Twitch's Ghost Trains, YouTube Premium Lite, Kai Cenat on Jimmy Fallon + Twitch Exec Departs

Zach Bussey -

Hey! Welcome to the recap, which is slightly later than usual because of Daylight Savings. I'll keep the intro short and promote that if you want to support this work directly, a $5/month premium subscription does help me a lot! But with that, let's jump into the recap!

Platform Updates

🟪 TWITCH
  • Twitch was mentioned as part of a week-long economic blackout against Amazon companies.
  • Jeremy Forrester, the VP of Product & Engineering, has left Twitch after 8.5 years. Guest Star fatigue?! Jokes aside, one less tenured person who can speak for the community isn't great.
  • An experiment is ongoing that runs Hype Trains at random. They still require subs/bit to progress. Ghost trains, I guess?
  • New Global Emote: WeDidThat
  • Here's how Twitch is celebrating International Women's Day.
  • Twitch's former CEO Emmett Shear shared some insight into how he used to answer a common question from interns at the company.
  • Moscow courts again fined Twitch for violations of personal data.
  • After 8 years, there's now a way to watch Twitch streams on Roku (via third-party apps that lack a lot of core functionality).
  • Partners can again apply for Ambassador.
  • I sought to answer the question, "Is being a Twitch Ambassador good for your career as a streamer?" After looking at all 180 Ambassadors, the data suggests that ~60% have higher viewership in the 1.5 years since becoming an ambassador compared to the 1.5 years before.
🟥 YOUTUBE
  • YouTube Premium Lite is launching in the USA. It offers ad-free access to most videos for a lower price than the current Premium.
  • Live has a new feature (in very limited testing) that essentially creates a YouTube-controlled 'BRB' screen.
  • YouTube has updated its policies regarding gambling content to limit the visibility of content not certified by Google, and is introducing new age restrictions.
⬛ TIKTOK
🟦 TWITTER X
  • Twitter is again raising the price of X Premium Plus—from $40 to $70.
⏹️ DISCORD
🔲 OTHERS