Beam And Twitter Come To Xbox One

Over the last few days we have had a couple of announcements regarding new Apps that will be arriving on the Xbox One.  The apps in question are the game streaming service Beam and Twitter, not the Twitter we all know and love but a Twitter TV streaming service. Lets have a little look at what these new additions will bring to the Xbox One.

First up we have Beam.  Microsoft recently acquired the game streaming service, with the success of both Twitch and YouTube Gaming, maybe Microsoft decided that it would like it's own slice of the game streaming market pie.  It certainly will have their work cut out for them as Twitch and more recently YouTube have huge followings, and are proving very popular among streamers out there.

Beam was announced for Xbox at the recent TechCrunch's Disrupt conference, no exact date was giving for the launch of the service, winter 2016 is the time frame we have been given, so hopefully we will see this land by Christmas at the latest.  What is different with Beam is that they are going to offer a far greater audience interaction with the steamer you are watching.  With both Twitch and YouTube Gaming you have delays between what's actually what's happening on the stream and what you are contributing to it at home.  If you post a comment or follow a streamer, you will always notice a time delay before you see it on screen.  Beam uses a low latency technique and they are promising that the delay will be reduced to one second, making the experience for both you and the streamer a more interactive one.  

Time will tell if Beam can carve out its own space in a very competitive market place, the reduced delay will be music to viewers and streamers alike, Microsoft knows that the competition is strong and hopefully when Beam lands it's everything they are promising us, if it is then I think that Twitch and YouTube might be a little worried.

Next up is Twitter and its new TV streaming service.  Over the last few years Twitter has been busy at work doing deals with various sport and news companies to bring their content to a Twitter streaming service.  It's no secret that Twitter has being struggling to attract new customers, this new streaming service is their way of getting people back involved with Twitter.  

The new App will be launched on the Xbox One as well as for Apple TV and Amazon Fire.  No Twitter account will be required to use the service, there is no subscription fee to be paid, all that you will need is a compatible device to run it on.  The app will be available in the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia and the UK.  Hopefully we will see that number of countries grow as time goes by if the app takes off and becomes a success.

So what will the new Twitter bring to your TV's at home?  I suppose the biggest deal that has being signed by Twitter is with the NFL, they have secured the rights to show ten Thursday Night Football matches form the US, they have also signed deals with the NBA, I'm not sure if this deal will bring live NBA basketball games to the service or if it will build on Twitters pre match show, we will also see content from the NHL and from Major League Baseball.  Fans of business news will be delighted to hear that they have also signed deals with Bloomberg and with Cheddar TV.  

This is a major shift in focus for Twitter, TV streaming is becoming a bigger and bigger market and maybe they feel that there is a lot of cash and exposure to be had by going all in, the ten match deal with the NFL alone cost them around $10,000,000.  The new Twitter app should be available now if your lucky enough to live in one of the launch regions.