Justin.tv

2007-2014


Justin.tv was originally created on March 19, 2007, and was originally meant to show an ongoing "lifecast" of its creator, Justin Kan (hence the origin of the website name). This then-startup was created in San Francisco, CA. Justin.tv would then evolve into a streaming service in the summer of the same year, with beyond 60 channels in the service. It eventually became open to everyone by October 2nd of the same year. Over the years, it would add more categories and once would make it the hub of live streams. A dramatic redesign of its site took effect on July 14, 2009, for the sake of ease of usage. With the rise of Twitch.tv on June 6 of 2011, the gaming section of Justin.tv was moved there. By February 10 of 2014, both Justin.tv and Twitch were united into a new holding company named Twitch Interactive, borrowing Twitch.tv's name. Justin.tv would eventually end for good effective August 5th of the same year, as its site was replaced by a shutdown notice and a video about its end. This closure occurred as its then-new parent company wanted to exclusively focus on Twitch.tv itself. However, previous users of Justin.tv were able to transfer their accounts onto Twitch.tv, if they wanted to continue streaming gaming content there. This feature would no longer work after February 13, 2015, as all other remaining accounts on the website would then be gone and become unrecoverable on Twitch.tv.