Amazon Buying Twitch

[JefferyD90]

I will not disclose my location, and or any other information than is provided in this thread.  This is for the safety of my job and livelihood.

 

I am a employee of Amazon, and I have a very informed view of how their network works.  First look at the attached map, this is a view of every fulfillment center (FC) as of 2013 (only 3 have open since of which I don't expect them to play much role in this).  The FCs are the warehouses that when you order something from Amazon, we will get all your product together, put it in a box, and ship it to you.  Amazon makes use of the extra space in these warehouses (places that you really couldn't use like under stairwells and in the corners of the building, to house a lot of servers.)  By a lot of servers, I mean my warehouse (which is one of the biggest) has about 100 separate servers of various capacities.  So the network is MASSIVE, and is scattered out VERY strategic. (we have 46 warehouses in the US so that's about 4000 separate servers in the warehouses alone, not including their stand alone data centers)

 

Now the reason why Amazon has done it this way is because they use their customer orders to map where potential web usage will take place.  There are several factors that will be taken into place with this:

 

1)  Someone that purchases things online, has probably bought something on Amazon.  Thus they must have a internet connection (estimates assume that almost 30% of Americans don't have internet connection at all, so you cant just blindly base internet usage on geographical population).  So Amazon uses their purchases to measure the amount of people that actually use the internet.  Amazon will place their warehouses closest to customers so they get the quickest shipping possible, so why wouldn't you put your data centers there as well?

 

2) It cuts down on cost, big time.  Because our FCs are FULLY staffed, and already have things like air conditioning and such, you will always have technicians on hand to service the machines, and with so many scattered out over so much area they really never get hot.  So maintenance is so much easier.

 

3) This point refers back to point number 1.  Just because everyone has a internet connection, does NOT mean they use the same amount of bandwidth and such.  The 25 year old in home game streamer will use Amazon servers a lot more than the 40 year old mother.  They assume that the 25 year old gamer will buy more things on Amazon thus showing their superior dominance of internet usage.  Basically this point comes down to the fact that Amazon has a VERY real demographic of people using stuff.

 

Also look at this article: http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/18/2957743/amazon-aws-internet-usage-statistics  Amazon is 1% of all internet traffic, which may not seem like a lot, but that is a TON of the internet traffic.  To quote the article: "Netflix, Dropbox, Instagram, Pinterest, and Zynga" all use Amazon's servers to manage their traffic.  So to just add twitch, which isn't hardly a fraction of Netflix, to their list will be like a drop in the bucket.

 

Amazon is a great option, and personally I think it will be better for Twitch when it comes to the backbone of the service than anything Google could have hoped to have done.

 

I believe Amazon will not integrate Twitch into Amazon, but instead the other way around.  I believe that you will see Amazon prime integrate into twitch services, and MAYBE 2-3 years from now the name might change.  But DO NOT expect immediate changes.

 

[jameshumphries47]

cool.... 

[Toxic Tom]

I will not disclose my location

 

[JefferyD90]

silly.png

Amazon has about 13 facilities in the KY area. 

[Toxic Tom]

Amazon has about 13 facilities in the KY area. 

 

Good I'm very happy for them

[terrytek]

How is Twitch involved in this thread?

[Blade of Grass]

To be quite honest, I'm not sure why Amazon bought Twitch, it doesn't seem like something that lines up with any of Amazon's current products/services. I'm not saying it's a bad purchase, just that it's unusual (because I never thought of them as a company that would expand into online streaming).

[TheSLSAMG]

But wait. If the car in your profile picture is yours, wouldn't someone from your workplace recognize it?

[terrytek]

But wait. If the car in your profile picture is yours, wouldn't someone from your workplace recognize it?

Like it would.

[MoonSpot]

Here's a map showing population density

Doesn't seem like a mystery to me, but I'm not in the know.

[JefferyD90]

The point I was making is on how Amazon has their hand in literally every basket they can.  So Twitch makes a lot of since, and the backbone of Twitch will be 100 times better.