TwitchCon 2015 opens with a brief history of livestreaming

SAN FRANCISCO — TwitchCon has begun.

The first major convention for Twitch gameplay livestreaming broadcasters has started in at the sprawling Moscone West convention hall. Marcus “DJ Wheat” Graham opened the event, to a ton of and roaring. He went over the history of livestreaming, shoutcasting, and other forms of chat — all of which led to the streaming phenomenon that his company has become.

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Graham, the director of programming at Twitch, said he has been a live Internet broadcaster for 15 years. In 2003, he did his first livestream using Nullsoft video. He could barely do more than put a picture out on the web. By 2006, solutions such as Brightcove appeared. For one project, he had to deal with a bill of $18,000 for bandwidth costs (and nearly involved tears).

Stickham appeared, and this service made it easier.

“I don’t want you to forget about the past,” he said. “We had at max 500 kilobits-per-second video, at 320-by-280 resolution.”

Justin.tv appeared in 2006 as a personal livestreaming site. Gamers began using it in droves to broadcast their gameplay solutions. It morphed into Twitch by 2011.

“This was the moment when everything  changed,” he said.

Now Twitch has more than 100 million monthly active users and 1.5 million broadcasters. Amazon bought the company for $970 million in 2014.

“This  entire story is about you guys, the community and how you built Twitch today,” he said.