Last week Twitch announced a new service in beta called Guest Star, which allows Twitch streamers to add “guest slots,” or unique browser channels, so hosts can port in speakers and bring guests into the stream.
The new feature is being offered to a few hundred live streamers to test, but Twitch hopes to make it available to all streamers very soon.
The implications of Guest Star are significant.
For one, budget streamers who use products like Amazon Luna to live stream can now bring in guests and maintain a conversation during their gameplay – no need to talk to yourself for hours.
Second, adding another personality to your stream spices things up. Yes, your audience is joining you to hear more about what’s going on and watch more of that beast mode you’ve been waiting to unleash on the world. But having another perspective improves the quality of the conversation. After all, you need to get some love in the chat to know whether things are working or if there’s a group of gnomes on the other end laughing their rears off.
Guest Star for Twitch streamers
For now, Guest Star is available only to a select number of live streamers. However, all Twitchers will eventually get their hands on the feature. According to reports, hosts who install Guest Star will be able to tap guests in with the push of a button. Similar to a call-in radio show, except callers are jumping in via VOIP, like Microsoft Teams, Google Meets, or Zoom.
Adding functionality like this is why everyone at Streaming This Weekend is so bullish on the streaming industry.
Last summer, live streaming made up one-third of all video viewing online. Cable makes up a third, as well as traditional streaming on platforms like Netflix and Hulu. The point is live streaming is slowly taking over the entertainment industry. Yes, folks over age 40 are not likely to get their news and entertainment from a Mr. Beast, but anyone aged 5 – 35 is more likely to do so than not. So where does that put the industry in 10 years?
The simple fact is that live streaming will impact traditional media in all content spaces in some form or another, including news, entertainment, and advertising. Advertisers already build personalized ad experiences based on your browsing history and location. So how long will it be before we get a Minority Report-like mall walk?-where your online history is used to populate ads on walls as you walk by? Do you think your favorite streamers won’t one day be tasked to make those ads?
Implications for the future
Today, live streaming is limited to gaming and sports streams, etc. However, allowing broadcasters to host live programming with guests changes the landscape completely. In many ways, it puts the gig economy into the media industry.
Didn’t go to school to be a journalist? Who cares? Your fans want more of you; they’ll take their news and entertainment before they go, and a sub too.
The implications are profound. We can imagine a future where traditional streamers like Netflix and Apple embrace the live-streaming business model as a cheap way to continually add new content for their subscribers. The possibilities are infinite.
Will Guest Star be a hit with Twitch streamers?
That’s an easy one. Yes. Well, if not Guest Star, something like it. Twitch streamers want to earn, and they’ve become so good at entertaining dead air (usually without any script – though some may have an outline), we have little doubt they’ll take their on-stage persona, where many go 3, 4, even up to 8 hours live streaming to hundreds or more, all to the sound of crickets, and give traditional media giants a run for their money.
Twitch streamers, stay tuned.