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printcontentsfull screenprintYOUTUBER I 36
EDITOR’S NOTES
Mike Wilhelm - Editor in Chief
as Subaru repair or master-level
chess strategy.
Instagram’s IGTV has potential; it’s
great for consuming video but suf-
fers from the same problems as the
rest of Facebook: poor search and a
lack of monetization for creators. TWITTER AND SNAPCHAT
ARE TOO DIFFERENT ON A
FUNDAMENTAL LEVEL
Twitter and Snapchat seem like they
could be YouTube competitors, but
they have even bigger problems.
Not only do they lack robust search
and refuse to share their ad revenue,
they also have a mobile-first mental-
ity — a hard sell for users who want
to watch long-form content.NETFLIX DOESN’T NEED
THAT MUCH CONTENT
Netflix has a big audience interested
in long-form content; maybe they
could compete with YouTube. Theo-
retically, they could share subscrip-
tion revenue with creators based
on watch time. It’ll never happen
though, unfortunately, since unlikeYouTube, Netflix doesn’t need view-
ers to spend a lot of time watching
video. They only need to keep viewers
interested enough to continue paying
their monthly bill. In Netflix’s ideal
world, they’d have one cheap-to-
make show and billions of people
paying $11 a month, only to never
actually watch it.TWITCH IS THE ONLY VI-
ABLE COMPETITION
Twitch on the other hand is in a great
position to compete. They’ve demon-
strated they can attract creators with
robust monetization tools; enough
that YouTube has had to play catch-
up. They’re also able to attract view-
ers hungry for long-form content.
(The average Twitch viewer spends
95 minutes watching every day).
Originally only a live site, they now
allow creators to upload pre-edited
content. Also originally for gamers,
Twitch is slowly evolving to appeal to
non-gamer categories like talk shows,
art and food.
There are three things holding
Twitch back from competing with
YouTube in a big way. First is the
dominance of gaming content.
Twitch is taking steps to be more
inclusive toward non-gaming con-
tent, but they still primarily feature
games on their homepage. Plus,
gaming is still the only category that
is split up with extreme granular-
ity — not only into gaming sub-
genres but by individual game. The
equivalent for a category like talk
shows might be not only a Politics
Talk category but also a Healthcare
Policy Talk category.Considering the relative popularity
of gaming on Twitch, I don’t blame
them for skewing their categories
heavily toward games, but it does
reinforce the perception that Twitch
is a gamers-only platform.
The second is the lack of depth in
their content library. YouTube has 13
years of videos that are all search-
able. As of this writing, you simply
won’t find any content on Twitch
about how to change the oil in your
2012 Subaru Forester, nor on many
other obscure topics.
Finally, there’s search, though in this
case, it’s a minor problem because the
content you need search for — highly
obscure topics — isn’t there yet.
The good news is it’s almost
certain that these things will change.
As more non-gaming creators move
toward Twitch for the robust moneti-
zation tools, more viewers will follow
and eventually, the perception about
what Twitch is will change. These cre-
ators will save more recorded videos,
which users will then go looking for.
The whole thing will snowball, as
more viewers attract more creators,
which then attract more viewers.
All this is great for YouTube fans
and creators, as the competition
will lead to more innovation and
improvement on both sides. To those
who aren’t males between ages 18
and 34, Twitch may seem alien or
even unwelcoming, but there’s a
good chance that this won’t be the
case for long.THE
COMPETITIONWILL LEAD
TO MOREINNOVATION
ANDIMPROVEMENT
ON BOTH SIDES.“
383 008 Tof C Editors Notes.indd 36 2/19/19 2:52 PMYOUTUBER I 37
CONSPIRACY THEORY BY ERIK FRITTS
How would you feel if I told you that I already know who you’ll be
voting for in the upcoming presidential election? Maybe that one’s not
so hard —but what about the election after that, and then the one after
that? In fact, I know who you’ll be voting for in every election for the
rest of your life.
It’s not that hard to figure out —
if you’ve been keeping up with
the times.
It all started with a simple trend
— an app, a feature, a “new func-
tion.” Maybe it was Siri, or Alexa, orELECTION PREDICTION: CONSPIRACY EDITION
ELECTION PREDICTION: CONSPIRACY EDITION
Cortana. It was AI. More specifically, voice-activated AI
that listens, responds and learns.
AI started integrating into our world a few years ago.
It started out as a ‘personal assistant’ — telling us if it
was going to rain, helping set our schedules, finding us
the fastest route to work. AI was learning about us.010 Short - Conspiracy Theory.indd 37 2/19/19 2:53 PM