Chatting with thousands of people can get a bit messy. Words appear and disappear in seconds; deep, thoughtful conversations on Starcraft 2 Terran strategies get interupted by memes; and there was Twitch Plays Pokemon.
Now Twitch has announced Group Chat, where broadcasters can create invite-only chat channels separate from the main chat feed.
It’s in beta at the moment, which means only Twitch partners can create these chat channels, but any Twitch user can be invited into one.
Group Chat has the same moderation tools that broadcasters have on their own regular channels, and they can assign mods to invite people, or allow anyone to invite whoever the heck they want. And if users start to get sick of people inviting them to double-secret chats, they can restrict who they get invites from.
“There’s no question Twitch chat is the social glue that brings the community together,” says Twitch’s marketing VP Matthew DiPietro. “You have Facebook for your life, LinkedIn for your job and Twitch for your gaming. Because of our prominent presence in the social arena, introducing Group Chat offers a compelling new way for the community to interact.”
If you’re really, really nice, Nick might set up a Group Chat the next time he plays The Elder Scrolls Online on our Twitch channel, and you can type sweet nothings into his eyeballs that only an exclusive group can see. It’s an exciting future we’re living in.