7 ms·

Introducing Twitch Creative

104 points by dsil 11y ago

chipperyman573 11y ago
>First, starting today, you’ll see an entirely new landing page for the Creative category. This includes a dedicated Featured Video carousel http://shouldiuseacarousel.com http://shouldiuseacarousel.com >Third, we’ve updated our Rules Of Conduct to reflect our official embrace of the Creative community. In short, we encourage you to broadcast your creative process on Twitch, be that visual art, woodworking, costume creation, prop building, music composition, or any other process in which you entertain and connect around a creative activity. We understand that this is vague. We expect to learn much about what is, and is not, appropriate for Twitch as the community grows. Oh boy I can't see that going wrong
- terda12 11y ago
  I found the featured video carousel to be quite effective, they show one big livestream video with the carousel dots being a preview of the other choices. It's different from the shouldiuseacarousel.com example.
- Kiro 11y ago
  > http://shouldiuseacarousel.com http://shouldiuseacarousel.com There are certainly good use cases for carousels. This is one of them.
- BillinghamJ 11y ago
  The most annoying thing about shouldiuseacarousel.com is the fact that it slides too often - before I've had a chance to finish reading!
  - dublinben 11y ago
    That is deliberate. They're highlighting one of the flaws of this design.
- lojack 11y ago
  If your primary content is video's, then a carousel with thumbnails and no autorotation may be a very good UX element. You can't play multiple videos at the same time so showing extra full sized videos via scrolling is out of the question. Go to any video sites (i.e. YouTube, Vimeo) and you'll see that they all have what's effectively a carousel.
- serge2k 11y ago
  > http://shouldiuseacarousel.com http://shouldiuseacarousel.com Yeah, but Amazon LOVES Carousels.
terda12 11y ago
Twitch already has support for artists livestreaming, it's great to see official support for it. Will give it a try next time I do some digital painting.
bigethan 11y ago
Hi, we've cultivated a massive audience of angry young men, you sensitive arty types wanna come over? Bob Ross is still your king, right? /s Snark aside, I do love the opportunity for artists to have a way to earn money along their entire workflow. I'd imagine that Twitch would be more lucrative than youtube live stuff, maybe? And Patreon is missing the boat by not diversifying the kind of things that be delivered to supporters. But I'd almost want to have tried it under a totally new brand. Some gamers can be caustic, and even the FAQ is defensive: "Creative on Twitch does not come at the expense of all the awesome gaming channels" Overall I like it and think that it's a great use of their tech, I really hope the community side works out.
- protomyth 11y ago
  > Some gamers can be caustic Some humans can be caustic. > But I'd almost want to have tried it under a totally new brand. Then nobody would notice and they would be promoting the idea that gamers are caustic.
  - bigethan 11y ago
    I don't understand why you replied to me.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - prawn 11y ago
    They could easily do it under a secondary/separate brand without offering any suggestion that gamers are caustic. Yes, some humans are caustic, but the arts and crafts communities are not notoriously so.
minimaxir 11y ago
From the updated Rules of Conduct: D.I.Y. & Other Permitted Content In addition to content that adheres to our Creative Rules of Conduct, we have determined the following type of do-it-yourself activities are also appropriate to broadcast in Creative: Cooking your own recipes Building custom PCs Assembling your Twitch broadcast setup Furniture hacks/customization Model making Huh, that's certainly a variety of things they now allow. It makes the exceptions impossible to penalize since there's a giant gray area for what's considered "creative."
- cryoshon 11y ago
  I wonder if it'd be okay to stream writing a novel or something? Not sure who would want to watch such a thing, but it might draw a niche audience if the author was zany enough.
  - detaro 11y ago
    I'd expect it would be. Not that much different from watching someone coding a game or spending a few hours in Excel working out game strategies.
  - iwillreply 11y ago
    I remember some interest in watching Silvia Hartmann write a novel in a Google Doc a few years back: http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2012/sep/12/novel-written-live http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2012/sep/12/novel...
  - placeybordeaux 11y ago
    Just searched #writing and found someone writing poetry in MS word and taking a lot of suggestions from their one viewer.
- mesozoic 11y ago
  There is a popular streamer LethalFrag who used to do cooking and his followers loved it. I believe he had to stop so that's a case for cooking. I think twitch is just happy to explore other areas slowly and are hesitant about copyright issues.
empath75 11y ago
I like the twitch platform, technologically, but this really needs to be a separate site entirely. If it's connected to twitch, it'll have all the stupid twitch spam and emotes and nerds saying OMG GRILL constantly.
- Kiro 11y ago
  Hasn't happened to MissCookiez yet (best Creative streamer on Twitch). I also saw a cooking channel where someone was baking Hearthstone scones which seemed alright. Not the biggest but a few thousand viewers at least.
  - blumkvist 11y ago
    This girl handles situations extraordinarily well. Many people tried to troll, but her attitude simply does not allow it.
- vdnkh 11y ago
  >I like the twitch platform, technologically You shouldn't. Twitch is still holding onto Flash. They could have really leveraged their position as the most used streaming site to push for adoption of HTML5 streaming. They have a HLS mode, but it's only supported on Safari/Mobile/Edge.
  - lunactic 11y ago
    afaik this is no longer true. At least for me (using Chrome) I no longer get the Flash viewer but the new HTML5 one.
    - ThatPlayer 11y ago
      The player controls run in HTML5, but for me (using Chromium with no flash), videos still do not play.
  - jneal 11y ago
    Actually, the player controls on the video recently[1] switched to 100% HTML5. And the video portion is switching over next year[2]. [1] http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/07/video-player-controls-now-in-html/ http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/07/video-player-controls-now-in-h... [2] http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/25/twitch-html5-whisper-twitchcon/ http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/25/twitch-html5-whisper-twit...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
neals 11y ago
"It’s been an amazing privilege to watch live video grow up".. really?
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Eh, I can see where they're going with it. Some things have just been traditionally difficult in the tech sector over the past 20 years. Sending images. Streaming audio. Streaming video. Now, with so many seemingly solved riddles, finding the next hard ones are getting more and more niche oriented. One of them a la JamKazam is getting latency down enough to effectively jam music over the internet. That's a tough one.
- JeremyBanks 11y ago
  Why not?
  - ajkjk 11y ago
    It's corporatespeak. Meaningless platitudes.
Arzh 11y ago
Wait... so they started JustinTV which was for anything. Games took off so they spun that off to TwitchTV. JustinTV gets shut down, and now they start 'allowing' other types of things on TwitchTV. I have no idea what the marketing and 'brands' people over there are thinking really...
- minimaxir 11y ago
  The difference between then and now is that YouTube Streaming and Periscope are now potential threats.
- detaro 11y ago
  They are using the better-working brand for re-entering these markets after the first attempt failed years ago... seems logical to me? The name JustinTV IMHO has a lot of negative baggage attached because it wasn't very successful for so long.
  - berberous 11y ago
    It was also an objectively terrible name. I thought it was just iJustine's personal webcasting site.
    - 2bitencryption 11y ago
      It wasn't terrible for its original purpose, which was to livestream a man named Justin's life continuously, a la the Truman Show.
  - loceng 11y ago
    It dilutes Twitch as a place for gaming, though. EDIT: Downvoted, maybe I wasn't clear enough. Context is very important within a brand. If you start offering all types of videos on Twitch, the landing page isn't just going to show gaming videos any longer.
    - Roodgorf 11y ago
6stringmerc 11y ago
Isn't this what Deadmau5 was doing before he took his operation solo for more money direct to himself[1]? I've been using Periscope as my method of broadcast, and its tie in with Twitter has been helpful. Then I can download from my device, tweak, and upload to YouTube. This goes for live jam sessions with friends, talking through making recordings in Ableton Live and other software, and doing DJ sets / guitar jam sessions for fun. I mean, if it's got a better value proposition, great, might be worth a look...but there's a lot of fatigue in constantly chasing different outlets. Any thoughts would be welcome to consider, thanks in advance. [1] Edit: Solo as in using his subscription / pay me model in ways that 'normal' Twitch Creative accounts probably don't have access or demand for right now (see replies below)
- chambo622 11y ago
  Deadmau5 just forged a pretty extensive partnership with Twitch. http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/30/deadmau5-is-on-twitch/ http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/30/deadmau5-is-on-twitch/
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    Right, but what I kind of meant was that he used his celebrity to get himself a better setup and unique situation. I'm pretty sure he runs some "exclusive" type deals to people who subscribe and pay him monthly. As in, he's using Twitch to make himself better off, rather than simply joining the platform because he's trying to make the place more interesting or unique. It's a difficult thing I'm trying to say, sorry if it comes off obtuse.
noahbradley 11y ago
This is great news for my fellow creatives. Excited to take a shot at this.
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  As noted in the Deadmau5 article linked, there may be some rights management issues to consider. For example, having music on in the background without a broadcast license may not be allowed. Not sure how this plays out.
annacollins 11y ago
Great news..
debacle 11y ago
How does this jive with Twitch's adult content/nudity policy, which is somewhat restrictive? Where is Twitch going to draw the line on art, and will "Twitch Creative" have different rules than gaming streams?
- knd775 11y ago
  They don't really mind nudity in games, so I don't expect them to mind nudity in drawings.
  - debacle 11y ago
    Maybe I'm not clear on the rules. I know that streaming shirtless (as a dude) is not allowed.
    - knd775 11y ago
      I mean, if you've got a nude model that you're drawing, that may be an issue. But almost certainly not with drawing itself.
- makomk 11y ago
  From the FAQ: Q. Are nude or gory depictions allowed on Creative? A. We are working on ways to ensure that artists can produce the work that they want, while also fostering a safe space for the community as a whole. We ask that you refrain from creating or using depictions of nudity or extreme violence until those features are implemented.
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    I wonder if Safe Space means they'll follow the MPAA guidelines.
tlb 11y ago
Also check out http://livecoding.tv http://livecoding.tv, for programming livestreams
pboutet 11y ago
This seems like a good business move, brings more niche communities, like gamers used to be, into their platform to foster more growth and users.
DaniFong 11y ago
This is terrific. I wished for something like this.
swagv 11y ago
I love Twitch. It would be my vector to destroy a generation.
evanmoran 11y ago
This makes me think that Amazon thought they were buying YouTube when they really were buying ESPN for gaming. Twitch is a fantastic business -- and I wish them all the best -- but this doesn't play to their strengths at all.

104 points by dsil 11y ago

>First, starting today, you’ll see an entirely new landing page for the Creative category. This includes a dedicated Featured Video carousel http://shouldiuseacarousel.com http://shouldiuseacarousel.com >Third, we’ve updated our Rules Of Conduct to reflect our official embrace of the Creative community. In short, we encourage you to broadcast your creative process on Twitch, be that visual art, woodworking, costume creation, prop building, music composition, or any other process in which you entertain and connect around a creative activity. We understand that this is vague. We expect to learn much about what is, and is not, appropriate for Twitch as the community grows. Oh boy I can't see that going wrong

terda12 11y ago
I found the featured video carousel to be quite effective, they show one big livestream video with the carousel dots being a preview of the other choices. It's different from the shouldiuseacarousel.com example.
Kiro 11y ago
> http://shouldiuseacarousel.com http://shouldiuseacarousel.com There are certainly good use cases for carousels. This is one of them.
BillinghamJ 11y ago
The most annoying thing about shouldiuseacarousel.com is the fact that it slides too often - before I've had a chance to finish reading!
- dublinben 11y ago
  That is deliberate. They're highlighting one of the flaws of this design.
lojack 11y ago
If your primary content is video's, then a carousel with thumbnails and no autorotation may be a very good UX element. You can't play multiple videos at the same time so showing extra full sized videos via scrolling is out of the question. Go to any video sites (i.e. YouTube, Vimeo) and you'll see that they all have what's effectively a carousel.
serge2k 11y ago
> http://shouldiuseacarousel.com http://shouldiuseacarousel.com Yeah, but Amazon LOVES Carousels.

terda12 11y ago

Twitch already has support for artists livestreaming, it's great to see official support for it. Will give it a try next time I do some digital painting.

bigethan 11y ago

Hi, we've cultivated a massive audience of angry young men, you sensitive arty types wanna come over? Bob Ross is still your king, right? /s Snark aside, I do love the opportunity for artists to have a way to earn money along their entire workflow. I'd imagine that Twitch would be more lucrative than youtube live stuff, maybe? And Patreon is missing the boat by not diversifying the kind of things that be delivered to supporters. But I'd almost want to have tried it under a totally new brand. Some gamers can be caustic, and even the FAQ is defensive: "Creative on Twitch does not come at the expense of all the awesome gaming channels" Overall I like it and think that it's a great use of their tech, I really hope the community side works out.

protomyth 11y ago
> Some gamers can be caustic Some humans can be caustic. > But I'd almost want to have tried it under a totally new brand. Then nobody would notice and they would be promoting the idea that gamers are caustic.
- bigethan 11y ago
  I don't understand why you replied to me.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- prawn 11y ago
  They could easily do it under a secondary/separate brand without offering any suggestion that gamers are caustic. Yes, some humans are caustic, but the arts and crafts communities are not notoriously so.

minimaxir 11y ago

From the updated Rules of Conduct: D.I.Y. & Other Permitted Content In addition to content that adheres to our Creative Rules of Conduct, we have determined the following type of do-it-yourself activities are also appropriate to broadcast in Creative: Cooking your own recipes Building custom PCs Assembling your Twitch broadcast setup Furniture hacks/customization Model making Huh, that's certainly a variety of things they now allow. It makes the exceptions impossible to penalize since there's a giant gray area for what's considered "creative."

cryoshon 11y ago
I wonder if it'd be okay to stream writing a novel or something? Not sure who would want to watch such a thing, but it might draw a niche audience if the author was zany enough.
- detaro 11y ago
  I'd expect it would be. Not that much different from watching someone coding a game or spending a few hours in Excel working out game strategies.
- iwillreply 11y ago
  I remember some interest in watching Silvia Hartmann write a novel in a Google Doc a few years back: http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2012/sep/12/novel-written-live http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2012/sep/12/novel...
- placeybordeaux 11y ago
  Just searched #writing and found someone writing poetry in MS word and taking a lot of suggestions from their one viewer.
mesozoic 11y ago
There is a popular streamer LethalFrag who used to do cooking and his followers loved it. I believe he had to stop so that's a case for cooking. I think twitch is just happy to explore other areas slowly and are hesitant about copyright issues.

empath75 11y ago

I like the twitch platform, technologically, but this really needs to be a separate site entirely. If it's connected to twitch, it'll have all the stupid twitch spam and emotes and nerds saying OMG GRILL constantly.

Kiro 11y ago
Hasn't happened to MissCookiez yet (best Creative streamer on Twitch). I also saw a cooking channel where someone was baking Hearthstone scones which seemed alright. Not the biggest but a few thousand viewers at least.
- blumkvist 11y ago
  This girl handles situations extraordinarily well. Many people tried to troll, but her attitude simply does not allow it.
vdnkh 11y ago
>I like the twitch platform, technologically You shouldn't. Twitch is still holding onto Flash. They could have really leveraged their position as the most used streaming site to push for adoption of HTML5 streaming. They have a HLS mode, but it's only supported on Safari/Mobile/Edge.
- lunactic 11y ago
  afaik this is no longer true. At least for me (using Chrome) I no longer get the Flash viewer but the new HTML5 one.
  - ThatPlayer 11y ago
    The player controls run in HTML5, but for me (using Chromium with no flash), videos still do not play.
- jneal 11y ago
  Actually, the player controls on the video recently[1] switched to 100% HTML5. And the video portion is switching over next year[2]. [1] http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/07/video-player-controls-now-in-html/ http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/07/video-player-controls-now-in-h... [2] http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/25/twitch-html5-whisper-twitchcon/ http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/25/twitch-html5-whisper-twit...

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

neals 11y ago

"It’s been an amazing privilege to watch live video grow up".. really?

6stringmerc 11y ago
Eh, I can see where they're going with it. Some things have just been traditionally difficult in the tech sector over the past 20 years. Sending images. Streaming audio. Streaming video. Now, with so many seemingly solved riddles, finding the next hard ones are getting more and more niche oriented. One of them a la JamKazam is getting latency down enough to effectively jam music over the internet. That's a tough one.
JeremyBanks 11y ago
Why not?
- ajkjk 11y ago
  It's corporatespeak. Meaningless platitudes.

Arzh 11y ago

Wait... so they started JustinTV which was for anything. Games took off so they spun that off to TwitchTV. JustinTV gets shut down, and now they start 'allowing' other types of things on TwitchTV. I have no idea what the marketing and 'brands' people over there are thinking really...

minimaxir 11y ago
The difference between then and now is that YouTube Streaming and Periscope are now potential threats.
detaro 11y ago
They are using the better-working brand for re-entering these markets after the first attempt failed years ago... seems logical to me? The name JustinTV IMHO has a lot of negative baggage attached because it wasn't very successful for so long.
- berberous 11y ago
  It was also an objectively terrible name. I thought it was just iJustine's personal webcasting site.
  - 2bitencryption 11y ago
    It wasn't terrible for its original purpose, which was to livestream a man named Justin's life continuously, a la the Truman Show.
- loceng 11y ago
  It dilutes Twitch as a place for gaming, though. EDIT: Downvoted, maybe I wasn't clear enough. Context is very important within a brand. If you start offering all types of videos on Twitch, the landing page isn't just going to show gaming videos any longer.
  - Roodgorf 11y ago

6stringmerc 11y ago

Isn't this what Deadmau5 was doing before he took his operation solo for more money direct to himself[1]? I've been using Periscope as my method of broadcast, and its tie in with Twitter has been helpful. Then I can download from my device, tweak, and upload to YouTube. This goes for live jam sessions with friends, talking through making recordings in Ableton Live and other software, and doing DJ sets / guitar jam sessions for fun. I mean, if it's got a better value proposition, great, might be worth a look...but there's a lot of fatigue in constantly chasing different outlets. Any thoughts would be welcome to consider, thanks in advance. [1] Edit: Solo as in using his subscription / pay me model in ways that 'normal' Twitch Creative accounts probably don't have access or demand for right now (see replies below)

chambo622 11y ago
Deadmau5 just forged a pretty extensive partnership with Twitch. http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/30/deadmau5-is-on-twitch/ http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/30/deadmau5-is-on-twitch/
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Right, but what I kind of meant was that he used his celebrity to get himself a better setup and unique situation. I'm pretty sure he runs some "exclusive" type deals to people who subscribe and pay him monthly. As in, he's using Twitch to make himself better off, rather than simply joining the platform because he's trying to make the place more interesting or unique. It's a difficult thing I'm trying to say, sorry if it comes off obtuse.

noahbradley 11y ago

This is great news for my fellow creatives. Excited to take a shot at this.

6stringmerc 11y ago
As noted in the Deadmau5 article linked, there may be some rights management issues to consider. For example, having music on in the background without a broadcast license may not be allowed. Not sure how this plays out.

annacollins 11y ago

Great news..

debacle 11y ago

How does this jive with Twitch's adult content/nudity policy, which is somewhat restrictive? Where is Twitch going to draw the line on art, and will "Twitch Creative" have different rules than gaming streams?

knd775 11y ago
They don't really mind nudity in games, so I don't expect them to mind nudity in drawings.
- debacle 11y ago
  Maybe I'm not clear on the rules. I know that streaming shirtless (as a dude) is not allowed.
  - knd775 11y ago
    I mean, if you've got a nude model that you're drawing, that may be an issue. But almost certainly not with drawing itself.
makomk 11y ago
From the FAQ: Q. Are nude or gory depictions allowed on Creative? A. We are working on ways to ensure that artists can produce the work that they want, while also fostering a safe space for the community as a whole. We ask that you refrain from creating or using depictions of nudity or extreme violence until those features are implemented.
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  I wonder if Safe Space means they'll follow the MPAA guidelines.

tlb 11y ago

Also check out http://livecoding.tv http://livecoding.tv, for programming livestreams

pboutet 11y ago

This seems like a good business move, brings more niche communities, like gamers used to be, into their platform to foster more growth and users.

DaniFong 11y ago

This is terrific. I wished for something like this.

swagv 11y ago

I love Twitch. It would be my vector to destroy a generation.

evanmoran 11y ago

This makes me think that Amazon thought they were buying YouTube when they really were buying ESPN for gaming. Twitch is a fantastic business -- and I wish them all the best -- but this doesn't play to their strengths at all.