Have you heard of Twitch? This wasn’t originally its name when it was first launched in 2007 by two guys. At that time, it also wasn’t all about gaming. The content was categorized according to different groups, and it wasn’t until 2011 that Twitch was actually separated from the rest of the bunch that made up Justin TV.

Twitch TV is all about gameplay and 7 years after it was spun off, it is now a platform where some of the best gamers even monetize their streams, which is a great thing for my business, as well. Twitch overlays by Visuals by Impulse are some of the hottest accessories for Twitch streamers. We even show gamers how to get started making an income. Here are some more trivia facts about Twitch:

Guess how many visitors this streaming website now gets each month? Currently, the number is approximately 35 million. Twitch is now a major company and is located in the Financial District of San Francisco, CA. You would think that YouTube would have suddenly squashed such a company with the way it does business and monopolizes the video streaming industry in general, but you see, Twitch came in through the back door. How?

First of all, let’s point out that the streaming website does indeed have a very cool name. The younger generations use YouTube for its platform, but they will easily stray to use a different type of platform if the niche fits. Twitch capitalized on the gaming industry, and the streaming site niched itself out to the point that everyone jumped on the bandwagon. Any site trying to counteract a punch like that isn’t going to be able to compete.

YouTube is too much of a giant to really hone in on all of those details. If YouTube did that, it would likely cost them some of their branding momentum. Truth be told, YouTube has bigger fish to fry, though Google did attempt to make the video streaming giant appeal more to gamers. They tried a few things here and there to no avail. Daily Motion, another video streaming giant, also tried to get in on the action.

To be quite frank, they were already in on the action, but they just didn’t set the table like Twitch did. The gamers have really taken to Twitch, and its popularity has continued. Now, guess which sites on the Internet get the most traffic. You are likely thinking about the heavy hitters now, right? There is Netflix, and then there is of course Google. Throw Apple in there. Those are actually your top three. Guess which site comes in at #4.

Twitch doesn’t always occupy the #4 spot, but it does get its piece of the pie at peak times. And in 2014, guess which company got its piece of the pie in terms of Twitch? Amazon bought the company, something Google perhaps should have thought about doing if they wanted to integrate the company as a segment of YouTube. It just shows you how big companies like that are always playing chess. Amazon made the smart move, but perhaps the smartest move of all in this story is the one of two guys who developed a gamers streaming site called Twitch that blew up in popularity over the years and was acquired for, wait for it, 970 million dollars.