Twitch's new and upcoming features: Guest Star, Pinned Chat, Ads Incentive Program, and more explained

Twitch has summarized all the new features that are either coming or are already live on the purple platform during its latest patch_notes livestream.

The one-and-a-half-hour livestream was hosted by the brand's Community Marketing Director, Mary Kish, and Community Marketing Manager, Ray Apollo.

The patch_notes livestream is a monthly report of all the changes made to Twitch in a given month. This time, it covered new features such as Guest Star, Pinned Chat, and the Ads Incentive Program.

Without further ado, let's break down some key features that have either been added to the purple platform in the last month or will be rolled out soon.

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"Reduce ad density": Exploring the new Ads Incentive Program and overhauled Twitch Analytics

Twitch received a lot of backlash in September for its new 50/50 revenue-splitting policy. For this reason, the new Ads Incentive Program is drawing a lot of attention from streamers and viewers alike.

The hosts of the patch_notes livestream addressed a key point of concern with regard to ad density in their streams. According to them, the platform will push fewer ads over the next couple of months to alleviate this issue. They said:

"We want you to know that we don't want you to feel obligated to increase your ad density. You can also reduce your ad density, and still participate."

The hosts also invited Sabrina Li, the Product Manager of Creator Growth at Twitch, to explain the UI changes to Analytics.

The changes are aimed at helping content creators understand and visualize all the statistics related to channel interactions and growth.

Li explained that the entire layout of Twitch Analytics will be overhauled. It will showcase new and improved data points for essential insights for streamers to understand their channel and monetization policies.

This new format is also supposed to allow streamers to see payout fees and estimated taxes more easily on their Dashboard.

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Guest Star and its innovative uses

This feature has been rolled out to everyone with phone verification. It allows content creators to have up to five different guests on their channel with full OBS integration.

It should be noted that the guests do not need to be streamers to be invited. Anyone with a Twitch account may be invited via the Guest Star feature.

The hosts of the livestream also highlighted some of the innovative ways that creators have used to apply the feature to their streams. This includes game shows with viewers and collaborations with other artists.

All in all, this is a cool and hassle-free way of not only interacting with other creators but also with one's community.

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Pinned chats to highlight messages

Many people are familiar with the concept of pinned comments on Discord. Basically, streamers and mods have the ability to pin chats they want to highlight. They can manually pin them to the top of the live chat for everyone to see.

This feature is now available on Twitch.

The command "/pin" also works. This feature may be used not only to increase interaction with viewers but also as a way to announce needed information that chatters might find useful.

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Channel tagging in the title is coming next month

The hosts of the patch_notes livestream announced that the platform will soon release a new feature that will allow creators to tag other channels on the title of their streams.

The tag on the title will allow viewers to quickly see information about the streamer collaborating with the host. It will presumably help them navigate to other channels faster.

Theoretically, this feature will help drive traffic between collaborating channels now that viewers no longer need to search for the other creator.

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All these new features and updates to the UI aim to make it easier for content creators to take their streaming game to the next level. They are also expected to enrich the viewing experience for the millions who use Twitch as a prime mode of entertainment.