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Twitch launched with one channel
The page held a video player and a chat box, and nothing else. The video was extremely low resolution, so low that faces were barely recognizable, let alone any documents lying around the founders' apartment.
There were no video games either, apart from the times the founders decided to play video games in their apartment. Twitch grew out of that first version and is much more complex now.
How did Justin.tv turn into Twitch?
Justin.tv's gaming category drew a large and fast-growing audience, so the team spun gaming into its own site, Twitch, in June 2011. Justin.tv itself shut down in August 2014 so the company could focus on Twitch. Amazon announced its acquisition of Twitch that same month, for about $970 million.
How did Justin Kan stream his life in 2007?
Justin Kan, one of the founders, wore a webcam mounted on a baseball cap, with a laptop in a backpack sending the signal over wireless data connections. The broadcast began in March 2007 and ran around the clock. Viewers could talk to each other in the chat while he went about his day. Kan's channel was among the early examples of what came to be called lifecasting.
Why was early web video so grainy?
In 2007, most home internet connections were far slower than today's, and online video relied on heavily compressed Flash players. YouTube, which launched in 2005, offered small low-resolution clips for the same reason. Shrinking the picture kept the file small enough to stream without constant pauses. YouTube added high-definition playback in late 2008.
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