Gaming Streaming Giant Twitch Acquires ClipMine To Boost Discovery Feature

Gaming streaming platform Twitch has made some big announcement this week. The Amazon-owned video game streaming website has just announced that it acquired a video indexing platform for an undisclosed amount.

According to TechCrunch, Twitch has just acquired ClipMine, a Palo Alto-based video indexing platform. ClipMine's technology currently used to translate visual information in videos in metadata, which help people in finding the streams they want to see.

Originally launched as a platform for crowdsourced tagging and annotations, ClipMine provides technology that allowed users to add their own annotations. ClipMine has not just helped users find the part of the video they wanted to see, it also helps video publishers know more about which section or part of the published video that was getting the much attention. In short, the startup can also provide Twitch with real-time information.

The deal represents the company’s latest move in the gaming industry. Twitch is reportedly keen on tools that could extract information from videos like for example player names, game type, and more. The company has also shifted away from the idea of crowdsourcing to take advantage of other fast-growing technologies, which include AI, like computer vision and machine learning. 

Twitch, the streaming platform

Founded in 2011, Twitch is an Amazon-owned live streaming video platform. The streaming platform was first introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming service Justin.tv. The Amazon-owned streaming platform primarily focuses on streaming video games, including broadcasts of eSports competitions and playthroughs of video games. The platform also streams music broadcasts. Contents can either be viewed live or via video-on-demand (VoD). 

Twitch was acquired by tech giant Amazon in August 2014 for $970 million. Then, Amazon merged Twitch with its own subscription service Amazon Prime. Twitch later, bought Curse, an operator of online gaming communities and introduced a new way to purchase games through live stream and links, along with programs that allowed streamers to receive commissions on the sales of the video games.

In addition to streaming, Twitch also introduced its own Partner Program, which works similar to the partner programs of other video sites like Youtube. The Twitch’s program allows popular content streamers to share in the advertising revenue generated from their streamed contents. Users can also subscribe to streamer’s channel for just $4.99 a month.

Twitch has also signed a two-year partnership with Blizzard Entertainment in June 2017. In the deal, Twitch will be the exclusive streaming platform of select Blizzard’s eSports events.

In 2015, Twitch introduced TwitchCon, an annual convention event that focuses on video-game streaming. The first TwitchCon event was held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on September 25 to September 26, 2015.  

What the deal will bring to the streaming platform

As mentioned earlier by TechCrunch, the company’s interest in ClipMine’s deep learning based video indexing tech was due to its ability to analyze contents and identify key info on the contents. Twitch has recently introduced a new filtering feature for Blizzard’s “Hearthstone” and “Overwatch” to help users find what it is looking for. The new discovery tools will rely on computer vision and machine learning to come out with more effective results.   

This is not the first time Twitch has introduced discovery and filtering tools on its website. Last April, the streaming platform has added a feature that allowed viewers to filter “League of Legends” streams. ClipMine’s investors included Google board member Ram Shriram, entrepreneur Amarjit Gill, Cadence CEO Lip-Bu Tam and former Facebook vice president Greg Badros, according to CrunchBase.

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