Twitch officially announces an open beta of a new video uploading service, allowing its users to upload pre-made content for viewers to watch, rivaling YouTube’s market.
Many gamers have found a way to support themselves financially playing video games, either by streaming live or uploading pre-recorded Let’s Play videos. Twitch has now officially revealed that it’s looking to get in on the action that YouTube typically reigns over, unveiling a service to upload pre-made videos.
On the official Twitch blog, Product Marketing Manager Noreen McInnis announced that Twitch will now start allowing content creators to permanently upload videos in addition to using its normal streaming services. For now, the service is in the beta stages, but all users are allowed to participate and upload videos. In addition, users are encouraged to leave comments and feedback for the Twitch development team with any ideas on how to make the service better, or to alert the team to bugs users have discovered.
Although some content creators are probably set in their ways, there is a possibility that Twitch could potentially steal some of YouTube’s action. While YouTube has recently made an effort to support users who receive copyright claims, many users have been discouraged by the threat of gaming content being taken down via Content ID claims. While Twitch does have some fairly strict rules regarding music used and has banned some games from streaming, some gamers may gladly switch to uploading their work on Twitch in an effort to protect their work from being taken offline.
YouTube has made many content creators nervous recently by introducing the YouTube Heroes program, which is designed to reward users for flagging videos that contain stolen content. This may be a prime time for Twitch to try and offer YouTube’s game-related content creators a different option. Of course, with most existing content creators deeply steeped in YouTube, it remains to be seen how many will try to migrate to Twitch.
What do you think about the new Twitch upload service? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: Twitch
