Twitch Service Update — November 12, 2013 — Expanding Twitch in Europe

Editor’s note: This is the first in a new, ongoing series of blog posts dedicated to keeping our users informed of what we’re doing to improve service around the world. We’ve received a great deal of feedback from you all on Twitter, Facebook, reddit, Team Liquid, in person, et cetera. We want you and your friends to use our service because it’s the best. We want you to know what we’re doing to make it the best.

It’s been a while since we talked about either the eSports communities or European audience here on Twitch.

Firstly, as you might have read in our CEO’s reddit AMA, expanding our European capacity is very important and ongoing. In the summer, we brought online a new data center in Stockholm and upgraded Amsterdam. Building EU capacity and providing high quality service is still a top priority and more is on the way in the very near future. (Ed. note: More on that in next week’s update.)

We’re also nearing a transition in our video streaming technology, this will see us move onto a different streaming technology called HLS, which will improve our efficiency and quality of service. It also enables us to build other cool, next-gen features further down the road.

Rest assured that we read every reddit thread, check out all the workarounds and it’s a mixed feeling knowing that sometimes demand has simply outstripped supply.

I also wanted to shed light on the other work we do and who’s doing it. We’ve expanded our staff in Europe in 2013. On top of Cristian ‘Trance’ Tamas (@Trancez0r) who has been with us for almost two years, we’ve officially added Starcraft 2 pro, Aleksey ‘White Ra’ Krupnyk (@WhiteRaSC) to help us with our partners in the CIS region. In addition, we’ve added former own3D support chief Jason ‘Opie’ Babo (@OpieDelivers) and SK gaming manager Minsik ‘Reis’ Ko (@minsikko). In 2014, this will grow even further.

This teamwork both behind the scenes at the top events and remotely with the top streamers ensures they get the most out of Twitch. Our European team troubleshoots any streaming issues and works with the broadcasters to improve their shows and grow their viewership.

We work with almost every major team in eSports, every major tournament and essentially anyone that will have us! That includes sponsoring numerous tournaments and teams, sending people onsite to help with their technical setup, running player lounges and parties, and much more. Although you might not always hear about what we’re doing in the eSports world, we’re almost always there!

Whilst we quietly grow and work to improve our service we want to ensure you that there’s a lot more going on than may always meet the eye.

Next week: An update on our transition to HLS by the one and only Gunrun.