As rumours of live game-streaming website Twitch's acquisition by Google pick up pace, the website has announced that it is shutting down justin.tv - the website where Twitch was born. This could very well be the precursor to the much-rumoured $1 billion acquisition of Twitch. So far, Google has refused to comment on whether it is acquiring Twitch.
Founded by Justin Kan (with Kyle Vogt, Emmett Shear, and Michael Seibel) in March 2007, justin.tv started out as a place where Kan would live broadcast his life. Kan started off with a head-mounted camera that he would use to record his life. Justin.tv then added channels that allowed people to broadcast their lives over the Internet. Some of these people started broadcasting their gaming sessions live. As this picked up steam, justin.tv launched a dedicated sub-domain for live game-streaming.
This turned out to be so popular that justin.tv launched a dedicated website for live game-streaming - Twitch - in June 2011. On Tuesday, however, it was announced that justin.tv was shutting down. In a video uploaded on the website, Kan said, "Hopefully people will remember the great community that JTV had and the way that people from all over the world came and watched their favourite broadcasters. I think that's what I'll definitely remember. To the justin.tv community I'd just say thanks a lot for all the years of viewing and broadcasting your interesting lives... Thanks for all the memories."
The home page now has an FAQ about justin.tv's closure and how users can migrate to Twitch if they wish to. The reason for justin.tv shutting down read, "Justin.tv pioneered live video on the Internet and spawned one of the largest video platforms ever: Twitch. Justin.tv was officially renamed Twitch Interactive Inc. in February of 2014 and Twitch is now the focus of the company's resources. Unfortunately that means we need to shut down Justin.tv. We thank all of our broadcasters and viewers for 7 years of live video memories."
For justin.tv account holders who wish to migrate to Twitch, the website had these instructions:
Your account is now closed, and you will be unable to access any settings or content. If you used your justin.tv account to login to Twitch, the account will still work on Twitch; however, we encourage you to complete this form to have your account transferred to Twitch for full site use. Request to transfer account must be received by Friday, September 5, 2014. Please be reminded today, Twitch is a site for gaming-related content only. Refer to the Twitch TOS for more info on content guidelines. For more information on transferring your account to Twitch, see below.All videos were removed from justin.tv on June 15, 2014, according to the website. For those who wish to broadcast non-gaming videos, the website said, "For other types of content, there are a number of live sites still out there who support live video broadcasting: YouTube, Ustream and Livestream, for instance."
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