With almost half a million broadcasters, popular lifecasting service Justin.TV could probably create a section for clown fightclubs and still have thousands of video voyeurs clamoring to entertain us. The company just launched its first in what is likely to be a long list of sub-sites. Gaming.justin.tv is a sub-site that offers viewers info, events and videos specific to the gaming community. The company is already working on followup sites with music and social channel queued up for the future.
It’s hard to believe that a young man and his hat camera could build an empire like Justin.TV. In just three years the company has gone from a four-person gritty apartment startup, to a service with more than 21 million unique monthly visitors. The site currently serves the equivalent of 16,946 standard DVDs per hour in video content and ReadWriteWeb featured it as one of the top 5 video sites in the world. With the new channel sub-sites, this empire is about to expand even further.
In a blog post the company writes, “Justin.tv sub-sites will have their own promoted content and could include custom features as well…Now that there’s a dedicated gaming area, we’re free to build new features just for gamers that may not have been possible before.”
Last month ReadWriteWeb covered Wikia’s profit announcement. Wikia acknowledged that corporate sponsorships on sites like the World of Warcraft and Halo communities were particularly lucrative. Justin.TV is likely to see even more advertiser interest. Video production often requires much more time than the average wiki contribution, and viral video makers are perhaps some of the most sought after customers due to their far-reaching networks. If corporations can get to a sub-site’s influencers and gain favorable reviews, then the outreach could generate huge sales growth. Furthermore, given the fact that the Justin.TV’s traffic more than doubles Wikia’s, it will be hard for advertisers to resist the lure of these fan communities. To check out the first sub-site, visit gaming.justin.tv.
