TwitchCon Paris debuted several new features coming to the live streaming platform. Most are geared towards Twitch creators, but the TikTokification of social media continues.
Twitch creators can expect new improvements to the Twitch Clip Editor, including direct exports to TikTok. Support for exports to YouTube was made available in May 2023. Also announced is a new trimming functionality and the ability to edit videos on mobile devices. Additionally, in August creators will be able to mark clips as featured in the Creator Dashboard. Now creators have more control over the clips of their stream that show up for first-time viewers to enjoy. Twitch says it will prioritize featured clips over non-featured clips in its new discovery feed, too.
Twitch is also embracing the ‘Discovery Feed’ from TikTok to make it easier to find new streamers.
“The Discovery Feed will be a scrollable feed in the Twitch app that shows users a personalized mix of clips. Once this feed is rolled out, Twitch viewers will be able to discover clips from tons of streamers’ channels, whether they’re live or not. Because Twitch is all about live, interactive channels, it’s not our goal for viewers to spend hours in a Clips feed,” Twitch says, addressing this new feature. Twitch says the Discovery Feed will see a broader rollout this fall, while it runs limited experiments with the feature with some users until then.
Twitch is also rolling out the stories format, which is gently borrowed from Snapchat. Now Twitch streamers can give their most engaged viewers exclusive content, and updates on demand. Creators can choose to send stories to all Twitch followers, or to share with paid subscribers only. Twitch Stories won’t be available until October, though expect limited tests as Twitch tests the feature.
Twitch Guest Star is also getting the ability to stream together, so guests can be live from their own channels. When streaming together, a collaborator’s video feed appears on your own channel natively—using alerts and stream interactions. Finally, Twitch is bringing more control over when ad breaks appear while live, which has been a creator complaint on the platform for years.
Twitch is introducing a chat countdown timer that will show streamers when an ad roll is coming up. It also gives them the option to snooze it or allow it to roll at a time better suited to the content.