Twitter CEO resigns
Tech giant Twitter is never one to avoid the headlines. This week is no exception, as the company’s CEO Dick Costolo made a surprise announcement that he would be stepping down.
In a statement, he said “I am tremendously proud of the Twitter team and all that the team has accomplished together during my six years with the company.”
Twitter is typically under fire from the media, its users, or its investors for one issue or another, whether it be problems regarding privacy policies or the company’s inability to stimulate user growth and meet Wall Street’s revenue forecasts. Costolo has been a central figure in the constant scrutiny directed at Twitter, and feels that his resignation would remove some of those distractions for the company.
It appears that Wall Street might agree with those sentiments, with Twitter’s shares jumping by more than 7% in the wake of the announcement. Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey will serve as the company’s interim CEO until a replacement is found.
YouTube’s gaming site
On the back of the success of Twitch, Amazon’s game streaming service, Google-owned YouTube is launching a site dedicated to compete for the allegiance of gamers. Amazon beat Google to the acquisition of Twitch just last year with an offer of $970 million, according to the BBC.
While the new site will focus on live streaming to directly compete with Twitch, other features will include individual profiles for games and gamers.
“Live streams bring the gaming community closer together, so we’ve put them front-and-centre on the YouTube Gaming homepage,” wrote Alan Joyce, YouTube’s gaming product manager in a blog post. “And in the coming weeks, we’ll launch an improved live experience that makes it simpler to broadcast your gameplay to YouTube.”
While YouTube’s initiative signals competition for Twitch, for gamers it means even more opportunity and resources to delve deeper into the world of gaming.
Oculus and Xbox partnership
At an Oculus event in San Francisco earlier this week, an unexpected guest arrived in the form of Microsoft’s Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, who joined Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe on stage to announce a partnership between the two companies.
Oculus VR finally unveiled its Rift model, the first glimpse of the product that will be made available to consumers. Now, it will come hand in hand with an Xbox One controller. The partnership will also enable Oculus users to stream Xbox One games to their virtual reality headsets, viewing them in different dimensions.
Oculus will be competing with other new VR products making their debuts in 2016, like HTC’s Vive and Playstation’s Morpheus. The Facebook-owned company may have taken a step towards that goal by throwing in its lot with Microsoft, which could be a real asset in elevating Oculus Rift above its competitors by bringing gaming into the virtual reality sphere. At the same time, Xbox can use Oculus as its vehicle to enter the increasingly anticipated era of virtual reality.
“We’re thrilled to be working closely with the team at Oculus. Their groundbreaking work in virtual reality is inspiring, and the Oculus Rift delivers a truly next-generation VR experience,” said Spencer. “We at Xbox are passionate about giving gamers the opportunity to play when and where they want. I can’t wait to see the incredible games created for the Rift, and we are proud to be a part of that experience.”