Upcoming Twitch embeds experiment

twitter_accounts · 2021-01-27T08:19:27.975Z

You guys should be focused on Monetizing the Embed player, almost 2 years now its been disabled due to poor reasoning.

This experiment will not do anything positive, if viewers want to go to the Twitch channel, they have the option to do that from the already provided links that are in the embed.

If anything, this should be a Advertisement, that plays for 15 seconds, and then goes away.

revo91 · 2021-01-27T13:14:12.559Z

You are making it so much harder to use embeds with every update. First “parent” property effectively disabled usage on “file://” origin and ruined my smart tv app, next giant fullscreen purple message appearing every few minutes to leave embed and move to twitch.tv and now permanent info box requiring user to cancel or move to twitch.tv.
Just remove embed already and stop making people angry.

Louis6321 · 2021-01-27T13:14:18.908Z

Argh! I work in streaming for an esports company and usually need to have several streams open at once. I use twitchtheater.tv to do this and I pay for Twitch Turbo… now it’s ruined.

Louis6321 · 2021-01-27T14:23:14.290Z

I don’t even get the option to cancel. I get a countdown and then the stream is stopped.

Romjkez · 2021-01-27T15:24:16.084Z

Using embeds is getting harder with each update.
I agree with those guys above.
Making such things ruins all the ecosystem built around the Twitch embeds by external developers forcing their users to leave to sites.

It’s ok if you will implement ads inside embed or anti-adblock banners but isn’t this a purpose of embeds to be able to insert the player on any site and build your own product?
Now the embeds are more like “demo streams” rather than a true piece of Twitch inside your site

jbpratt · 2021-01-27T18:24:17.995Z

We are having users reporting at least three variations of this.

Like shown in the original post, with the ability to close it
The same as the original post, with no ability to close it
A countdown that stops video completely

BarryCarlyon · 2021-01-27T18:26:23.469Z

jbpratt:

We are having users reporting at least three variations of this.

To quote the OP

tyvick:

These CTAs may appear in a variety of different contexts and configurations.

You’ve listed three different versions of the thing being tested

jbpratt · 2021-01-27T18:30:22.401Z

Thank you for the clarity, Barry.

nmaster64 · 2021-01-27T18:42:19.680Z

So, considering two of the tests just completely ruin the stream for the user – one literally stopping it and one blocking the screen with no option to close – what’s really being “tested” here is how much Twitch can get away with just killing embeds completely?

TikTak9k1 · 2021-01-28T01:21:37.361Z

Twitch definitely testing the waters afaic with embeds to see what they can get away with. I wont shut up about this specific thing and I was skeptic towards another Twitch colleague of @tyvick 's in another thread in regards of this too.

These twitch embed experiments, yet again, proof my point. Look, why do these experiments purposely make the experience worse? Get the full experience on Twitch.tv just screams ‘We want our audience fully on our site and will make matters worse for 3rd party sites so it becomes borderline unwatchable’.

Golden · 2021-01-28T02:06:10.629Z

I spent months of my free time developing a tool to help people watch Twitch on their favorite multi-viewer sites, but it’s all going to be for nothing if these popups are mandatory on those sites. Please don’t do this. Ugh twitch just ugh

Golden · 2021-01-28T02:31:52.157Z

Also, isn’t there literally a “TWITCH” button in the embed if someone wants to go directly to the site? Why add popups and diminish the user experience of the embed when the desired outcome is already present?

Golden · 2021-01-28T02:33:22.354Z

Why is this even necessary when the embedded player already has a TWITCH button in it to take the user directly to Twitch? This is exactly how YouTube and other embedded players perform and its fairly common knowledge.

WLG3R · 2021-01-28T13:37:44.101Z

I agree, you can already link to twitch in the embed by clicking their name, or “twitch” and there are already a ton of overlays that make the embed experience bad alone, now this just makes it worse. This is going totally against discoverability. I’ve found so many new broadcasters outside of twitch because of embeds. IF these types of popups are used, it should ONLY be on unauthenticated sessions. If someone is already apart of twitch, and they purposely go outside of twitch to change their experience, they won’t want you bugging them to bring them back.

Marenthyu · 2021-01-28T14:37:44.391Z

I agree with the above as well!

I think there are different usecases of Embeds that have very different expectations / requirements to them.

I’d say there’s at least:

Those that just want a raw feed and don’t intend to redirect users to Twitch as they enhance the experience outside of the player. Prime example: lolesports.com - or even just any sort of usecase where you want to, for example, restream the stream, like for a speedrunning marathon or tournament. (The “enhanced experience” can oftentimes be covered by a well-made Extension, but companies are slow to adapt to them, i think. And they obviously don’t cover all usecases of this category.)
To promote a set of different streamers and get them known - in this case i think a CTA to head over to Twitch is very well placed. The discovery intent has happened and the initial few minutes ought to be sufficient to let the viewer know if they want to commit to the channel or not.
Promotion through advertisement placements. This is similar to 2), but with the distinct difference that the Embed was shown to the viewer unintentionally. In this case, it should most certainly stop playing after a while to avoid using up background resources for everyone involved. (Because let’s face it, the people talking here uniformly don’t usually check out ads and rather ignore them. No need to waste resources in that case.)

One thing i could see happen: Be similar to OAuth Applications or even Extensions, where a registration is necessary with a traceable point of contact in case the embed gets abused. This allows for the different categories of Embeds to be placed in the different usecases and enhance the experience for everyone involved - if you want to help discover new streamers, you get a CTA, in an Ad, it stops wasting resources after a while and in a Tournament/Marathon/Restreaming environment, no unnecessary UI is blocking the feed.

It restricts access to embeds greatly, but i think it very effectively solves the issues at hand - In My Opinion.

And to address the usecase of Multitwitch/Kadgar/similar - this could be adressed by making squad streaming available to more broadcasters. I don’t see it necessary to use such an external tool if the afilliates I watch doing a race if squad streaming was available to them.
Until this becomes available, I very much support the usecase of undisturbed multi-viewers.

[And just to reiterate: This is just an opinion and a solution that i see that does not come without its own set of issues.]

tyvick · 2021-01-28T17:09:18.128Z

Thanks for this detailed feedback and consideration. As touched on in the original message, you outline the interrelated and complex potential use cases that this test will hopefully inform in a way that accounts for how to consider each one, both individually and in relation to one another.

tyvick · 2021-01-28T17:22:04.480Z

Thanks for this feedback. Tests such as these will help inform potential monetization opportunities in the future.

tyvick · 2021-01-28T17:25:15.553Z

Thanks for this feedback, particularly regarding embeds’ role in creator discoverability and unauthenticated session ideas. Tests such as these will help us make those distinctions in the future for a more accurate accounting of those differences, which in turn should hopefully make creator discoverability more contextualized and effective, as well.

nmaster64 · 2021-01-28T18:03:23.090Z

Your rhetoric is disingenuous, suggesting that devs are presenting complex edge cases and not the most basic usage scenario of an embedded stream - placing it on a page along with some supporting content.

These use cases are very straight-forward and all resolved with the simplest technical solution possible – a parameter flag that disables the “feature”.

WLG3R · 2021-01-28T18:14:52.712Z

There are also creators that pay for custom pages such as on streamlabs, like streamername.live that embed their own stream to their own website, and this would also make loyal viewers leave that broadcaster’s own page.