1415T1g1 Silicon Valley/Participant Information/Reflection/9 Dec
Twitch.tv - The Avid Gamer's Television
In my opinion, the visit to Twitch was one of the most exciting company visits so far. The moment we stepped into their office, we were greeted by nine TV screen panels of pure gaming awesomeness. Being the occasional gamer myself, the live streams being displayed instantly caught my eye and kept me fixed on the captivating screens. Shortly after, we had a quick tour around the office and I absolutely loved it. There was a recording studio, game rooms, cool gaming posters and toys hiding in plain sight and a very well designed mural at their eating area.
The atmosphere in the office was really fun as the staff were happy and friendly people. We learnt about how gaming continues to be both a driving force and a distraction for the staff as their job does revolve around gameplay quite a bit. Gaming acts as both a break and research material for them as it helps them understand the needs of their users better, but sometimes they do get overly engrossed in playing and that disrupts their work.
An interesting takeaway from Twitch was how creating the right content for streaming could help one make a lot of money and could potentially be a career path. Thus, aside from their mandatory management of the live streaming platform, some of the other work that Twitch currently does is to help their streamers create better content and get more subscribers. We learnt firsthand that the right way to go about doing this is to have a steady viewer base and to have regular and consistent streaming times. Twitch also helps game developers by providing advice after watching users stream their games. This is very much like how we would watch videos of our users using our applications in web experiments and learn from the user's interaction with the application. It helps to provide real data of their users and as we all know data triumphs intuition, so this helps the game developers to introduce the right improvements.
BitTorrent - More than meets the eye
Like most people, my original impression of BitTorrent was the peer-to-peer client which many people used in piracy. However, that was merely an incorrect understanding of BitTorrent as the BitTorrent protocol is actually a very outstanding piece of technology. BitTorrent uses some important concepts of parallelism and applications of MapReduce to break up files into chunks, making large files easier and faster to share.
One of the cool things that BitTorrent has come up with in the recent years include the ability to download and stream certain types of file at the same time - simply stated, it is like downloading a youtube video while watching it. BitTorrent also has some rather incredible products like BitTorrent Sync (a cloud-based storage), BitTorrent Bundle (helps artistes share their work and still get money) and BitTorrent Bleep (messaging service) which I never knew of until today. Another amazing technology they are coming up with is a BitTorrent browser (unnamed for now) that downloads a page that you have viewed and uses your machine to host that page (when you use BitTorrent browser) - effectively this means that users will be able to load their pages faster if someone near them has viewed that page before. This of course assumes that users are willing to share their machine's additional capabilities to help host the page and if it does catch on, using this new BitTorrent browser could basically mean the creation of a type of content delivery network using anyone instead of the traditional data centers around the world.
Unfortunately for BitTorrent, as a company that seeks to make profits, they are restricted in many ways in that aspect. For one, their technology does not use any cost them any money - thus this makes it difficult for them to monetise any of their technologies. However, what they do at BitTorrent is really noble work as they are more interested in helping the world become a better place rather than just making a lot of money. Even our host Kai mentioned that had he worked in the finance industry, the only people to benefit would have been his bosses, but working at BitTorrent as a data scientist allows him to bring more tangible benefits and help to the world. Indeed, BitTorrent is more than meets the eye as I couldn't have been more wrong about a company that I used to associate largely with piracy.
Twitch Tv was one of the companies that I was looking forward to visiting. Being a gamer myself, I have always been interested to learn more about the business of broadcasting games. Our host gave us a quick tour around their office before we came together for a discussion. Our host shared with us how some of the employees at twitch can be total game fanatics and how has that not affect their performance but instead drive their work rate. In our society, gaming is not viewed as a possible career option at least from a parents point of view. The main reason for Twitch TV's current success is how they have correctly identify the right content for people to stream. This has helped them not only to thrive but also experience hypergrowth. Twitch TV also helps to enhance the quality of games that they broadcast. Their crews work closely with the game developers each month to enhance the gaming experience by using the data collected from their streamers. It was a really interactive session where we get to learn how targeting the right industry and market can help us make money.
BiTorrent - The Apple Game
Twitch TV is a very interesting company bringing a very peculiar concept to the world of gaming by letting people watch gamers play their game and give commentary.
We only used to have video clips of players playing a game on YouTube. I would admit watching them to figure out how to succeed a particular level when I'm stuck. However with twitch you can see it in real time and get the players comment and discuss the game with the players.
The company itself was quite interesting. Made up of people passionate to it's core business model, gaming the staff of twilio are gamers and they also remember to game while working. Being passionate about their games here means that they will dedicate a lot of efforts into making twilio into a good product. I learn that to speak to gamers you have to be a gamer yourself your self fully understand the needs of gamers to fully deliver a product that they want.
At the same time however, we get to see the benefits it brings to other companies such as gaming companies. They get to view how well people enjoy their games and how they can further improve the games.
BitTorrent. BitTorrent is an interesting technology that I started using when I was 15 years old, about ten years ago. BitTorrent was popular after the closure of kazaa similar peer to peer file sharing. However, little is known that BitTorrent has also services that generate revenues.
The company sits on a very interesting technology that has no rivals. In a way it is sitting on a monopoly that has yet to seen a worth rival. I think that's one of the few things that make BitTorrent special.
As all companies, it aims to make money out of its products. For example, bundles. Bundles help artist skip the middle man and directly sell their works to the public. BitTorrent then takes a 10% cut. I think that this is a smart move by them as this way they know that by letting artist sell at a price and directly, many many people will get to purchase it. So the 10% earned from each sale will actually grow. While this move by BitTorrent is smart, as mentioned by Kai however is that the industry and market has yet to see a price point that everyone is willing to pay. BitTorrent has been successful enough to gather big stars into Bundle, they will need to worry about the price that people are willing to pay for songs off the internet. BitTorrent has to find a way to protect itself when the industry finds a price that can be very low. For instance, apple is now charging 99 cents for music, yet according to Kai it’s not a price that consumers are willing to pay.
Twitch.tv – Filling the market gap
Twitch is one of the novel tech companies. Their service is unparalleled by any other existing video/game streaming services. There was a market gap for video streaming and Justin.tv (former Twitch) was able to fulfill the demands of numerous gamers and game content creators. This clearly shows the reason for success of many tech startups. They identify a market gap and provide original and unique solutions for the users. This is akin to the success of other tech start-ups like PayPal, Facebook, etc. In addition, although twitch office has a culture of gaming the environment at the office seemed professional and serious.
BitTorrent – Lessons for technopreneurs
The company has availed itself from illegal profits and has proven itself as a reputable content distribution service provider on top of the BitTorrent protocol created by it’s founder.
“Engineers just build stuff for the world!” ~ Kai BitTorrent Analyst, SMU Alumni. This is very true. Many a time engineers and developers like scientists, but unlike inventors have the mindset of making the world a better place. Although monetary benefits is part of their agenda, their motive and intention is far greater. This is something that every aspiring technopreneurs should learn. The ultimate goal should be to provide a service to the people who use the technology. Financial goal should be secondary.
BitTorrent’s financial growth is mostly attributed to their mundane but working business model coupled with a strong user base. Although their business model is not a full-proof profit maximizing strategy, BitTorrent is still able to obtain a decant profit as a tech company. This is another valuable lesson for technopreneurs; Focus on the users first and think about monetization later. But, yes, it’ll still be great to have a plausible business model from the beginning.
Twitch
I couldn't contain my excitement when it comes to Twitch; it is a gamers heaven. An avid recreational gamer myself, it was very easy to relate to how interesting it would be to do something you like/love so much as a career. The common phrase that we hear is, "Yes you may have something that you like, but at the end of the day, you have to put food on the dining table". This mentality, even though it is the harsh truth, shouldn't be the barrier that stop us from pursing our passion and yet earning a decent living. Throughout the entire journey, our host kept emphasising on the word "Passion", which is a rare term to hear that associates employees with their companies. Everyone in the company plays games and the culture is very unique. On some days, they may even spend 70% of their time playing some form of games without much worry of their backs. This is the exact reason of why the company is so successful. What better way to test out your system then to use it yourself in the shoe of an actual customer? One of the most interesting aspect of the company is that they provide a platform for their clients (the gaming companies such as EA, Blizzard, etc) to gain immediate and 'real-life' feedback on their games by simply tuning in to the channels. With this, the companies are able to spot the flaws/mistakes and put out the fire before it even escalates. All this is done without having to actually conduct the analytics on the data and send them over to their clients, which makes the entire process much more efficient. At the end of the day, every time we talk past a employee, their eyes sparkle with passion when they talk about their work or company. They have a great sense of pride in what they do and are very eager to serve the entire gaming community all over the world, It was truly an extraordinary experience.
BitTorrent Torrent: a word that everyone loves but the governments/distributors hate. What really intrigued me is how the technology works. The founder actually broke out of the conventional way of simple FTP in order to provide a faster way of file transferring. By breaking the file into chunks and storing them with various downloaders' computer, they saved on the cost of holding servers and also the cost of maintaining a cloud database. One of their quote is "How can you data in the cloud go missing if there is no cloud?". With the rampant of questions targeting towards safe and secure file transferring, their solution of allowing anonymous file sharing (BitTorrent Sync) will be a great hit especially with those who are severely concerned about their privacy. Interestingly, our host is also from Singapore Management University (SMU) with a double major in Finance and Corporate Communications. However, he realised that what he does not benefit the greater good of a bigger population, and as a result he decided to be a data scientist instead and pick up the ropes as he moves along. It is very interesting to talk to him to find out more about how manage to conduct a career switch for different industries, and this is something we don't get from most Asians. Furthermore, the entire company is very open-minded and they encourage initiative and innovation to drive results. Good ideas will be sincerely considered by the Senior Executives and this encourages employees to take part more in the company and have a sense of purpose in their company.
