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Pictured: Emmett Shear (l), Marcus "djWheat" Graham (r)

Recently, game streaming site TwitchTV hit a fairly substantial milestone: after a little under a year since its debut (it made its bow online last June) it now reaches 15 million gamers monthly. That's a lot of people coming to the site each month to watch other gamers play. According to TwitchTV CEO and co-founder Emmett Shear, that represents an increase of users of 13% month over month with the average viewer watching the site for about an hour per day. For Shear, he sees the audience increasingly using the site like TV; “That’s a shift in how people consume media that I think is really interesting.”

On the other end of things, there's eSports commentator Marcus "djWHEAT" Graham, who sees the broadcasting service as a means for some gamers looking to go pro at their hobby to make a career out of the burgeoning streaming industry. When I asked about how a gamer can make a name for him or herself in eSports, Graham said “If you’re a pro, it’s pretty simple: you can go to these tournaments and make a name for yourself by playing. But I think that what Twitch is doing is offering an accelerated way to get their name out there.” He likens it to the early 90’s trend of skaters making videos, rising to prominence based on their stunts, style, and personality. “Imagine if that process of getting a skate tape to me doesn’t take eight months, and suddenly a person’s watching on a stream as you play right there.”
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Tags Emmett Shear, Marcus Graham, TwitchTV