Twitch is headed into the annual TwitchCon event by releasing a new feature on its Android and iOS app for streamers with Stories. The feature goes live today, just a few days ahead of the official TwitchCon event taking place on October 20.
Stories is hardly a new concept and you’ll find them on just about every mobile app used for social communication these days. So why not Twitch? Twitch says the idea is to give streamers a way to interact and keep up with their viewers while they’re not live on the platform. Basically this feature is a way to keep viewers and subscribers engaged during off hours. Stories will also be a great for streamers to update their community on potential stream changes. Say your stream is going to end up starting late. Well a story can relay that message to your viewers that plans have changed.
With stories on Twitch you have a myriad of options for creating unique content. This includes adding text and changing things like the font, font color, and even the ability to resize and reposition the text box. You can also add animated stickers to make things a little more playful.
Twitch stories will stay in the app for 48 hours
The nice thing about Stories is that they won’t be available for long. As they’re intended to be short posts that can keep users engaged between streams. Twitch says Stories will be limited to partners and affiliates only for now and the rollout of the feature will gradually happen over the next week.
Partners and affiliates also need to have had one stream in the last 30 days. Once a story is created it will notify followers and those users have control over how notifications are delivered. Viewers can also react to stories posts with emotes. Streamers can create additional incentives for more subscribers too by creating subscriber-only stories. To get access to stories you will need the latest version of the Twitch mobile app.