History of Interactive Media

Our newest assignment asked us to blog about an innovator in the multimedia or interactive media community, I chose to do mine on Emmett Shear the creator on Twitch.TV and Justin.TV.

Mr. Shear graduated in 2005 from Yale University and instantly started making a scene in the multimedia world, first with his 24/7 ‘helmet cam’ stream. Emmett and his friend Justin Kan created a website that streamed 24/7 through a camera Kan would wear on his head. This only lasted 8 months and was closed due to Mr. Kan tired of having no privacy. However this started the idea of Justin.TV, a 24/7 streaming website that allowed people to broadcast user-generated live video content. This gave people the freedom to stream their lives or things they do to an unlimited amount of viewers. The website quickly became popular for specific-subject content categories such as: Social, Tech, Sports, News ect. It’s most popular content though was gaming and this is the inspiration behind Twitch.

Coming off the success of Justin.TV Mr. Shear took notice of the massive gaming scene that was being formed on the website. He decided to pursue the gaming aspect of streaming and in the summer on 2011 he launched Twitch.TV, a 24/7 streaming website specifically for gaming. This included highlight, play through, Events, and early access release to video games. Instantly the site became a massive success, bringing old users from Justin.Tv as well as new users that helped spread the word. By the summer of 2013 Twitch would become one of the biggest websites on the Internet, generating over 43 million users a month, as well as being fourth largest source of peak internet traffic in the United States.

Mr. Shear opened the doors for a large number of people, he gave people careers, a source of income (via streaming) but most importantly in my mind, he created a community. He helped groups of people come together for a common interest. He’s helped give the perception that gaming is ‘cool’ and if you’re a streamer you’re someone unique. He’s helped people who were loners their whole life, now have a fan base that donate money to them! He’s changed people’s lives for the better and I personally think that’s the best thing you could do to benefit the interactive media community.