Twitch Adds New Chat Feature
If you're a newcomer to a Twitch channel and want to start participating in the chat but aren't sure whether your message will get noticed among the many pouring in, there's a new Twitch feature available now that might help with that. It's called "First-Time Chatter," and as its name suggests, it highlights messages from users who have not yet participated in the chat so that they can be spotted easier. It's a feature which appears to be one that'll help out both the content creators and the viewers, though there's also the option to turn it off if a streamer decides they don't want it.
Twitch showed off the new feature in action this week with the brief video below showing what it looks like when someone's message is highlighted. Over on the Twitch help page for the new feature, it specified that this message would display as a highlighted one within the stream manager layout that's visible to the content creators and to their mods. It's was also clarified there that other viewers of a stream won't able to see whenever someone's a first-time chatter, but the people running the production will be able to see assuming they've kept the feature on.
Behold: the First-Time Chatter highlight — available NOW to all creators and mods.
— Twitch (@Twitch) October 18, 2021
Recognize new chatters at a glance and make ‘em feel welcome in your community.
Learn more: https://t.co/z3DlB4vJVP pic.twitter.com/cDOZmBotoe
For the viewer and new chatter, this makes it a bit easier to hope that your message will get noticed. For streamers, this is meant to give a better opportunity to acknowledge first-time talkers so that their first chat turns into many chats if they stick around.
"Welcoming newcomers boosts engagement and encourages viewers to keep coming back to the stream," Twitch's help blog for the new feature said. "The First-Time Chatter highlight makes it easier to grow your community by helping creators and mods see who's new to the chat."
Twitch's new chat feature follows a high-profile security breach over on the streaming platform which led to source codes and the payouts for different content creators being posted online. The streaming platform also announced the return of the Boost feature not long ago while unveiling a way to make it even more controversial than it was previously.