Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Twitch Roulette – Find and chat with streamers who are streaming alone

twitchroulette.net

61–70 of 208 posts

Re: Show HN: Twitch Roulette – Find and chat with streamers who are streaming alone

#61
post #15

Really cool idea. Thanks for sharing. I could totally see myself using this more if you added 2 options, language and game. Also interesting would be to display not only 0 streams but also streams with <10 viewers.

Why not use twitch directly as it already has those filter-options?

I believe this is a lesser-known feature of twitch.

For anyone unaware, you can go to the Browse tab [0] and filter all live channels by a tag, which includes languages. You can also pick a game or category like "Just Chatting" first, then filter by language.

This is how I discover random korean streamers. You can also sort by "Viewers (Low to High)" or "Recently Started".

[0]: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/all

Re: Show HN: Twitch Roulette – Find and chat with streamers who are streaming alone

#62
Hey folks, thanks for the great feedback. I'm going to continue going through these threads and iterate on this idea some more this weekend.

Feel free to give me a follow on my twitch channel https://twitch.tv/ellg -- I do a lot of programming on there and would love to have some more people stop by and chat :)

Re: Show HN: Twitch Roulette – Find and chat with streamers who are streaming alone

#63

This is great! One thing that many HN-ers may not know is that Amazon Prime users get a free subscription to give to anyone on Twitch. It'd be neat if there was a button here that would allow a user to subscribe with Prime; I'm sure these streamers would love that.

You probably can't subscribe to the average streamer with zero viewers: you need to an "affiliate" or "partner" with Twitch for that to be an option.

Re: Show HN: Twitch Roulette – Find and chat with streamers who are streaming alone

#65
post #56

twitch is one of the platforms where I feel like I've struggled the most to get viewers. just playing my main game like Dota wasn't too productive since I'm not a pro or super hot so my value proposition there isn't too compelling. Instead I've been trying to focus more on streaming myself programming and learning new scientific or game programming libraries and have been enjoying it quite a bit. My viewer count is v…

Most the big streamers got to where they are by view botting, the "fake it til you make it" approach. I'm not recommending that, it's something that Twitch are hotter about catching and banning these days, but it has meant that there has been an entrenched set of "big streamers" for some time now with less ability to break in. Really the only way is to be playing a game for a while that suddenly gets big so you can b…

> Most the big streamers got to where they are by view botting, the "fake it til you make it" approach.

I'm sorry but this is not true. There have however been perception issues around viewbotting. One such:

For most of the life of host mode when a small stream would get hosted by a big stream, nearly all of the transitioned viewers would stay (through inaction) in the host's channel. Many would be AFK. The small streamer ends up with a large viewercount but a disproportionally "dead" chat, leading to cries of viewbotting.

Coincidentally, big-to-small hosts like this are frequently how fantastic but relatively undiscovered streamers get their "big break", further entangling the accusations with their success.

Source: Worked for five years at Twitch, built host mode

(PS: As someone who became good friends with some of these "big streamers" and those at Twitch combatting viewbotting, I can't help but feel insulted on both their behalves that the amount of invisible effort they pour into their craft so frequently gets shat on.)

Re: Show HN: Twitch Roulette – Find and chat with streamers who are streaming alone

#66
I always wonder how Twitch streamers manage to go from 0 to N thousand viewers. What is the most effective way people are using to self-promote? I've seen a lot of panels at PAX talking about how to "grow" streaming but nothing about how to "bootstrap" an audience. This seems like it could be a cool way to do that, if not even just find people to talk to.

Re: Show HN: Twitch Roulette – Find and chat with streamers who are streaming alone

#67
post #59

Singer Ben Folds once did this during a huge concert. So random people looking for a video chat would suddenly see a man on a stage in front of a huge audience...singing a song about them. ("Hello Mr. Shirtless Man. How are you doin' today? Is it hot in there...?") https://www.pigdog.org/auto/viva_la_musica/link/3203.html

I remember quite a while back, Chat Roulette song improv was a big thing. It was the guy in the hoodie - PianoChatImprov on Youtube. I just looked it up and, wow, that was 10 years ago. This was also before Chat Roulette became nothing but dongs.

I'm kinda surprised there was a "before" in that situation. I presumed that was what was going tonhappen from the get-go.

Perhaps I am too cynical.

Re: Show HN: Twitch Roulette – Find and chat with streamers who are streaming alone

#68
post #10

As someone who has periodically streamed, consider dropping a few chat messages when you land. Twitch's metrics are slow to update and it is not always clear when someone is watching.

Hello! I work on the video platform @ twitch. We’ve been working a lot on that issue. Viewer count numbers should be significantly faster today and will get even more responsive soon!

Re: Show HN: Twitch Roulette – Find and chat with streamers who are streaming alone

#69
post #10

As someone who has periodically streamed, consider dropping a few chat messages when you land. Twitch's metrics are slow to update and it is not always clear when someone is watching.

As a streamer I would say that a streamer should never act as if no one is watching. Many viewers never feel like chatting and that's fine. And sometimes people will watch vods after the fact. For myself, I purposely disable the metrics so that my mood can't be affected by viewership numbers.

>I purposely disable the metrics so that my mood can't be affected by viewership numbers.

Thats a great tip, I didn't even know that was possible with Twitch.

Re: Show HN: Twitch Roulette – Find and chat with streamers who are streaming alone

#70
post #67
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember quite a while back, Chat Roulette song improv was a big thing. It was the guy in the hoodie - PianoChatImprov on Youtube. I just looked it up and, wow, that was 10 years ago. This was also before Chat Roulette became nothing but dongs.

I'm kinda surprised there was a "before" in that situation. I presumed that was what was going tonhappen from the get-go. Perhaps I am too cynical.

You'd think with the state of machine learning these days someone could have another go at it, and ban users who show their dongs
Post reply on HN