Name a better duo than Twitch and Giphy. I’ll wait. This week, Twitch announced that it would be partnering with the animated GIF service to allow streamers the option of letting their viewers react with GIFs. Starting this week, streamers can establish an area on the screen to be dedicated towards the Giphy extension and from there viewers can react to the stream with any GIF of their choosing.
This is is a big upgrade for the Amazon owned live streaming service that just allowed users the option to use extensions last year. This year, Twitch allowed users to begin using multiple extensions at once. With this latest upgrade, streams will now be more interactive and playful. Twitch VP of Developer Experience, Amir Shevat, said, “Extensions are a great framework designed to make channels on Twitch more interactive so creators can better engage and retain their fans.” He also added, “With Giphy tapping into their extensive library of animated GIFs for their new Extension, it adds a fun and compelling new element to the social video experience that is sure to resonate with the current meme generation.”
To ensure a safe and healthy user friendly environment, Twitch is working with the animated GIF service to eliminate overly sensitive or offensive GIFs. We’ll see how this experiment goes. What do you think?
