MY SON AND I were out for a walk when he told me he wanted to be a streamer when he grows up. He's 11. I instantly grew a long and bushy beard.
"Son," I said, "there are many things to know before you can stream."
"Father," he said, "you have already told me these things. You have told me that I must learn to use OBS, the Open Broadcaster Software, and become familiar with the Twitch community guidelines. You have told me that I must set up my 'scenes' ahead of time and make sure that my room is acoustically balanced before I spend too much on microphones. I know I can do all of that. And I believe that the people of the world wish to watch me play Luigi's Mansion 3."
"Beloved child," I said, "I've spent a lifetime producing content for the internet, and I have seen the streamers come and go. I have watched the baking streams, the synthesizer and Eurorack streams, the piano skills streams, the headphone aficionado streams, the antique toy restoration streams-and, yes, the makeup and gaming streams, with their hundreds of millions of views. I have seen bakers stare into the camera in anguish and say, "There is a terrible problem in the fondant community. These things I have witnessed and more. So I would not have you become a streamer. But if you must, I will teach you about the Three Questions of Streaming."
"I await your counsel," said my son, realistically.
"First question: What are your brands?"
I could see that my son was confused. "Well, I like Nintendo-"
"No, my Beloved Pumpkin. You may think you are playing a video game on the internet. But that is an illusion. In truth you are a tiny data point at the intersection of vast brands. And you must give the brands what they want."
"What is that?"
"Transactions. When you start a stream, a transaction is taking place inside of Twitch, which is within Amazon. When a person sends you a message in the stream, that is also a transaction.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der April 2023-Ausgabe von WIRED.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der April 2023-Ausgabe von WIRED.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
A Full-Term Gig - Hiring someone to carry your baby to term is a booming business.
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Markdown is not just a piece of software. It's also a markup language it's used to format plaintext, which then appears the way you want it to on, say, the internet. Markdown the markup language was designed to be as easy-to-read and easy-to-write as is feasible, according to creator John Gruber's syntax guide. A Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it's been marked up with tags or formatting instructions.
Terminal Velocity - Murphy, a competitive runner since high school, was an avid user of the exercise app Strava, and he frequently checked the app while traveling to see where locals liked to run.
It was 2 am at Denver International Airport, and Jared Murphy was only a few hours into a planned 17-hour layover. His options at this quiet hour, in the expansive halls of the concourse, were pretty much nil. There would be no nibbling on ahi tartare at the Crú Food & Wine Bar for at least another seven hours, and the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory's signature caramel apples had long since been cached for the night.
What's the future for Western 'super apps'?
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