It’s probably safe to say no one could have predicted that LinkedIn would add Stories before Twitch, but here we are. Nearly eight years after Instagram lifted the feature from Snapchat, Twitch announced Saturday that its own users will be able to begin recording Stories starting later this year. At its TwitchCon Paris event, Twitch said it plans to roll out the ephemeral media format in October. Once they arrive, Stories will live on the Following page of the Twitch mobile app, where they’ll be subject to Twitch’s Community Guidelines and automated safety systems. Additionally, creators will have the option to limit the visibility of their Stories to only those who follow them.
Stories is one of a handful of features Twitch announced on Saturday. In the fall, the company said it plans to introduce a new Discovery Feed it promises will make it easier for creators to grow their audiences, even when they’re not streaming. Like Stories, the Discovery Feed will live on the company’s mobile app and include live and recorded content.
“Because Twitch is all about live, interactive channels, it’s not our goal for viewers to spend hours in a Clips feed,” Twitch said. “Our investment in Clips is to help viewers discover your channel so they join you and your community when you stream.” Twitch plans to conduct limited testing of the Discovery Feed before rolling out the feature to the broader Twitch user base in late 2023. Other features the company said it was working on include improvements to the platform’s built-in clip editor. Come late next month, the tool will allow creators to export vertical videos directly to TikTok.
On Saturday, Twitch said it would also give creators more control over when ad breaks play during their streams. A new chat countdown timer will display exactly when an ad is about to play. Streamers can delay an advertisement if it’s about to disrupt an exciting bit of gameplay or a conversation with their community. The feature comes after Twitch last month backpedaled on a proposed ad policy that would have restricted the kinds of branded content creators had the ability to include in their streams.
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