I've been waiting for Twitch to announce their plans for 2024 since January - and this week, they finally did it. In a blog post (summarized below), Clancy laid out where the investment was going this year, and the answer is... Mobile! More than half of the plans focus on mobile features, including a complete rebuild of the mobile experience. They even go so far as to emphasize the mobile experience hasn't been updated since 2019. For creators, the takeaway is to expect few changes or new product launches. New features cost money, and money is not in Twitch's budget right now. Instead, creators should focus on featuring your clips and syndicate that content to TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram when it becomes available. But with that, let's get into the news.
Twitch News
- Dan Clancy announced his 2024 plan for Twitch. There are a couple of new inclusions, but most were previously announced at Twitchcon Vegas. Here are the key points:
- The Mobile App will undergo a complete redesign, and the Discover Feed (currently a TikTok-style experiment) will become the default experience when you load the app.
- Increase Sub Prices.
- The Clip Editor will be available on Mobile.
- Introduce the ability to export your clips to Instagram.
- Bringing Mod View to iOS.
- Rebuilding Bits, Subs, and Gift Subs on mobile.
- Guest Star will continue to get updates, including merge chat and combined viewership.
- Stories will get additional features, including short videos and pinch-to-zoom.
- Expand their new Sponsorships feature (currently in limited beta.)
- New Rewards/Milestones to encourage financial support.
- Twitch has closed its previous Ambassador application and opened a new one. I'm told while the previous one was periodically closed, this one will remain open in perpetuity. Anyone who filled out the previous form (before March 2024) should resubmit.
- The ANZ/APAC Content Director addressed community concerns about the collapse of Twitch's ANZ region events, community, and support. Effectively, in light of the most recent round of layoffs, they have to decide what is viable now but are working on things such as Grassroots.
- Three new API endpoints have launched in beta for "Get Unban Requests" and "Resolve Unban Requests." A third "Get User Emotes" has also launched in beta.
- Mike Shields wrote an op-ed wondering what happened to Twitch and the promise it held. It's a reasonable piece that questions the platform's future and whether its economics will ever make sense.
- Twitch Support shared an update on an error on Leap Day (February 29th) that showed no revenue data. They say it has now been fixed.
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