Difference between Twitch and YouTube: the former represents the new advancing, owned by Amazon and to date, the fourth most visited site in the United States. The second is a veteran, “son in law” of Google, born first of all in the now distant 2005.
The battle between Twitch and YouTube has almost begun, but the question that arises spontaneously is: are they really two competing platforms? Or can you simply use both to make money on the web (although they are not stratospheric figures)?
Let’s find out together what is the difference between Twitch and YouTube, or rather, why Twitch would be so different from the most popular video platform in the world.
What is Twitch?
Given that we all know what YouTube is and how it works, let’s immediately focus on what Twitch is mainly. It is a platform purchased by Amazon in 2014, born as a spin-off of another project called Justin.tv.
Justin.tv was a generalist platform specializing in live broadcasts. The site was divided into categories but it was that of video games that grew exponentially. From there, it quickly became the perfect platform for live streaming gaming. In 2011, the next telematic channel, Twitch, was launched, which absorbed Justin.tv, and which immediately recorded dizzying numbers.
We are talking about over 45 million active users in 2013 alone. Born as a platform specialized in gaming, Twitch begins to expand its range of action, also hosting live and videos on different themes. And that’s how the competition with YouTube was born, mainly due to the purchase of the company by Jeff Bezos and his Amazon in 2014.
The difference between Twitch and YouTube is the live broadcast
As you know, YouTube is a Google home site that allows you to view and share content such as video clips, vlogs, short films, trailers. But it has only been allowing the production of live streaming for a few years. And this is precisely the substantial difference between Twitch and the “red pipe“.
While Twitch is a highly born and specialized platform for providing live broadcasts of any kind, YouTube has only tried to adapt to the new changes, while still remaining a deferred video sharing platform. Not surprisingly, the “live” section is much more marginal on this platform while on Twitch there is the possibility to search for the desired live content by simply ranging between the various channels and video games.
With Twitch, perhaps, you earn more
Twitch’s revenue model is perhaps more aggressive than YouTube’s. On the Amazon platform, you can earn through product sponsorship, affiliation, but also donations. In the latter case, you can set up a fundraiser that allows viewers to reward you by donating even small amounts of money. A donation that doesn’t get Twitch any percentage.
With YouTube, on the other hand, earnings are based on the number of subscribers to the channel, advertisements, or affiliation. Compensation becomes incurred only if you have a large number of subscribers, with relatively huge views for each video.
Is Twitch a little more youthful? Perhaps!
Given its long age, YouTube is certainly a less used platform among the very young. (A bit like Facebook, which is heavily affected by the development of other social networks such as Instagram or Snapchat). On the other hand, Twitch has on its side the fact of being agile, immediate, and much more profitable than the red tube.
But this does not mean that the two rivals cannot be used in a complementary way! If Twitch represents the future, YouTube cannot yet be defined as just the past. Both are perfect to use for those who want to make themselves known on the web, perhaps becoming a streamer, or even earning small amounts of money.
