Techmeme: YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch for $1 Billion: Sources (Todd Spangler/Variety)

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May 19, 2014, 9:20 AM

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Todd Spangler / Variety:

YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch for $1 Billion: Sources — Deal would be biggest ever for YouTube — Google's YouTube has reached a deal to buy Twitch, a popular videogame-streaming company, for more than $1 billion, according to sources familiar with the pact.

More: Marketing Land, Digital Trends, The Next Web, TheStreet.com, Fortune, New York Times, Telegraph, Guardian, TechnoBuffalo, Android Authority, Business Insider, cityam.com, Washington Post, I4U News, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, GamePolitics blogs, AndroidGuys, The Verge, TechCrunch, Network World, Electronista, VentureBeat, memeburn, Dan Rayburn, Ubergizmo, Phandroid, TechSpot, Gigaom, Social News Daily, Engadget, Techie News, iMore, VG247, The Register, Kotaku, Neowin, CNET News, Nerdist, USA Today, 9to5Google, ReelSEO Video Marketing, Polygon, Beet.TV, TheDomains.com, Mashable, Glass, Joystiq and VideoGamer.com

Tweets: @rolfewinkler, @davepell, @hunterwalk, @erickschonfeld, @theromit, @drew, @necrosofty, @amir, @thejwittz, @amir, @erickschonfeld, @drew, @ow, @drew, @drew, @hunterwalk, @beijingdou, @drew, @hunterwalk, @teroterotero, @om, @jenabellalol, @benfritz, @caseynewton and @felixsalmon

See also Mediagazer

The Verge:

Twitch chooses Google over Microsoft amid multiple buyout offers — Video game streaming startup believes YouTube is its best bet for mainstream success — YouTube is indeed close to securing a $1 billion buyout of live streaming service Twitch, and will have fended off multiple suitors including Microsoft …

More: Tech in Asia, BGR, Guardian, Geek.com, Rock, Paper, Shotgun and GamesIndustry International

Wall Street Journal:

Google's acquisition talks with Twitch still at an early stage — Google in Talks About Possible Acquisition of Twitch — Google's Talks With Live Video-Streaming Service at Early Stage — Google Inc. is in talks about a possible acquisition of Twitch, a fast-growing live video-streaming service …

More: Quartz, Inquirer, Computerworld, Reuters, Tubefilter, Kotaku, ZDNet, SlashGear and Daily Dot. Tweets: @ow. See also Mediagazer

Eric Johnson / Re/code:

Why a YouTube-Twitch Marriage Makes Sense — Google may or may not be buying Twitch for a big pile of money. — Okay. So what is Twitch, and why would Google want to buy it? — Twitch is a fast-growing service that lets people - mostly men — watch livestreams of other people — mostly men — playing videogames.

More: The Verge and Ubergizmo. Tweets: @ccheever, @pkafka and @panzer

AT&T:

AT&T agrees to acquire DirecTV in stock-and-cash deal for $95 per share — AT&T to Acquire DIRECTV — Creates Content Distribution Leader Across Mobile, Video & Broadband Platforms — The premier pay TV brand with the best content relationships now poised to deliver video to multiple screens …

Jon Passantino / BuzzFeed:

AT&T Buys DirecTV For $67 Billion In Second Major Deal To Reshape TV Industry

More: Vox and Ubergizmo. See also Mediagazer

Nathan Mattise / Ars Technica:

AT&T and DirecTV vow to follow FCC's 2010 net neutrality guidelines for three years after deal closes

More: Washington Post, Gizmodo and iMore

Tweets: @pkafka, @gnagesh, @pkafka, @gnagesh, @samgustin and @pkafka

Reuters:

AT&T won't pay break-up fee if regulators reject deal-source

Tweets: @danprimack, @danprimack, @danprimack and @sherman4949

Natasha Singer / New York Times:

Biometrics pioneer cautions against unfettered proliferation of face recognition technology — Never Forgetting a Face — Joseph J. Atick cased the floor of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington as if he owned the place. In a way, he did.

More: Ubergizmo and The Verge

Laura Hazard Owen / Gigaom:

As Amazon's fight with book publisher Hachette continues, criticism from authors and others grows — It's been a week since it became clear that Amazon is delaying shipments of publisher Hachette's print titles, likely due to a fight over terms. As Amazon continues to ship many Hachette print titles …

More: New York Times, Publishers Weekly and Good E-Reader. Tweets: @philmckinney

Quentin Hardy / New York Times:

IndoorAtlas publicly maps a building's interior for free, charges $99/month to keep it private — Mapping Our Interiors — Sure, that's your office cubicle. Your corner store. Maybe even the layout of your furniture in your living room. But that doesn't mean that soon we won't all be peering at it, too.

More: Internet2Go. Tweets: @randydeutsch

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

In Letter to Obama, Cisco CEO Complains About NSA Allegations — Warning of an erosion of confidence in the products of the U.S. technology industry, John Chambers, the CEO of networking giant Cisco Systems, has asked President Obama to intervene to curtail the surveillance activities of the National Security Agency.

More: Financial Times, Washington Post, Data Center Knowledge, The Hill, Reuters, Network World, TechEye, The VAR Guy, TechCrunch, TechWeekEurope UK, Delimiter, The Register and Tech News Plus. Tweets: @jtemple

Mike Rose / Gamasutra:

More games have released on Steam so far in 2014 than all of last year — There have now been more games released on Steam in the first 20 weeks of 2014 alone, than during the entirety of 2013, spelling out the real need for indie developers to properly market their games.

More: Rock, Paper, Shotgun, VG247, Daily Dot, destructoid, GamesIndustry International, Geek.com, Polygon and Kotaku

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Encrypted Internet Traffic Surges in a Year, Research Shows — Over the years we have been following various reports on Internet traffic changes, mostly focusing on file-sharing traffic. — A new report published by Sandvine this morning sheds light on the most recent developments.

More: Broadband Traffic Management. Tweets: @mattcutts

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