Facebook might be venturing into e-sports

Facebook is leaving no stone unturned in the online world. According to The Information, Facebook plans to delve deeper into the world of professional gaming. They have partnered with the likes of Activision Blizzard to bring daily content to its Live streaming service. Now, they are supposedly holding “extensive talks” with Super Evil Megacorp, the developer behind mobile e-sport game Vainglory. Facebook reportedly wants them to stream professional matches on its platform. According to Kristian Segerstrale, chief operating officer of Super Evil Megacorp, the deal isn’t set in stone just yet.

The report also claims Facebook is holding talks with Activision as well to stream more e-sport competitions on Facebook’s platform. Facebook has been pushing its Live platform intensively since it launched last year. It makes sense they want to go up against the likes of Twitch and YouTube for a slice of the professional gaming pie.

Source: Engadget

Twitch introduces closed captions for its live shows

Twitch is helping out deaf and hard of hearing viewers catch what’s happening during its live broadcasts with new closed captions included into the videos. And it isn’t even using speech-to-text software to possibly butcher sentences. Twitch has hired professional stenographers to type out the captions on the fly for things like their weekly show that airs every Friday, TwitchCon 2016 events, and Kappa Theater panels.

If you’re a content creator on Twitch, you won’t have access to the professionals but you can provide captioned content. The details are here in Twitch’s Help Center.

Source: Twitch

YouTube brings live streaming to mobile

It doesn’t come as a surprise that YouTube is finally bringing its live streaming capabilities to mobile devices. This now puts them up against the likes of Facebook, Periscope, and Meerkat. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki made the announcement at VidCon after months of speculation that they were going to introduce this feature.  You’ll see a new red capture button in the corner of the app to start livestreaming. You can take a photo or select one to use as a thumbnail and then start broadcasting to fans and chat in almost real time.

YouTube has been doing live streaming for a number of years already so this is just a progression of that. And the company boasts they have better infrastructure to offer a better experience than its competitors. Kurt Wilms, product lead of Immersive Experience at YouTube, told Mashable, “We’ve put a lot of energy and effort into making our platform great, stable, reliable and fast.” Some of the creators who have access to live streaming include The Young Turks, Alex Wassabi, and SACCONEJOLY.

Twitter acquires live-video streaming company Periscope

Perhaps in a move to get more advertisers or users in general to use their social network, Twitter has acquired Periscope, a live streaming startup. They wouldn’t say what inspired the acquisition or for how much. But it makes sense for a company like Twitter to integrate live streaming into its service. People are already using the service to talk about events as they happen. Why wouldn’t they integrate the video aspect as well? As to how this would happen, we don’t have an idea at the moment. But you better prepare to see live-video streams on your timeline soon.

Source: Periscope | Via: Engadget