I have been a content creator in some manor for a number of years, and about halfway through the year I picked up creating Youtube videos, and Livestreaming as a new method of creating content.

Don't get me wrong I love making YouTube content every week, its fun and exciting, plus I get to create content for people to enjoy. The problem with YouTube is it's staged, I write my content and talking points, I record, re-record and edit it before any eyes see it. Why this is great for creating tutorials, so you can see the correct steps to create something, it in my mind feel unauthentic.

Twitch on the other hand, is Live I don't get to edit them and have minimal preparation (I pick and research a topic but no code happens till I am live). This makes for real world scenarios, you see me um and urr, read docs over and over and get happy when something finally works!

Just today I interacted with my brand new Philips Hue lights using the API this included making them flash different colors based upon certainly scenarios, (Twitch donations, subscribers). The first hour was a struggle of me fighting lights, trying to figure out what can and cannot be done etc, reading and re reading the same docs and examples.

For example here is myself celebrating in GIF form after finally getting lights to flash via the API, it took a while but it worked!

This is why I believe Twitch gives the authentic experience over YouTube, even senior developers get to struggle and spend time working through errors before success strikes! Let me know how you feel about this in the comment below, want to join in the fun, follow me on twitch.tv/jamesperkins