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by christopherslee 4312 days ago
I thought it has previously been confirmed a few months ago that Google was acquiring Twitch. Did that fall through or was the confirmation later retracted?
6 comments

Although people used "confirmed" in their headlines (e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8082068), it was never confirmed on-the-record by anyone official.

(That's also the case today, BTW.)

They've since updated the article to reflect the Amazon purchase but no mention of an apology for getting the story dead wrong. The only thing confirmed is their lack of respect for their readers.
Amazon's purchase of Twitch is now actually confirmed. (edit: I don't want to sound like I'm contradicting the parent post)
Months of rumors, which no doubt corresponded to ongoing negotiations, and then about a month ago a single VentureBeat reporter claimed a final deal was "confirmed" by anonymous sources. A lot of people were skeptical of a single unsourced claim, and seemingly rightly so.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/24/googles-1b-purchase-of-twi...

The reporter doesn't sound very contrite: http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/25/amazon-could-steal-twitch-...

What do they even think confirmed means? "Confirmed: Amazon could", "Amazon may", yep.. sounds really confirmed at that point.
"Before, we had only off-the-record reports from possibly-official sources that something might be happening. Now, we have off-the-record reports from definitively official sources that something might be happening. But we can't, y'know, prove that."
Thanks for the clarification!
There was no actual press release from either. All the 'confirmations' were just. Just the other week someone from Twitch was on HN and said he was unable to comment on any possible future acquisitions.
According to this, Google lagged due to anti trust concerns

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2014/08/25/amazon-pounce...

It's very possible that the leak itself caused the deal Google-Twitch deal to go sour.
It was rumored at the time