This weekend, Twitch held its famous European TwitchCon. After leaving Paris last year, the event moved to Rotterdam. Over the course of two days, visitors were able to meet the continent's most popular Twitchers, take part in workshops, and even participate in a ton of conferences and shows of all kinds. However, it was during the opening ceremony that Dan Clancy, the firm's CEO, made some juicy announcements.
Among them, the complete overhaul of the Twitch mobile app. Until now, the mobile version of the platform offered the same design and the same possibilities (but not as good) as the desktop version or the PC application. Navigation is optimal if you know who to watch, but it is much less so if you want to discover new talent. This is why the Twitch app will soon have a brand new format, similar to TikTok.
The company explains that this idea came from a simple and unequivocal observation: 70% of new users use their smartphone or tablet to consume livestreams on Twitch. This is why it is appropriate to adapt to this audience by offering a simple and effective way to launch any stream. Although it will not be deployed for several months, visitors to TwitchCon were able to get a glimpse of its first features.
Twitch's TikTok
Once the application is opened, users are greeted by livestreams. Now, all it takes is a simple scrolling gesture to move on to the next one, and this while supplies last (spoiler: it's impossible). Recommended broadcasts are a priori based on your preferences, your games or channels followed, or even the themes of your own lives. This redesign is therefore the perfect way to find new personalities with a simple gesture, without having to search via categories or by nickname. To actively participate in a live, you will only have to click on it.
The channels you follow are also very easily accessible, but users will have access to a whole new world, at their fingertips. This will increase the visibility of all streamers, and could bring its share of cyberbullying in the process. Asked about this subject, Rachel Delphin, chief marketing officer, assures us that the usual tools will still be in place and that this should prevent the spread of toxic behavior.
However, it should be remembered that not all modest content creators are equipped with moderators, and could encounter problems with all this new flow of people, as is also the case on TikTok. No one is anonymized and you still need to have an account to post any comment. It remains to be seen how this will behave once the application is definitively in hand.
A redesigned experience for mobile
Secondly, Twitch will also update its stories shortly. They represent a major new mobile feature. They allow streamers to share 60-second videos directly with their community, even when they are not live. Partners have already been able to use this feature since June 24, and affiliates will have access to it during the summer. Stories will also be available on the web version of Twitch, but we do not have an availability date at the moment.
Finally, Twitch wants to simplify the creation of clips, and this by optimizing the process for finding streamers. The goal is to be able to automatically generate portrait and landscape versions of clips. This improvement allows broadcasters to modify, title, record and publish clips in a single step. Portrait clips are designed specifically for viewing on mobile devices, such as the Discovery feed, and will soon be visible on the channel's mobile page.
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