Wednesday, Twitch published an open letter penned by top executives outlining their plans on how to improve their platform for the year 2023, including analytics and more.
In an open letter to the supporters of the Twitch platform, two of the company’s top executives have come forward to relay what’s on the agenda to improve the massive platform in 2023. Chief Product Officer Tom Verrilli and Chief Monetization Officer Mike Minton co-authored a breakdown of 2022 and the improvements the company has made. As Twitch looks to the future, the executives outline what needs to be improved for 2023, including hot-button issues such as analytics and pre-rolled ads for viewers to begin with.
After the massive recap of what was improved in 2022, the executive duo of Verrilli and Minton dug into what needs to be changed by prefacing planned changes with “Our main focus for the year is your growth—both for your communities and for your earnings on Twitch. In the first half of 2023, we’re launching products and tools that make it easier for you to earn without impacting growth while also improving many of our existing products by expanding their capabilities so they can work harder for you,” with the list of changes following right afterward.
Twitch Planned Improvements for 2023
- Giving creators more potential earning options, such as ‘Sound Bites,’ a new first-party alert that allows fans to interact with streamers by way of sound alert. There will also be more local initiatives similar to the global success that is SUBtember, and Twitch is searching for ways to build on that, as well as working on a meaningful sponsorship solution to make a more lucrative deal between the brand and the sponsee.
- New tools will be added to reduce effort of promoting streams on Twitch. Tools such as Pinned Clips – allowing creators to pin up to 20 clips to the streamer’s channel page, Stream Title Emotes, and including the ‘Upcoming Streams’ section to mobile devices to inform fans when their subscribed creators are planning a stream on the go.
- Updating the Ads Incentive Program to allow creators a larger degree of freedom over ads that play during streams. Users will be able to adjust the ad count on the stream, the Ads Manager will do a better job of informing the creator of when an ad will run, and Twitch also mentions they’re working on “Twitch Turbo” which is a completely ad-free user experience that will likely cost a premium for consumers. Twitch also promises, “Running three minutes of ads per hour in any way will disable all pre-rolls.”
- Improvements will be made to “Guest Star” allowing for an easier collaboration experience.
- Creation of first-party tools to help streamers celebrate their viewers.
- Improvements to analytics and letting streamers have access to more regarding viewership so opportunity to grow isn’t missed. Twitch is “rolling out Creator Home to all Affiliates and Partners, giving you a personalized, dynamic ‘homebase’ that surfaces the most relevant tips and actionable recommendations” to help creators grow their channel.
While all of these improvements are still in the works as of this post, Verrilli and Minton said, “We love seeing what you can do when you’re enabled and empowered. We’re launching these features and tools because we want you to be able to build the communities you want to build more easily and more reliably.” Fans can read the whole open letter on the Twitch site, and Verilli and Minton mentioned a live stream to discuss the upcoming changes, which streams Saturday, January 28, at 3:00 P.M. EST.
