Twitch Turns 10!
On June 6th, 2011 Justin.tv pivoted from a general interest streaming platform to a gaming focused platform and thus, Twitch was born, along with the real-life possibility of anyone being able to become a professional gamer.
Prior to this day in 2011, Justin.tv (created by Justin Kan, Emmett Shear, and Kyle Vogt) offered user-generated channels, similar to YouTube. These channels featured broadcasts of a wide variety including lifecasting, sports, news, entertainment, gaming, and music. The gaming portion was spun off as its own site in June of 2011 and Justin.tv continued to operate in the other areas…until it was dissolved in August of 2014, when Twitch was acquired by Amazon (for $970 million USD).
In the last ten years Twitch has grown tremendously. Twitch has its own annual convention (Twitch Con) which brings in around 30,000 attendees each year. 
The eSports viewing market in America has already surpassed Major League Soccer, the NBA, the NHL, and is predicted to surpass the NFL in the next few years. This is huge for Twitch since it is the big dog in the arena. It’s difficult to believe such an achievement, or should I say such a shift in the reality of gaming and sports, has taken place in such a short period of time.
So…how will Twitch be celebrating the completion of their first decade? According to their tweet this morning:
“Today’s our 10th birthday, but the party isn’t until next month. Glad we didn’t get an ice cream cake. Starting July 20, join us for a look at the memories that made us and all the memes yet to come”
We’ve got over a month to gear up for the celebration. If you’re not familiar with Twitch.tv, you should remedy that, then follow up on 7/20/21 to enjoy the festivities of the site that launched the careers of 27,000 professional gamers (per Twitch FAQ’s).