Network History

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Summary

Streaming networks come and go, but here you can get a brief history and listing of old and new.

Alphabetical

bambuser.com

As of September 19, 2016, this company is focusing on providing APIs and SDKs for other companies to start their own streaming services.

beam

beam was acquired by Microsoft and changed its name to Mixer

Bigo.SG

This streaming service focuses on the mobile market.

Blog TV

This streaming service was closed when the company behind it decided to focus on YouNow.com a streaming service that categorizes streamers by hash tags. As of March 2024 the domain has a page that suggests a new owner will attempt to bring back the platform.

Cam4

Adult streaming video service.

Chaturbate

This Adult streaming video service offers broadcasters and affiliates serious money for promoting the network. Read more over at Making Money Streaming.

CloutHub.com

A community platform with a small live section that does not show Live Viewer counts.

Facebook

Following in the steps of Twitter (Periscope.tv), facebook launched live video streaming that allows users and/or pages to go live on pages, groups, and events.

JoinHouse.Party

After Meerkat was crushed by Periscope.tv, the company started working on a new project that streams multiple people at once. The twitter account from Meerkat was switched to HouseParty on September 28, 2016.

Justin.tv

This site started out as a place to watch a guy named Justin 24 hours a day, and he got lots of media attention. More broadcasters were added to the site and then it turned in to a streaming network. Gaming became popular on the network and the company decided to put all of their efforts in to a gaming streaming service called Twitch.tv and ended the original Justin.TV Service.

kick.com

A new streaming platform founded in 2022 that has grown incredibly quickly with backing by Stake.com. They offer ana amazing 95/5 revenue split and utlize the Twitch/AWS Streaming API to provide a quality live stream experience.

LiveMe.com

App Based Live Streaming Service. Web version has been added.

LiveStream.com

Livestream started a small service called Twitcam which was essentially the first Periscope, but it was shut down June 7, 2016. Livestream was acquired by Vimeo which is part of a publicly traded holding company called InterActiveCorp (Nasdaq: IAC). Although vimeo is a competitor to YouTube, streaming from livestream to youtube and facebook is part of the current marketing materials (Accessed Sept 23, 2020).

LiveVideo.com

This great domain name and backing by Brad Greenspan (A MySpace Founder) should have become the place for live video, but the parent company LiveUniverse was trying to do too much at once. With a team of programmers from various other projects such as VidiLife (a Social Network based around videos), this network was able to build an impressively featured streaming client that was overly complex for the average user. Possibly due to how complex the service was, more mature users would use it and would try to stream mature content which led to extreme moderation that crippled the site for viewers as well. Ultimately the service was shut down November of 2010 as did many of the other sites in the companies portfolio. I think this site could have been saved if it were simplified and moved mature content to a new site that was built on the same platform.

Live.Yahoo.com

While Yahoo was still popular, they tried their hand at streaming video in browser, but the other hand was still using Yahoo Chat. In other words, they failed to integrate the service properly with their vast network of games, social, and entertainment. With numerous bugs and stiff competition from Stickam.com the service was forced to close shortly after it launched in 2008 or 2009.

Mixer.com

Originally called Beam, the name was changed after being purchased by Microsoft. Mixer is a gaming focused competitor to Twitch.tv

Update 2020: Facebook has acquired Mixer.com and the domain now goes to facebook.com/gaming

MeercatApp.Co

This service got so much hype at SXSW (South by Southwest) in March of 2015 because it made streaming almost as easy as it could possibly be. Everybody was using it until Periscope.tv entered the game, backed by Twitter. Twitter blocked some of Meercats functionailty with Twitter and therefore gave another advantage to Periscope beyond simply being easier to get started streaming because users already had a Twitter account. It is worth mentioning that Twitter blocked some meerkat features, but did not block Twitcam which came out way before any of these two services but arguably offered a similar service.

Mobli.com

This service, similar to Meercat, seems to have fizzled out due to competition from Periscope. It looks live Live Videos ended around April of 2016 with other parts ending in May of 2016.

Periscope.tv

Launched on March 26, 2015, Periscope quickly capitalized on the success of Meercat posting live video links to Twitter by literally being part of Twitter. The service was owned by Twitter and therefore had better integration, especally after Twitter shut down some functionailty of Meercat. Periscope features were ultimately integrated into Twitter so much that Periscope was shutdown on March 31, 2021 but remnants of Periscope live on in Twitter Live.

picarto.tv

Live Streaming network that caters to art and drawing.

Reddit.com r/PAN

Launched in 2019, the service gained popularity in 2020 during the lockdowns and ultimately shutdown on November 15, 2022.

SessionsLive.com

SessionsLive is a live streaming platform targetted towards live music.

Sliver.tv

Sliver.tv has become theta.tv.

Stickam.com

This was the Sega Dreamcast of the live streaming world, way ahead of its time and still unmatched as of September of 2016, more than 3 years since it closed in February of 2013. Originally founded in February of 2006, Stickam innovated software to stream a host and six guests to hundreds of people, which is literally SEVEN times harder to accomplish, especially at that time when DSL was still popular. Stickam innovated many other product offerings, but was still closed for reasons that were not publically disclosed. The Japanese version of Stickam is still operational, suggesting there were legal problems in the USA that made it better to shut down than continue fighting.

Stre.Am

Stre.am launched in 2015 and focuses heavily on the mobile market.

Stream.Me

Stream.me launched in 2015 and focuses heavily on the gaming market. The company is based out of Austin, Texas.

StripCash.com

Adult streaming platform.

Theta.tv

Theta.tv is utilizing blockchain and an innovative bandwidth sharing system to drive down the cost of running a live streaming service and incentivise both viewers and broadcasters. Originally theta.tv was an entire Proof of Concept that could compete with Twitch.tv but on September 27, 2023 the service was shutdown in favor of a simple demo of a single video.

Twitcam.Livestream.com

This streaming service revolved around twitter, and was essentially the first Periscope.tv, but it was actually owned by Livestream.com. With the same fate as Meercat, Livestream decided to end the service on June 7, 2016 probably because Periscope had made the service obsolete.

Twitch.TV

This gaming oriented streaming video service offers broadcasters serious money for using the network. Read more over at Making Money Streaming. This company was formed from Justin.TV when they realized how popular the gaming streams were on their general streaming service. Twitch grew rapidly and got bought by Amazon.

twitter.com

When Twitter was acquired by Elon Musk, he renamed the service x.com. The Live Streaming technology for x.com is powered by the original Periscope.tv architecture.

YouNow.com

This innovative streaming service categorizes streamers by hash tags. Started by the same people behind Blog TV.

YouTube.com

YouTube does live video very well, but they do not have a very good way to find the live videos despite being owned by Alphabet/Google the company responsible for helping more people find what they need.

x.com

When Twitter was acquired by Elon Musk, he renamed the service x.com. The Live Streaming technology for x.com is powered by the original Periscope.tv architecture.

Conclusion

Streaming has been prohibitevely expensive for most networks, but with each one we learn how to reduce costs and increase essential features. If you want to add to the list or take a shot at building your own network, just contact us!