Fixing Twitch
Twitch is a streaming website which I’m many of you are aware of. It has millions of users and an equally massive amount of streamers. The huge surge in streamers has made visibility a challenge on the platform. Which is why I am writing this post or you’re listening to the afternoon video. I am here to suggest some solutions to the twitch devs and will be sharing this video with them by email so they can get an understanding for what my perspective looks like so that they be enlightened and informed.
Add the featured channels carousel for each section of twitch:
This would work similar to the main page. You would have people who would get featured in a carousel at the top of the World of Warcraft section, IRL section, e.c.t.. this would help in breaking the monopoly of real-estate on the page which is dominated by those who have the most viewers and would promote channels which Twitch Staff deem noteworthy and sponsorable.
Make a Slider Filter for each Game Section:
Newbie-Casual-Committed-Hardcore
Streamers are divided into different pages for the game by how often they stream and how much they stream per week/month. This makes it so that viewers are able to see the difference between those that are online often and well-seasoned versus those that barely play. This would create a series of sub-section pages for each game with the person for each section with the most viewers on top and then the rest descending.
Distinguish Streamers Who Put in the Effort:
You know what would work great in the WoW section? If there was a toggle or stream tag put on streams which are live for so many hours a week/month. Perhaps a filter called Most Active Channels. This would help in distinguishing those who go live for a few min or a few hours a month, have no channel bio, put in no creative effort into their channel and just press Start Streaming in OBS.
Such channels I like to call litter channels. The reason why is they are not attractive, they retain no audience, they fail to interact with their viewers, and fail all other basics of a streamer.
Set the Bar:
Twitch needs to do more to set the bar for streamers and require them to clear it. Why is this? Because if they don’t then everyone is mixed in a pool with everyone else where everyone is equally as invisible and unremarkable as everyone else.
If I worked for twitch I would make it where if you do not stream for x amount of hours, update your logos or content for x amount of months, and become a stagnant channel you are put on a 2 week suspension period. If you return and meet the mark then you are allowed to continue streaming. The amount of suspensions are infinite so you can fail and retry and fail again and again.
In order to stop people from cheating they would be required to use an application which would verify their raw computer identifiers to insure they aren’t trying to create a new account and get around the suspension. If you get around it in some way, you can be reported and banned for cheating the system.
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