For this post I have selected two of my favorite sites in addition to Facebook and Twitter. These sites are Youtube and Twitch. Most of you probably are not familiar with Twitch.tv as it targets a specific group of people: Gamers. One thing about all these social network sites is that if they are similar they try to "copy" what the other one is doing in an attempt to replace it. We have seen it in Facebook's status messages and tagging people, imitating Twitter. Youtube is no stranger to copying a potential competitor. Youtube added "Youtube Gaming" in order to offer similar services that have been in Twitch.tv for a while.
One thing that all 4 sites have in common is that they all let people communicate with one another and share original content and all sorts of files. Facebook concentrates more in the social life aspect of people. As in the main purpose of Facebook is to share any life event trough pictures and videos. Like pictures of the bar you visited Saturday night, or your cousin's birthday party. I feel that most of the time, these posts are an attempt from the person posting it to seem interesting, cool or to be accepted to certain social group that he wants to belong.
Twitter seems to be more professionally and academically accepted as a social network tool. Not that it is bigger than Facebook, but it seems more appropriate at a business and academic level. Having a limit of the amount of words per tweet makes people more creative about what they post. I see twitter used as a tool that supports the content of a specific project. For example, many people who make videos in Youtube, often use Twitter to let their followers know what they are working on and when their next project will be ready, as well as updates that have to do with delays.
Youtube has been around for a while and its main purpose is the making of videos that range from cats being cats; to classes of economics. Youtube users often concentrate their content in one specific audience. For example, there are channels that will only post videos about basketball and others will only post videos that have to do with video games. Youtube seems like the most profitable social network if the user can get a constant amount of viewers. There is an interesting trend in youtube, and this leads to my discussion of Twitch. The most viewed videos are music videos, having at the top "gangnam style" with 2.6 BILLION views. However the channel has 9 million users subscribed which is more important that a video view since it remarks how many people are going to see all of the content that you post. On the other hand we have "PewDiePie" gaming channel. It is the most popular channel with 48 million subscribers. Even tough his most viewed video accounts for only 78 million views, it counts with the persistence and support of 5 times more people than the "gangnam style" channel. Making it more profitable.
Twitch.tv is concentrated only in gamers. In this website people can stream in real life when they play at home. Anyone can watch them, talk to them and give donations. There are a lot of people who stream video games for a living and make a decent paychek (all from donations). Twitch.tv has been becoming bigger with the growth of video games popularity. Even Amazon.com just signed a contract with them and having an amazon prime account gives you benefits in twitch.tv as well. Its busiest time is when the League of Legends world championship runs every year; at this time they get up to 500000 people watching live. Streaming has been adopted by youtube and even facebook. Streaming games is growing rapidly and twitch is definitely a social network to keep your eyes on.
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