Twitchcon Vegas, Channel Skins, YouTube CEO Steps Down, and Instagram Paid Verification

Zach Bussey -

A bit of a busy week in the streaming space - but I think I've got most of it covered! Twitch finally announced the dates of Twitchcon Paris and Twitchcon Las Vegas; they launched a few experiments, and the media roasted Amazon's Twitch channel. Meanwhile, Discord further stepped into the streaming space, Softgiving stepped in the mud again, and Instagram stepped into Elon Musk's shoes. So, let's get right into this week's recap!

Twitch News

  • As newsletter subscribers learned weeks ago, Twitchcon 2023 will be in Paris on July 8th and 9th and Twitchcon Vegas from October 20th to 22nd.
  • You can now tag other creators in your stream title.
  • Twitch tested Channel Skins on Sodapoppin's channel. As an initial effort, I am not impressed. It makes the viewing experience dramatically worse - feels like a half-baked idea.
  • Bloomberg covered how "Amazon's Twitch Channel is Exaggerating its Popularity." It talks about the impact of the front page and details how the view count has 'junk views' in it.
  • Twitch took a group of partners to attend the Nintendo Media Day launch of Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios.
  • Speaking of Twitchcon, Twitch is actively seeking to fill several Twitchcon-related roles. Multiple Twitchcon staff departed in January, including the Head of Events and Head of Event Content.