos lose visits and therefore money).

Twitch was created in 2011 but became internationally relevant later, in 2014 and 2015. At that time, many content creators already saw an alternative to YouTube on this site, which had been profiting at the expense of youtubers for a long time without paying any attention of your requests or complaints.

Who is the leader in live streaming? Image: Streamlabs

Many content creators changed YouTube for Twitch. It is curious to note that YouTube did not think that Twitch was going to take away its audience and workers, and it helped Twitch to grow at the beginning. The strategy changed radically when YouTube began to lose revenue and audience, and since then the competition with Twitch is less friendly. The rise of Twtich and the fall of YouTube are related to trends and the ability to adapt. Twitch was able to innovate in a sector monopolized by another platform that has had no choice but to copy the working method of its competition (YouTube has started to use ideas from Twitch in recent years to increase its profitability).

Both platforms have signaled a revolution in the world of digital communication due to the infinite possibilities it offers both the content creator and the consumer. Twitch has positioned itself as the preferred platform for viewing live content, but YouTube continues to reign supreme in recorded content.