Twitch: Lessons Learned(twitter.com)
twitter.com
Twitch: Lessons Learned
https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1402449647122018304
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TikTok growth early on came from massive Chinese backing allowing it to acquire a series of other platforms (most notably Musical.ly) and fold their users into TikTok. The platform content creation and curation tools certainly helped, but don't fool yourself into thinking it was purely organic growth.
Word of mouth is intrinsic virality, which is exactly how the early Twitch platform grew before it pivoted to streaming video.
I really know almost nothing about TikTok. The videos I've seen are all people lip syncing to existing famous songs or movie dialog. If that is TikTok, then (a) their piggy backing off existing popular media and (b) it doesn't require much talent to post a semi-completing video. Not saying there aren't talented TikTok-ers, more saying it's that if TikTok is mostly lip-syncing/acting over existing songs and movie dialog clips then TikTok is similar to coloring books. You start with something that's already a (good?) template.
I dont use TikTok, but its pretty clear to me there are some unique creations coming from it. Its absolutely not only about "lip syncing over existing songs". Here are some great examples of the remix phenomena:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S61ENc51Z1Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgsurPg9Ckw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFeLkeSp_Ps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S61ENc51Z1Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgsurPg9Ckw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFeLkeSp_Ps
I watched that on YouTube, and it was quite enjoyable! But how does TikTok help?
Editing videos on mobile is really hard. Sitting on a desktop, transferring the videos, downloading the other videos and sounds you want to remix in, and stitching it all together in a video editing program is actually a really high barrier.
Tiktok is basically set up for remixing. You can splice your reaction, or add your dub, or lip sync, or more, and any of those would take less than 5 clicks to upload.
Tiktok is basically set up for remixing. You can splice your reaction, or add your dub, or lip sync, or more, and any of those would take less than 5 clicks to upload.
TikTok lets you easily put your own video alongside an existing video, or reuse the audio from an existing video.
This basically gives you the tools to develop video memes. You'll often see a video or audio clip go viral and then see a bunch of different riffs on it that evolve over time, each a twist on the previous iteration, in exactly the same way you see image/text based memes evolve over time, get mixed together, adapted for a current news story, etc etc.
This sort of thing doesn't work quite as well on platforms like YouTube, the barrier to creation is too high.
Another component of the innovation is to mix lowering that barrier with a strong algorithm to surface the best content, since you now have so much of it.
This basically gives you the tools to develop video memes. You'll often see a video or audio clip go viral and then see a bunch of different riffs on it that evolve over time, each a twist on the previous iteration, in exactly the same way you see image/text based memes evolve over time, get mixed together, adapted for a current news story, etc etc.
This sort of thing doesn't work quite as well on platforms like YouTube, the barrier to creation is too high.
Another component of the innovation is to mix lowering that barrier with a strong algorithm to surface the best content, since you now have so much of it.
I tried TikTok, it reminds me of when I used facebook about 8 years ago: full of relaxing/ funny videos, but leaving a feeling of emptiness having not done anything for the past 30 minutes. So I uninstalled it after 30 minutes of viewing. It's the opposite of Twitter, which induces stress and the desire to reply to someones tweet.
Though I wonder if there's any educational/ productive content on TikTok. This was someones argument about the difference between Twitter and TikTok: TikTok doesn't allow conversations/ debate.
Though I wonder if there's any educational/ productive content on TikTok. This was someones argument about the difference between Twitter and TikTok: TikTok doesn't allow conversations/ debate.
Most of my Twitter consumption comes through hacker news. Does that mean that Twitter doesn't provide value in this case?
TikTok are the first people to produce video editing software that ordinary people can use. This is so powerful that even on platforms which have copied the feature ("Reels" on instagram) the videos often have the TikTok watermark on.
Why did the internet become so popular? SGML had been around since Goldfarb's work in the 1960's but a dumbed-down version of it turned everyone and their third cousin into an HTML "programmer." Python is a similar phenomenon. People with no formal software training can peck at their keyboard und watchen das blinkenlights.
The main explanatory variable goes back to Olds, J. & P. Milner: Positive reinforcement produced by electrical stimulation of septal area and other regions of rat brain . J. Comp. Physiol. Psychol. 47 (1954) 419-427. Rat's would press their orgasm button 7,000 times an hour.
Humans evolved to sit around campfires and entertain themselves with singing and dancing. Now almost everyone in the world has their own portable 24x7 personal campfire they can use to connect with their tribe.
The main explanatory variable goes back to Olds, J. & P. Milner: Positive reinforcement produced by electrical stimulation of septal area and other regions of rat brain . J. Comp. Physiol. Psychol. 47 (1954) 419-427. Rat's would press their orgasm button 7,000 times an hour.
Humans evolved to sit around campfires and entertain themselves with singing and dancing. Now almost everyone in the world has their own portable 24x7 personal campfire they can use to connect with their tribe.
that's only a part of tiktok.
tiktok is really good for finding interesting things about almost any hobby or activity. home reno, biking, weightlifting are what pop on my feed and most of the content is pretty damn good.
tiktok is really good for finding interesting things about almost any hobby or activity. home reno, biking, weightlifting are what pop on my feed and most of the content is pretty damn good.
That was how I felt about Instagram... I used to be able to search the hashtags about topics I'm interested in and see tons of legit, awesome real content. It has gradually devolved to basically spam and an "algorithmic" feed that jams ads and unwanted crap at me. I can't tolerate that unfortunately. Haven't used it in a couple years now.
In the same way that YouTube, reddit, digg, before it has done the same, and presumably tiktok will do so in the future
Yeah, I speculate that it is the ~inevitable path for any investor-funded social platform, necessary to drive increased revenue. I actually see no alternative to doing so, other than the services becoming paid subscription services -- a barrier to entry most of them are not going to adopt after years of free access.
It is and it isn't. The algorithm learns what you like pretty quickly, and there are some really unique creators on the platform.
Music they don’t even license.
That is such a tiny part of TikTok nowadays that it has become a meme itself ("boomers think that TikTok is about lip syncing").
Did they end up banning the bikini clad girls with cameras on their cleavages, or is twitch still in competition with onlyfans?
This is a separate category now: https://static-cdn.jtvnw.net/ttv-boxart/Pools,%20Hot%20Tubs,...
"Separate" as in "just another kind of content on the platform". It's not exactly segregated (like, say, imgur did).
I installed Twitch on a just unboxed NVIDIA Shield TV, not yet logged in, the first recommended stream was a lady in very revealing bikini doing "ear licking ASMR". The second one was another in generous and prominent cleavage, just chatting with her thousand of viewers.
It's not exactly segregated, nor separate, but actively promoted.
It's not exactly segregated, nor separate, but actively promoted.
Except it IS segregated from an advertiser PoV (aka companies that don't want to attach their ads to that sort of content can opt out of it when setting up their ad campaigns).
Twitch will never ban one of their huge sources of revenue.
Is it a huge source of revenue?
The category never seems like it gets above 20k concurrent and that’s mostly for a couple of streamers. Right now it’s the 55th most popular category with 4.4K concurrent viewers which is two orders of magnitude less than the most popular category.
The category never seems like it gets above 20k concurrent and that’s mostly for a couple of streamers. Right now it’s the 55th most popular category with 4.4K concurrent viewers which is two orders of magnitude less than the most popular category.
That is if you equate viewership with revenue, but most Twitch streamers I have heard talking about this is that the income from advertisements (scales with viewership) is lower than income from subscribers/donations (also scales with viewership, but more so with willingness to donate).
Right but we don't have access to conversion rate by category to compare. And it'd have to convert ludicrously well and the other categories ludicrously badly for it to get anywhere near being relevant to Twitch's revenue. Personally I'd suspect the advertising revenue for the Top 10 streaming categories (over a million concurrent viewers right now) to far outstrip the sub revenue from the Hot Tub category (4.5k viewers) all by itself.
I dont think they are in competition, clearly Twitch is a Feeder Platform for onlyfans.
Amazon should just buy OF
Ironically I have been seeing a lot of ads for OF where it looks like they are trying to portray them selves SFW platform...
Amazon should just buy OF
Ironically I have been seeing a lot of ads for OF where it looks like they are trying to portray them selves SFW platform...
There are a few SFW creators on OF, but they are a clear minority.
SFW and NSFW content is like oil and water, they naturally want to be separate from each other.
When it comes to monetization, I am not aware of any platform, service or business that has been successful at both at the same time under the same brand.
I doubt OF will be the platform to change this (or Twitch for that matter, as they rub the line between SFW and NSFW it is clear the majority of their advertisers are seeking them to be a SFW platform. )
When it comes to monetization, I am not aware of any platform, service or business that has been successful at both at the same time under the same brand.
I doubt OF will be the platform to change this (or Twitch for that matter, as they rub the line between SFW and NSFW it is clear the majority of their advertisers are seeking them to be a SFW platform. )
Did he? I don't think he forgot anything: hot tubs are "intrinsic virality". And your comment is a proof.
> Make something 10 people completely love, not something most people think is pretty good.
I've built multiple services which are completely loved by ~10 people but it always stays there and it becomes a prison. Since they love it so much I feel obligated to keep working on it, even if it doesn't bring in any net profit.
I've built multiple services which are completely loved by ~10 people but it always stays there and it becomes a prison. Since they love it so much I feel obligated to keep working on it, even if it doesn't bring in any net profit.
> There are only five growth strategies that exist, and your product probably only fits one. Press isn’t a growth strategy, and neither is word of mouth.
Completely different to how I thought about things. Specially regarding word of mouth. Thanks to Emmet for sharing this. Will reflect. But on the surface, it makes sense
Completely different to how I thought about things. Specially regarding word of mouth. Thanks to Emmet for sharing this. Will reflect. But on the surface, it makes sense
> Specially regarding word of mouth.
I think this should be seen in combination with the point about "intrinsic virality" being a growth strategy. That is what a lot of us mean when we say the words "word of mouth", but Emmet is making a distinction here to say that word of mouth doesn't happen automatically, just because you have a good product. There needs to be this element of intrinsic virality - because users want to watch streamed games with their friends, or want to share and talk about them, or because they want to share this funny meme from your product, etc. I've seen founders with a vague idea that word of mouth happens automatically like osmosis, that once you saturate some people with your product they automatically spread it to others. Emmet is warning against that kind of thinking and making it explicit what you can control and create to possibly generate word of mouth on the users' end.
I think this should be seen in combination with the point about "intrinsic virality" being a growth strategy. That is what a lot of us mean when we say the words "word of mouth", but Emmet is making a distinction here to say that word of mouth doesn't happen automatically, just because you have a good product. There needs to be this element of intrinsic virality - because users want to watch streamed games with their friends, or want to share and talk about them, or because they want to share this funny meme from your product, etc. I've seen founders with a vague idea that word of mouth happens automatically like osmosis, that once you saturate some people with your product they automatically spread it to others. Emmet is warning against that kind of thinking and making it explicit what you can control and create to possibly generate word of mouth on the users' end.
thanks @sundarurfriend, even made it better with the detailed explanation :)
Which is funny, considering when Twitch was just a screen capture tool it spread by word of mouth by gamers posting Halo grenade bouncing videos and Battlefield stunts all over the internet.
That may be “intrinsic vitality”
Where is justin.tv in this list?
Something like: “Be way too early with your hot tub streaming app. Pivot to gaming and then pivot back.”
Something like: “Be way too early with your hot tub streaming app. Pivot to gaming and then pivot back.”
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> Don’t start a company
Next tweet: "Today is the best time ever to start a company. You might fail, you might succeed, it’s a crazy ride either way, and you’ll learn and grow more than at any job."
I do not fully understand but my interpretation: Try it anyway even if you are not cut out for it.
Any other interpretations?
Next tweet: "Today is the best time ever to start a company. You might fail, you might succeed, it’s a crazy ride either way, and you’ll learn and grow more than at any job."
I do not fully understand but my interpretation: Try it anyway even if you are not cut out for it.
Any other interpretations?
With the full quote
> Don’t start a company. You aren’t cut out for it. And if I can persuade you not to start a company by saying it in this tweet, definitely don’t start a company. You’re buying the economy-sized amount of effort and pain.
It is clear that specific sequence is to test if you are founder material. If you called BS on the first tweet and read the next tweet, you at least have the right mentality.
> Don’t start a company. You aren’t cut out for it. And if I can persuade you not to start a company by saying it in this tweet, definitely don’t start a company. You’re buying the economy-sized amount of effort and pain.
It is clear that specific sequence is to test if you are founder material. If you called BS on the first tweet and read the next tweet, you at least have the right mentality.
Imagine if Jessica were to tell female founders "You shouldn't be a founder" just to test whether they were determined enough.
I hope this kind of gatekeeping eventually dies.
I hope this kind of gatekeeping eventually dies.
I see it as him saying "its really hard"
It's not gatekeeping. It's saying that the people who can persevere as founders are the kinds of people who intrinsically and deeply want to found something, and someone telling them they shouldn't do it wouldn't stop or impede them from doing what they already set out to do. They'd be doing it anyway, regardless of what other people say.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree that that's not gatekeeping.
Becoming an astronaut is far harder than becoming a founder, yet we wouldn't dream of telling children not to think about becoming one.
What other people say is an important force. The reason I mentioned Jessica is because much of her work has been to convince people who otherwise wouldn't become founders to start companies. I think she has more experience than either of us, and she doesn't seem to agree that the thesis here is true.
Becoming an astronaut is far harder than becoming a founder, yet we wouldn't dream of telling children not to think about becoming one.
What other people say is an important force. The reason I mentioned Jessica is because much of her work has been to convince people who otherwise wouldn't become founders to start companies. I think she has more experience than either of us, and she doesn't seem to agree that the thesis here is true.
Why you gotta make this a gender thing?
I assume it was just to make the argument more pointed; I skipped over the word "female" by accident and the message is unchanged.
If you wouldn't want to make this kind of discouragement with women founders, you wouldn't want to do it with men either, and I assume that's what sillysaurus meant.
If you wouldn't want to make this kind of discouragement with women founders, you wouldn't want to do it with men either, and I assume that's what sillysaurus meant.
I didn’t see the tweet as gatekeeping, maybe just something stemming from survivorship bias.
What I got from it was that this is a challenge unlike other work related challenges. For one there’s no comp if things don’t work out, whereas anyone can find a job anywhere and get paid. You’re exchanging time and effort for something which may not turn out to be something people want to buy or use.
What I got from it was that this is a challenge unlike other work related challenges. For one there’s no comp if things don’t work out, whereas anyone can find a job anywhere and get paid. You’re exchanging time and effort for something which may not turn out to be something people want to buy or use.
Or you might fail and end up bankrupt and no medical insurance and a bad debt record and dooming your family to penury.
"Cut out for it" means you have a trust fund, rich parents, no financial obligations, and/or the right connections from having the right college degree or family.
"Cut out for it" means you have a trust fund, rich parents, no financial obligations, and/or the right connections from having the right college degree or family.
Anyone have some examples to share of platform hacks?
- Instagram piggybacking off of Twitter & Facebook to grow their own network
- Imgur piggybacking off of Reddit & then grew into their own platform
- Red Gifs piggybacking off of Reddit NSFW sites to post short porn clips (idk if it'll be successful to monetize though)
- Imgur piggybacking off of Reddit & then grew into their own platform
- Red Gifs piggybacking off of Reddit NSFW sites to post short porn clips (idk if it'll be successful to monetize though)
Paypal piggybacking on eBay for growth comes to mind though I'm not sure if it falls in that category.
Survivorship bias on full display
"Survivorship bias" is number one cliche on HN about anything resembling success
Sure I guess..
That still doesn't take away the fact that most of this advice comes through the lens of someone who was extremely lucky and "right place, right time", along with also being very successful.
Luck and timing does not take away from success, but it can't be ignored either.
So a lot of the advice given in that thread must be accompanied by extreme luck for it to be relevant.
That still doesn't take away the fact that most of this advice comes through the lens of someone who was extremely lucky and "right place, right time", along with also being very successful.
Luck and timing does not take away from success, but it can't be ignored either.
So a lot of the advice given in that thread must be accompanied by extreme luck for it to be relevant.
Extremely lucky? How do you know they were extremely lucky and that they were in the right place in the right time?
> Luck and timing does not take away from success, but it can't be ignored either. Why are you focussing so much on luck? Have you ever considered the amount of work they put in?
Sure they started with a rediciulous idea, but what they made out of it, has nothing to do with luck and is a result of thousands of little decision made from that start.
Your posts in this thread look very ignorant.
> Luck and timing does not take away from success, but it can't be ignored either. Why are you focussing so much on luck? Have you ever considered the amount of work they put in?
Sure they started with a rediciulous idea, but what they made out of it, has nothing to do with luck and is a result of thousands of little decision made from that start.
Your posts in this thread look very ignorant.
It's ignorant to think that their success "has nothing to do with luck".
I didn't say it had nothing to do with luck, I said that the effort plays a larger role than "extreme luck".
What is the ratio of Internet startups in total vs. the ratio of the ones that had multi-billion dollar exits?
I will grant you that I did not say "hard work" in my original post and should have. You are right, they worked hard. That was my bad.
And again their hard work and success is _not_ diminished by the fact that they were extremely lucky, but plenty of people work just as hard if not harder and do not find the success that the Twitch founders did. So I 100% disagree that the hard work plays a bigger role than the luck.
If it was more about the hard work, then everyone could get rich, and we know that's just not true.
I know it's not a great part of the "I made it" narrative, but luck is always a factor, and in the "acquired by a FAANG" lottery, it's extreme luck by any measure.
Lastly: next time leave the "ignorant" comments at the door please? We can disagree without insulting each other I would hope.
I will grant you that I did not say "hard work" in my original post and should have. You are right, they worked hard. That was my bad.
And again their hard work and success is _not_ diminished by the fact that they were extremely lucky, but plenty of people work just as hard if not harder and do not find the success that the Twitch founders did. So I 100% disagree that the hard work plays a bigger role than the luck.
If it was more about the hard work, then everyone could get rich, and we know that's just not true.
I know it's not a great part of the "I made it" narrative, but luck is always a factor, and in the "acquired by a FAANG" lottery, it's extreme luck by any measure.
Lastly: next time leave the "ignorant" comments at the door please? We can disagree without insulting each other I would hope.
You can't just look at the ratio of multi-billion dollar exits.
Hard work is a requirement and not a guarantee of success. And what Emmet Shear tweeted are things that one should do, to increase the chance of success.
Most luck is created by hard work. Recognizing and taking advantage of it.
A lot of startup founder do startup just very wrong and thus fail and thus make the ratio worse.
The way I see it, it's 75% hard work, 25% luck. Calling things luck is easy, but who are we that we can say so? Just by the ratio of successful startups? I don't think thats fair.
Regarding the "ignorant" comment: It wasn't meant to be an insult, but more of an observation.
I think it's unfair against every person who tries hard and works hard to call his/her success luck.
Hard work is a requirement and not a guarantee of success. And what Emmet Shear tweeted are things that one should do, to increase the chance of success.
Most luck is created by hard work. Recognizing and taking advantage of it.
A lot of startup founder do startup just very wrong and thus fail and thus make the ratio worse.
The way I see it, it's 75% hard work, 25% luck. Calling things luck is easy, but who are we that we can say so? Just by the ratio of successful startups? I don't think thats fair.
Regarding the "ignorant" comment: It wasn't meant to be an insult, but more of an observation.
I think it's unfair against every person who tries hard and works hard to call his/her success luck.
I'm usually suspicious about vague generic advices like that, and I absolutely despise Twitch, but this compilation is pretty gold, IMO. Thanks, I think I'm actually going to write that down.
The five growth strategies are high-touch sales, paid advertising, intrinsic virality, intrinsic influencer incentives (Twitch!), and platform hacks.
Emmett forgot to include hot tubs ;)
I think that last one "platform hacks" may be the most crucial now. Even more so than influencer monetization. If you study TikTok user growth it wasn't just mobile video content creation tools and algortihmic ML assisted curation. It represents a foundational change in the way we transmit ideas via memes. A visual language that crosses cultural boundaries easily. There is no analogue to the TikTok video "remix" found on any other platform.