Twitch strikes a balance for streamers and viewers with Stories update

Twitch is paying attention to where streamers and viewers spend most of their time–and the new update to its Stories feature strikes the balance between these two halves of its user base.

The platform is making three changes to Stories, the Instagram-esque feature it launched in October 2023 with the goal of improving both discoverability and streamers’ relationship-building with their established audiences. Stories were originally limited to just text and photo posts, but this new update introduces video stories, catching Twitch up to competitors like YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, the aforementioned Instagram, and more.

The second change is that Twitch is now making all Stories accessible from desktop. This may seem like a small shift, but it’s an important one. When Twitch introduced Stories, it restricted them entirely to mobile devices.

“We launched stories exclusively on the Twitch mobile app because we know most of our streamers create and share stories content in the moment and on-the-go,” it said in a company blog post. But, while that’s convenient for streamers and is reflective of their needs and their usage of Twitch, it’s limiting for viewers.

“[Y]our viewers may not always be using Twitch on mobile,” Twitch said. “Stories will now be viewable on web so you can reach more of your community where they spend their time.”

It didn’t give precise data about viewership on desktop versus viewership on mobile, but this change is a clear indicator that many of Twitch’s viewers watch their favorite streamers on desktop, not on phones or tablets. That could be simple user preference (maybe people have streams on in the background while they’re doing work or playing games, things that are difficult to do from phone/tablet alone), or it could be due to Twitch’s clunky mobile interface. CEO Dan Clancy has said overhauling the mobile app is a top priority for Twitch, with the goal of making it “a more modern, immersive viewing experience.”

That revamped “experience” may give viewers more reason to watch streamers’ Stories, especially if Twitch continues prioritizing discoverability and frontloads those Stories in the app.

One thing that is remaining limited to mobile is Story creation; streamers can record and upload video Stories up to 60 seconds long from their mobile devices, but not from desktop–yet.

Twitch’s last change to Stories is a tweak that lets streamers select when they want their Stories to expire: “You can now set individual stories to expire after 1, 12, 24, or 48 hours. We know many of you use stories to let viewers know when you’re going live,” it said. “Now you can set time-sensitive updates to expire in 1 or 12 hours and use the longer settings for content that will be relevant for one or two days, like ‘ICYMI’ clips of your streams and updates about your personal projects.”