Twitch.tv website

We’ve written about Twitch.tv before and have followed it’s progress since it’s spin off from Justin.tv in June 2011. Twitch.tv is a site for video gamers to watch, broadcast and chat about their gameplay, a great site to discover new games and personalities to follow.

The site has been growing at an incredible rate – 11% month over month since their launch – and announced in December that Twitch.tv is now engaging more than 12 million unique visitors a month. They also launched an iPhone application, which had over 80,000 downloads in the first month.

Twitch.tv has a premium partner program that includes the Electronic Sports League, Major League Gaming and the IGN Pro League, and is now more than 1000 members strong.

There is an incredible amount of momentum going into 2012 around Twitch.tv and the gaming space – what we see is that this is an incredibly connected and vibrant community that’s passionate about video gaming and online video.

Happy New Year!

Some rights reserved by David Machiavello

In case you didn’t notice the lights on your neighbor’s house or Santa appearing in every other commercial on television, the holiday season is upon us.

Families all over the world will be gathering to celebrate together and we thought this would be the perfect time for you and your family to start a video scrapbook.

Think about it. For years you’ve taken photos and kept them as a living memory of the great times you share with family and friends. But, now we’ve all got video capable phones or at least one device in our house that captures video so why not add moving pictures into the mix.

This doesn’t have to involve any huge commitment of time or technology. In fact, it could be as simple as these steps:

1. Sign up for an account on a video hosting site such as YouTube or Vimeo so that you have a location to upload your video files
2. Register a domain name for your family. Something such as YourFamilyName.TV sure would look great we think.
3. Start uploading the videos and inviting other family members to join in the fun. Up to you how openly or private you make things.

Remember, that if a picture tells a thousand stories imagine how much a video does!

Happy holidays from every one on the .tv team and if you already do this or set one up be sure to let us know –  send us a tweet or comment here, on our Facebook page or YouTube channel.

Stay tuned!

Paying respect to both those who have died in service to the US Armed Forces, as well as those that have served (that addition was made by Eisenhower in 1954), is personal for me. I’m a Navy brat. I grew up on bases around this country. My father was a decorated Navy officer who served for 27 years through 3 wars. Six of my uncles and one of my aunts also served in the US Armed Forces. My father is now laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.

In remembrance of this day, we here at watch.tv, salute American’s Veterans by highlighting this site:  USVets.tv. It’s an interesting example of a way to pull together videos from around the web, under a common theme, and with a .tv, to create a specialized TV channel on the Internet.  Take a look for yourself to see the real power that video holds in expressing emotion and meaning.

Thanks to all the Veterans!

“VeriSign’s average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load during second quarter 2010 was 62.5 billion per day, with a peak of 83.6 billion. Compared to first quarter 2010, the daily query average increased 16 percent and the peak grew by 32 percent. Taken annually, the daily average increased 28 percent and the peak daily queries grew 43 percent.”

Think about it – the average daily traffic was 62.5 billion per day…that’s basically every single person on the planet accessing the internet 10 times.  Including babies, although the only one I’ve ever seen is that one who plays the stock market.

VeriSign publishes the Domain Name Industry Brief to provide Internet users throughout the world with significant statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry and the Internet as a whole. Copies of the 2010 second quarter Domain Name Industry Brief, as well as previous reports, can be obtained at www.verisign.com/domainbrief

The first article is ‘iTunes U Downloads Top 300 Million’ over at Business Wire.  They’ve got some impressive stats – iTunes has become one of the most popular online educational catalogs in just over 3 years, with over 350,000 audio and video files from over 800 universities worldwide.  The Internet and online video are being successfully used to bring you university courses, lab demonstrations, and special lectures accessible from anywhere in the world, on multiple devices.  Think about it – you could watch a lecture from MIT’s Physics I class while sitting in a café in Madrid, or take a tour of Meiji University from your couch.

The second article, ‘Marketers Educate via Video’ has some cool statistics too – the one that caught my attention was:  “Almost three-quarters (72%) of marketers use online video for education about their products and services.”

Whether its Waseda University’s School of Law using videos to educate their students or Best Buy using videos to educate consumers on the specs of different connected TVs, video is used globally to tell a story and hopefully tell someone something they didn’t know before they started watching.  I could go on and on about the benefits using online video, but you know what?  Why don’t you check me out here and I’ll let the video speak for me.

• 50% of Internet users now watch online video weekly or more;
• That’s up from 43% in 2009;
• An additional 5 percentage points growth is expected in the next 12 months;
• Younger male viewers top the list as a category with 85% of males 18-24 watching online video weekly; and
• 38% are interested in the prospect of connecting their computers to TV to watch online video.

Android Wants In On the Mobile Video Rush — Granted, Apple’s getting on the lines, press (both good and bad) and attention recently on their video capabilities. But, when I saw this piece at Connected Planet on what Android is up to in video I thought I’d be contrarian and talk about that instead. To quote the article “While the latest version of Apple’s iconic device is designed for generating video content and communications, the Droid X’s powerful hardware core and new services gear the device toward consuming massive amounts of video content as well as producing it.” Verizon calls the device “a pocket sized home theater”. So, another example of a blur between computers, phones and TVs. Online video is everywhere.  So whether you’re a Apple or Android fan, the good news is they are both going after video if you’re an online video fan.

Happy 4th: And in closing, I embed a video from UStream.tv of fireworks at the Magic Kingdom. Happy birthday all you Americans!

The latest Domain Name Industry Brief spotlights a new study by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. Titled “The Internet Economy 25 Years After .com: Transforming Commerce & Life,” the study draws on a variety of research sources to gauge the commercial impact of the Internet, in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the first .com domain name registration. With one in four people worldwide estimated to use the Internet today, the report measures the reach of e-commerce in solid terms. For instance, ITIF estimates that the annual global economic benefits of the commercial Internet equal $1.5 trillion — a figure that eclipses the global sales of medicine, investment in renewable energy, and government investment in R&D, combined. ITIF also estimates that, assuming e-commerce continues to grow just half as fast as it grew between 2005 and 2010, then by 2020, it will add $3.8 trillion to the global economy.

The far-reaching ITIF report also provides a snapshot of Internet use and its expanding influence on people throughout the world. Among its findings: 

• In Europe, the percentage of online shoppers grew by 85 percent between 2004 and 2009.
• Experience with online shopping in developing countries is rapidly catching up with that seen in more developed regions. Sixty-three percent of Internet users in Latin American and 70 percent of users in Asia Pacific countries have made at least one purchase online, for example, compared to 85 percent of Internet users in North America and Europe.
• Although online commerce is becoming commonplace worldwide, it’s still more popular in some countries than others. In assessing 30 nations, ITIF found Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States lead the rest of the world in shopping, selling, and doing business online.
• The country with the highest percentage of adult citizens who have shopped online is Japan, with 52 percent.

“As the ITIF study affirms, the commercial Internet has been a transformational force in the world for the past quarter century,” said Raynor Dahlquist, senior vice president of Naming Services at VeriSign. “To ensure it continues to drive the evolution of entire industries, it’s vital to make strategic and continuous investments in the Internet infrastructure. With Project Apollo, VeriSign is building the infrastructure it believes is essential to manage the Internet’s next wave of growth.”

VeriSign publishes the Domain Name Industry Brief to provide Internet users throughout the world with significant statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry and the Internet as a whole. Copies of the 2010 first quarter Domain Name Industry Brief, as well as previous reports, can be obtained here.

The celebration of the 25th anniversary of the first domain name registration (symbolics.com) began in March with the Policy Impact Forum in D.C. I was on business travel that week so I wasn’t able to attend the event – which was a huge bummer for me because the keynote address was given by Dr. Fareed Zakaria and headlined by President Bill Clinton. Luckily for me, I wasn’t already booked so I was able to attend Wednesday’s dinner in San Francisco. The event was hosted by comedian Dana Carvey – but Scott McNealy gave him a run for the money to see who could get more laughs. Scott’s “top 10ish” list of reasons why he was surprised we were celebrating the 25th anniversary had me cracking up.

You can read more about the 25th anniversary and all the things VeriSign is doing to celebrate it here.

Internet Video Viewing to Eclipse Broadcast TV Viewing by 2020.
A forecast by The Diffusion Group (TDG) in one of their recent reports. According to Colin Dixon, senior partner and co-author of TDG’s new report, despite the fact that some people might find this news a bit shocking, there is good reason to believe that this estimate is realistic.

Dixon says, “Keep in mind that during this period, Internet and broadcast delivery of video content will become blended in such a way that consumers will be unaware of which conduit serves which content. Because so much of their audience will be consuming online, it is more important than ever that cable and broadcast channels increase their presence online.”

Online Video Ad Revenue To Top $1.3B.
This prediction is from Parks Associates, by way of Online Media Daily. They also say “The report attributes the healthy numbers to steady growth in online video viewership, combined with the ability to target specific viewers based on preferences and viewing history”.