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Amazon is buying video game streaming giant Twitch, the companies announced Monday. "Amazon and Twitch optimize for our customers first and are both believers in the future of gaming," Twitch CEO Emmett Shear said about the sale. "Being part of Amazon will let us do even more for our community," he continued. "We will be able to create tools and services faster than we could have independently. This change will mean great things for our community, and will let us bring Twitch to even more people around the world." The news comes after The Information and Wall Street Journal reported Amazon was closing in on a deal to acquire the video game streaming firm. The Journal's initial report had the price of sale at more than $1 billion (about £600m, AU$1.07b), but according to the release Amazon will buy all outstanding Twitch shares for approximately $970 million (about £585m, AU$1.04b) in cash. #growthIn July it was believed Google was set to buy Twitch for $1 billion; all that was missing was official word from the companies. However, talks reportedly went chill over the last several weeks amid possible antitrust concerns, and it seems Amazon swooped in to take Twitch out from under Google's feet. TechRadar asked Twitch whether users can expect any changes in the company's offerings with the sale and a spokesman replied: "It will enable us to accelerate all of the things we want to do for our community." In a thank you note to the Twitch community posted to Twitch.tv, Shear said, "We're keeping most everything the same: our office, our employees, our brand, and most importantly our independence." "But with Amazon's support we'll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch," he continued. Pending regulatory approval, the deal is expected to close in the second half of this year. Amazon offered few details about what the sale means for Twitch or its other services moving forward. However, it did emphasize growth and new offerings. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said, "we look forward to learning from them [Twitch] and helping them move even faster to build new services for the gaming community." Twitch timesTwitch counted 55 million unique visitors in July who lapped up more than 15 billion minutes of content. The firm can hang its hat on one million broadcasters, among them amateur and pro players, publishers, developers, media outlets, conventions and esports organizations. The growth of Twitch from Justin.tv spin-off to the game-streaming giant it is today has been well-documented, and it is impressive for a company that's just over 3-years-old. Owning Twitch will likely be a boon for Amazon as it continues to break out of its traditional etailer confines. It dove headfirst into hardware with Fire TV and the Fire Phone, and now appears just as serious about getting into gaming, too. You have to wonder though if this will ultimately be good for Twitch users, especially since Amazon relies heavily on, well, selling stuff. The Fire Phone features heavy Amazon purchasing tie-ins; could Twitch soon sport something similar for games? Source: http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/twitch-is-apparently-now-the-object-of-amazon-s-desire-1262649
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The secret to delivering relevant ads is data. Demographic, psychographic, personal data. Google has data on what we search for, Facebook has data on what we like and share, but Amazon’s data may be the best of all for targeting ads. It has data on what we browse and buy. That’s why yesterday’s revelations that Amazon is gearing up to launch its own ad network are particularly interesting: Amazon could offer retailers a much-wanted alternative to Facebook and Google ads, and Amazon may prove to be better suited than either of its rivals at putting ads in front of consumers that actually get clicked. The new ad network, which Amazon is calling “Amazon Sponsored Links,” will also set up back end systems that allow ad agencies to “buy audiences” by buying ads in bulk. The agencies would then place ads on behalf of their clients based on the target audience demographic of the product. Again, those ads would be targeted to consumers using a sophisticated real-time system that knows the viewer’s product preferences, as expressed by their browsing and buying history on Amazon. If all this happens, Amazon’s new platform would look a lot like Google’s AdWords program, in which more than a million users bid on ad inventory on sites all over the web.. Right now Google and other third parties place ads for clients on Amazon, but that will likely be the first thing to change. Like Facebook and Google, Amazon will place its own clients’ ads on its own site. Amazon already has a small program that can place ads for clients on other sites. But reports yesterday say the program will get much bigger, and will run different sorts of ads. Amazon likely will launch a wider ad network through which it will be able to target ads for advertisers on lots of partner sites around the web. Amazon has already told some of its existing advertising partners that it will launch the new ad network later this year. This could be a particular threat to Google, whose business rests on the $50 billion or so it makes every year on web ads. An ad network would add one more battleground on which Amazon is competing with Google. Google Shopping puts up a small fight against the Amazon site. The Google Shopping Express competes with Amazon’s AmazonFresh and local pick-up services. Both companies now make phones, and the two are currently in a price war in the cloud storage market. Source: http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/23/amazon-will-use-shopping-data-to-target-ads-better-than-googles-adwords/