• Twitch has announced a host of new features for its platform at the TwitchCon Paris event held this weekend.
• “Discovery Feed” will be a TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts-style short-form video clip offering, allowing users to discover smaller streamers more easily.
• “Stories,” originally seen in Snapchat, will be coming to the Twitch mobile app.

The world’s premier streaming platform, Twitch, is looking to launch a highly requested new feature in the hopes of boosting smaller streamers on the platform.

Titans of the mic and gamer chair rule on Twitch, with the likes of Ninja, Rubius, xQc, and Pokimane drawing tens of millions of views and subscriptions to the platform, but it is estimated that over 7 million people use it to stream.

In order to help its hundreds of millions of viewers find new streamers, Twitch is rolling out the Discovery Feed. This new feature is inspired by TikTok‘s short form content, or similar like Meta’s Reels and YouTube shorts and was unveiled at the TwitchCon Paris event on 8th and 9th July.

According to TechCrunch, Twitch noticed that most of its streamers use short form videos on other platforms like YouTube and TikTok to promote their channels, so it makes sense to try and keep these users with similar options.

Discovery Feed will be a scrollable vertical feed in the mobile app, using an algorithm to serve users clips from creators’ streams even when they aren’t live. Despite the launch of this new feature, Twitch says its streams are where its bread is buttered.

“Because Twitch is all about live, interactive channels, it’s not our goal for viewers to spend hours in a Clips feed,” the company said in an official blog post.

“Our investment in Clips is to help viewers discover your channel so they join you and your community when you stream.”

It continued that the new feature will launch in Autumn in the northern hemisphere, which means South African streamers and watchers can expect to see it in their apps in the Spring. Before the full launch, Twitch says it will be running experiments with limited versions of the Discovery Feed to help test it out and improve the algorithm they will be using.

Twitch is known for rolling out new features and options for its users at regular intervals in order to keep engagements and a happy community, amid a sea of competitors like YouTube Streaming and relative newcomer Kick.

Apart from the Discovery Feed, Twitch will be bringing improvements to its clip editor, and allow users to export clips to their YouTube channels, with exports to TikTok expected in late August. It will also be launching the clip editor on its mobile app.

Additionally, streamers will be able to make use of a “Stories” format in October this year. This will be similar to Snapchat’s novel innovation, soon copied by other social media like Instagram and WhatsApp.

“Viewers will be able to see your stories, along with stories from all streamers they follow, on the Following page in the Twitch mobile app. And of course, to keep the community safe, stories are protected by our Community Guidelines, as well as automated text and image scanning technology,” the firm explained.

Finally, Twitch said that it will continue to invest in its Guest Star mode with “Streaming Together.” This will allow streamers to use Guest Star while they are still live on their own channels, “meaning everyone has more opportunity to grow. Streamers at any level — Partners, Affiliates, anyone — can stream together with Guest Star.”

It seems the streaming platform will be taking more cues from the world’s most popular social media platforms going forward.

[Image – Photo by Caspar Camille Rubin on Unsplash]