Thursday, September 27, 2018

Tags Guide

How to use the tags system on Twitch.tv!

The new tagging system is now live as of September 26, 2018 on Twitch.tv. Tags can be used to categorize channels with additional details. To add tags to your channel go to the dashboard and check in the "Stream Information" for the tags section.

Tags panel
Search for the tag that best fits your channel, you can have up to 5 different tags. Your language setting is also included in the tagging system. Once you have added in all the tags for your channel, press update information button.

All the various tags will be available as filter options in the directory pages. The tagging system will also be used in personalized recommendation section(s) to show more similar streams based on past history and tag listings. For instance, if you watch channels that are tagged as 'PvE', the recommendation sections will show more of those types of channels.

Notable Changes
 
The gaming directory now has unique tags dedicated to genres.

List of Game Directory Genres:
  • Action
  • Adventure
  • Adventure Game
  • Battle Royale
  • Card & Board Game
  • Compilation
  • Creative
  • Driving
  • Driving/Racing Game
  • Educational Game
  • Fighting
  • Flight Simulator
  • FPS
  • Gambling Game
  • Horror
  • IRL
  • MMORPG
  • MOBA
  • Non-gaming
  • Pinball
  • Platformer
  • Puzzle
  • Rhythm & Music Game
  • Roguelike
  • RPG
  • RTS
  • Shoot 'Em Up
  • Shooter
  • Simulation
  • Sports
  • Strategy
You can not set your tags to any of these genres, they are only listed for games and special categories.

The POPULAR listing is now called Live Channels, this still includes 'ReRun' streams.
live channels section

If you are looking to search for specific languages, you can either type it in the filter or switch the 'Showing' section to 'Live Channels' and find it in the drop down list.

 search by language

Creative Section changes
creative section on twitch
The creative section has changed, "Creative" is now a genre with tags that are searchable.
  • Music & Performing Arts
  • Art
  • Food & Drink
  • Makers & Crafting
  • Beauty & Body Art
IRL Section changes

irl section on twitch

The IRL section has changed, "IRL" is now a genre with tags that are searchable.
  • Just Chatting
  • Music & Performing Arts
  • Talk Shows & Podcasts
  • ASMR
  • Travel & Outdoors
  • Food & Drink
  • Makers & Crafting
  • Science & Technology
  • Beauty & Body Art
  • Special Events
  • Sports & Fitness


Update 4/18/2020

Make sure to use all 5 tag slots for your stream because Twitch is using certain tags for their sitemap indexing pages that search engines crawl and then index into their directories. This is sadly going to only benefit the top viewed vod and the most live concurrent channels but you maybe lucky with a smaller channel to still be index'ed in time to time because many top end streamers are to lazy to add in tags.

Here is a list of the current specific tags used in Twitch's sitemap index that you should be using.


Channels VODS
100 100
12 Hour Challenge
Achievement Hunting Achievement Hunting
AMA AMA
Analysis
Animals Animals
Animation
Anime Anime
Any Any
Arena
Auditory ASMR
Backseat Gaming Allowed Backseat Gaming Allowed
Basketball  Basketball
Beginner Players Beginner Players
Blind Playthrough Blind Playthrough
Cash Game
Casual Playthrough
Celeb Celeb
Challenge Run Challenge Run
Charity Charity
Closed Captions
Coaching Coaching
Competitive Competitive
Cooking Cooking
Cooperative Cooperative
Cosplay Cosplay
Digital Art
DJ DJ
Drawing Drawing
Duos Duos 
Early Access Play Early Access Play
Educational  Educational 
Electronic Music Electronic Music
End Game 
Epic Level Characters
Esports Esports
EU Server EU Server
Evil Characters Evil Characters
Exploration Exploration
Family Friendly Family Friendly
Farming Farming
Fashion
Finance
First Playthrough First Playthrough
Game Show Game Show
Gaming News Gaming News
Hard Mode Hard Mode
Hip Hop Music Hip Hop Music
Illustration
Improv
League League
Let's Play Let's Play
Leveling LGBTQIA
LGBTQIA
Live Vlogging Live Vlogging
Marathon Marathon
Match Commentary Match Commentary
Meme Runs Meme Runs
Mental Health Mental Health 
Mindfulness Mindfulness
Modded Modded 
Mode Battle Royale
Mode Survival Mode Survival
Multiplayer Multiplayer
Music Performance  Music Performance
Music Production Music Production
NA Server NA Server
News News
No Backseat Gaming No Backseat Gaming
No Spoilers  No Spoilers
Party Game Party Game
PB Attempts PB Attempts
Permadeath
Playing with Viewers Playing with Viewers
Pro Fortnite Pro Fortnite
Pro Hearthstone Pro Hearthstone
PvE PvE
PvP PvP
Racing Racing
Radio Radio
Ranked Ranked
Retro
Roleplay  Roleplay
Singing Singing
Singleplayer Singleplayer
Soccer Soccer 
Social Eating Social Eating
Solos Solos
Speedrun Speedrun
Squads Squads
Standup Comedy Standup Comedy
Strength Training Strength Training
Tournament Tournament
Tutorial
Twitch Stream Aid Twitch Stream Aid
Visual ASMR Visual ASMR
Voice Acting Voice Acting
VR VR
Warming Up Warming Up
WR Attempts




Twitch appears to have a special tag called "Celeb" which only a couple channels appear to be enabled for which include the following: xqcow, drdisrespect, nickmercs, timthetatman, lirik. Some other tags in the above list may also be not accessible, I do not have the time to check all of them.

Another issue to be noted on is that you can only set the tags before your stream or during your stream.  Currently you can not go into your VODS and switch tags. VODS take the tags that were made during the stream session. I hope they allow VOD tagging to be enabled in the future.



Friday, September 14, 2018

When external Influencers start to censor!

How a powerful external influencer starts to censor?
As reported a couple months ago on this blog, one of the biggest external influencers which is OWNED BY TWITCH has been promoting twitch streams on their wiki network. The more popular a wiki is on their network, the more traffic and embedded viewership it generates for Twitch streamers.

Some of the most popular Wiki's on that network include but are not limited to the following;
  • Minecraft
  • Terraria
  • Ark
The way they pick which streamer to promote depends on placement on the game directory. For instance, on the Terraria wiki, whatever stream is in the top spot (of the terraria directory on twitch) will get most of the traffic that is generated from this 3rd party embed on the Terraria wiki.

Now this sounds like great for getting additional exposure for your stream right? Yup it is and I wrote about that here - Free Channel Traffic / Free Views

And here is how the censorship starts due to complaints from streamers vs streamers.

My channel broadcasts 24/7 using the rerun feature that is provided by Twitch. I like to play sandbox games on my stream and sometimes do play through runs of games. I broadcasting each day for around 5 to 8 hours then run reruns until I stream again the next day. A month ago, I was streaming Terraria which is one of the games that is being VERY LARGELY influenced by this 3rd party. A majority of the streamers who regularly stream that game do not have the reach in views that my channel generates daily. So what happen was as soon as I took the top spot in the directory, a huge chuck of the 3rd party embedding traffic was being sent to my channel which made it very difficult for other channels to overtake the top slot on the directory. The "free channel traffic" was gone for them and they didnt like it at all.

Without the 3rd party embedding support for Terraria, its overall viewership is alot lower. Estimated additional concurrent viewers from 3rd party is 400 - 1500+ depending on time of day. Many people who stream this game only do it because of that additional embedding traffic, some use it to launchpad into other games. So once that was gone, they started to campaign against my channel. One of them talked negativity about my channel on their stream, which lead to trolling in my chat from their viewbase.

At some point they contacted the 3rd party to complain about my channel. The 3rd party agreed with the complaints and censored my channel from being listed + promoted on their wiki.

I messaged the 3rd party myself to see exactly what the reason was for not being listed anymore.

Here was the responses:
  • That channel was banned from our wiki after it was brought to our attention that they were exploiting the system, as documented in a blog.
    • So I guess they didnt like how I told people about how they are influencing/sending tons of traffic to certain games on twitch.... Is this suppose to be TOP SECRET? Who knows ...I replied and asked for more clarification.
  • The 24/7 streaming is the issue. Once you've grabbed the unit, you don't give it up because you fill up reruns. The point of the embedded unit is to promote LIVE content, not reruns.
    • They made up a rule that no one knows about, its not listed anywhere, how is anyone suppose to know? I replied, since doing reRuns until the next time I stream was the issue, I said I can stop doing that and asked to be unbanned.
  • You will not be unbanned. The embed is for promoting the games and platform, not for streamers to game for revenue.
    • This is a interesting reply, note the "Streamers to game for revenue". I didnt know streaming on twitch was a hobby, this person's mindset is very poor.
So they censored my channel, what happened then?



This person "HLAquarius" was monitoring the situation and ran to whisper me, but then for some odd reason they delete their username a couple days later? Hmm?


What makes this censorship stupid is how the Twitch API gives details if channels are in ReRun mode or Live, if the 3rd party doesn't want to promote or list a streamer in rerun mode, they can easily code it to not do that instead of censoring due to complaints from streamers.

And now I recently started to stream No Man's Sky again, and guess what happened? Another complaint and tada censored on another wiki from this Twitch owned 3rd party.

Let me finish up with some words of advice, if you are a streamer do not become depended on any 3rd party traffic or embedding, one day it may help get more exposure and the next day it maybe gone. Build your own content, wikis, do your own embedding and promotions - be in control!