Twitch announced a host of new features at TwitchCon Paris, including the exciting new Discovery Feed, among others.
TwitchCon Paris just concluded and it looks like Twitch will receive a host of new features. These features are arriving just in time, after the recent scrutiny Twitch has been facing from its creators. Twitch was caught in the radar recently, after rolling out a controversial update to its branded content policy.
The platform has faced emergent competition from Kick, a rival streaming platform. Popular streamers have been accepting contracts from Kick and migrating to the rival service. During the keynote at TwitchCon Paris, the platform revealed numerous new features and updates to its existing ones.
New Twitch features: Discovery Feed
The Discovery Feed is the biggest and possibly most important feature announced at TwitchCon Paris. It's a mobile-optimized clip delivery system, similar to Tik-Tok or Instagram's Reels that will push clips from creators into the Discovery Feed. Twitch will "select" clips by creators that are likely to attract viewers and queue them in the discovery feed.
The idea is to improve the channel's visibility and attract more viewers to live channels. Some users expressed skepticism about the system, raising questions about the parameters based on which Twitch will select the clips for the Discovery Feed. However, many consider this a step in the right direction.
Featured Clips by creators for improved viewership
In addition to Twitch's own selection process for pushing clips into the discovery feed, Twitch also revealed a system where creators can mark their own "Featured Clips". This will allow creators to manage their content better and gain some control over the algorithm.
The Twitch algorithm will prioritize a creator's featured clips over their non-featured ones for the platform's discovery surfaces, including the new Discovery Feed.
Stories from Instagram and Snapchat is making its way to Twitch
Okay, so this feature is almost on every major social media and content creator platform. We already have the Stories feature on Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Pinterest have it. It looks like Twitch is the latest content creation platform to follow suit with this feature. The Stories feature on Twitch will include features like polls, text updates, clips and images.
Twitch will give creators the option to choose who gets to view the story, between subscribers and followers. This will allow creators to make exclusive announcements for subscribers and incentivize followers to subscribe to channels to engage more closely with creators. The Stories feature will arrive in October.
Improved Clip Editor
The Twitch Clip Editor has chugged along for a while now but we're finally getting a new one. The new clip editor is designed to make it easier for creators to share their content across different platforms. Creators can now directly export their vertical clips to Tik Tok.
The clip editor is also being added to the Twitch Mobile app. The new Twitch clip editor will include the ability to trim clips and grant access to your account's video editors.
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Stream Together Live - Stream with guest stars
Collaborative streaming has been among the growing trends on Twitch, with several creators hosting streams with other popular streamers using the Guest Star feature. Twitch has announced that it will be updating Guest Star with more features for creators. Particularly, the Streaming Together feature. The feature will allow collaborating streamers to costar on each other's channel while simultaneously live-streaming it to their own channel's audience.
Essentially, if you've got a guest star on your stream, not only will it be live for your own audience but also be streaming on your guest's channel. This feature will also mean your channel may not be subjected to any strikes caused by your guest. Stream Together will be made available to a few selected channels in August and will later roll out for other streamers eventually.
More control over ad breaks
Ad breaks have turned into something of a nuisance on Twitch lately, for streamers and viewers alike. Thankfully, it looks like this will change. Because they're giving streamers and content creators more control over stuff like ad breaks. Many viewers complained about poorly timed ad breaks or ad breaks that are too long.
While streamers were already informed when an ad break was about to run through their dashboard, it wasn't exactly the easiest information to access or plan for. The new chat countdown timer will inform streamers exactly when an ad break is about to interrupt their stream and give them the option to either snooze it or pull ahead of it.
Shared mod comments for transparency and streamer security
Everyone knows channel moderators have some of the most difficult jobs in the streaming industry. Especially when it comes to more popular channels that receive lots of comments from viewers at a very fast rate. To protect streamers from harassment, Twitch has announced the Shared Mod Comments feature.
Along with the feature that allowed streamers to share their ban list on their channel informing other streamers of potential harassers, Shared Mod Comments will allow streamers to inform other streamers exactly why specific accounts are banned from their channel. This is part of Twitch's initiative to encourage a collaborative approach to deal with serial harassers and accounts that repeatedly indulge in disruptive behavior.
New Alerts and Stream Events
In addition, Twitch is also adding more options for customizing alerts that incentivize your community with rewards. Streamers can use the new alert randomizer to create multiple alerts for a specific action, and randomize which one plays when the action is performed. Streamers can also integrate alerts into shield mode, allowing them to pause alerts if something is amiss.
Twitch is also adding more Stream Events in addition to the existing Streamer-versaries. Streamers can now host events on their IRL birthdays and other major milestones. These include milestones like the first time you streamed, and hitting subscriber count milestones.
After the platform faced the prospect of a boycott from major streamers over its controversial branded content guidelines, these new features are a step in the right direction. The keynote at TwitchCon Paris has certainly left streamers and viewers excited about the new features. Some of these features are coming in at a great time.
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