📢 || Hype Train Sidebar, Short Thumbnails, ZEVENT 10M €, and the Creator Awards

Hello, and happy Monday! It's a busy week, so let's skip the intro and jump right into essential things! (Also, welcome in if this is your first time receiving the newsletter!)

Twitchcon San Diego 2024: I continue to update and add to my Events/Party List! Also, on Twitter, I tagged all the brands with a show floor presence on my unofficial floor map! It may be helpful if you're planning to network with brands!

Lastly, I'm planning my next piece of Premium content. I have a few ideas that would be useful for creators, but I wanted to get your insight into what you think would be most helpful! If you have a moment, can you answer this one-question survey?

(If that is broken, click here!) And now, let's get into the recap!

Twitch News

• Twitch is testing a Hype Train indicator in the sidebar that shows the current level and whether it is a regular or Golden Kappa train.
• Plus Points goals are now updated in near real-time.
• Shared Chat appears poised for a Twitchcon launch as additional testing continues.
• Twitch's Enhanced Broadcasting beta testers are gaining access to a new test using HEVC, but it has a 4750 bitrate limit.
• Twitch updated the Ads Scheduler to streamline setup and options for creators. Before/After.
• The team behind Twitch's marketing redesign in 2022 shared some of the process and assets they created as a case study.
• Twitch hired one of the core contributors to OBS to work on Enhanced Broadcasting.
• Digiday research found that brand usage on Twitch increased to 12%. Most of those brands are also already advertising on Twitch. This likely means Twitch still struggles to educate brands on the platform's value.
• Australia's eSafety is requesting social media platforms to reveal how many Australian kids are signing up for their services. Twitch is among the platforms that will have 30 days to respond.
• Meanwhile, Ofcom says Twitch's implementation of content classification labels has been more effective in correctly labeling mature content.

Twitch's Guest Star aka Stream Together, has been an expensive Bridge to Nowhere. I made a video explaining its history, how it got here, and why it has failed. (Hint: Streamers collaborate ALL the time with various users: Their chat! Adding other voices detracts from the active chat collaboration that makes Twitch so unique.)

Streaming Industry News

• Discord is reducing the Upload Limit to 10MB for free users. It had previously been 25MB.
• You can now customize and edit thumbnails for Shorts on YouTube.
• Whatnot has introduced its affiliate program.
• Nintendo updated its content creator guidelines for things that are 'graphic, explicit, harmful or offensive.'
• Roblox is adding built-in Voice and Party functionality.
• If you have over 100 subscribers on YouTube, you're almost in the top 50% of all channels. This is an interesting chart that puts growth into context!
• JasmineRiceGirl, Forbes 30 Under 30 and the founder of Fanhouse, wrote a thread about how great Fourthwall is for creators. I'm in full agreement with her! Get started with Fourthwall and get an immediate $15 sample credit!*
• Røde is hosting a Creator of the Year Awards program, with over $250,000 in cash and other prizes. The awards are open to creators globally; the only condition is you use Røde products.
• The ANN covered the dark side of livestreaming in South Korea.
• Campaign Asia: As China's top livestreamers move beyond streaming, is it the end of an era?
• OnlyFans reportedly brought in over $6B in 2023.

*This is an ad!