Live streaming has been around for quite some time, but it took until the internet and associated technologies became strong enough to carry at least HD live streams for it to truly take off. This led to the foundation of several platforms and applications that remain relevant today.
Twitch and Zoom, in particular, have become mainstays in the everyday lives of millions. The former remains a hub for entertainment that relies exclusively on people live streaming. The latter is live-streamed video that’s primarily used to connect disparate workforces and colleagues. In both instances, a female executive has been instrumental in propelling the platforms to the lofty heights at which they remain today.
Live Streaming Giants Inspiring Further Tech Development
Back in August 2014, Amazon purchased the streaming platform Twitch for $970 million. Today, nearly $1 billion looks to be rather cheap. The seven-day average for viewers Twitch on the day of writing was 2,307,900. That’s a huge user base, and all of them are there for live-streamed content. Of course, it wasn’t until around five years ago that Twitch went from somewhat of a niche platform to fully mainstream.
Zoom also enjoyed a tremendous surge of interest and use at the turn of the decade. This was at a time when people were scrambling for live video chat functionality that’d cater to several windows over many hours for free. Zoom conquered contemporaries like Houseparty and now caters to over 3.3 trillion minutes of connections each year.
Both greatly helped to normalise the technology and its uses in everyday work and home life. In turn, users have been much more open to further advances in the application of live streaming. Creating a more interactive live product, live casino games like live roulette online offer real-time play with human croupiers.
Some stream directly from the Hippodrome and Bellagio, and online players get to bet and potentially win as the ball falls in the casino.
The Women Behind the Platforms
Coming into the team in January 2018, in her role as chief operating officer, Sara Clemens helped to steer Twitch from a popular niche to a mainstream platform adopted with record-high user counts. She was instrumental in scaling business operations, expanding internationally, and creating new content verticals, all of which helped to make Twitch the goliath it is today.
In 2021, she departed Twitch for board roles elsewhere. Now, she’s a director at Duolingo and was also the COO of Whatnot, a live shopping platform. Perhaps, down the line, the gamified language learning app will adopt live streaming options, such as with real-time tutors in a premium side package of the app. In a similar vein, the former chief marketing officer of Zoom has relayed her experiences with the live video platform into her new role.
Janine Pelosi helped to build Zoom up from being a top-class software platform with a relatively small audience to the world-renowned brand that it is today, running multiple platforms and services that have enhanced the live video call experience. Now, she’s with Neat.no as CEO. Since late 2023, she’s been helping the live video communications specialists to develop enhanced meeting devices and hardware to facilitate platforms like Zoom.
Live streaming has become commonplace in no small part because of the efforts of Clemens and Pelosi at the juggernaut platforms Twitch and Zoom. Going forward, they may yet get to tap into and even enhance the tech further.
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