Steem is Missing a Huge Opportunity on Twitch

in twitch •  6 years ago  (edited)


twitch logo.jpg

I've got a friend on Twitch who has been trying to make a living Streaming video games on Twitch for the last few years. He's a small timer, but he's been partnered, so that's good. The network effect is quite a slow and steady grind. Feel free to check him out.

Every once and I while I tell him he should try Steem / @dTube. I had him make an account last January but he hasn't done anything on it. @generalandrews. He recently gave me the master password to this account so I can mess around with it a bit.

I've thought about trying to program using the Twitch API, but then I got super into crypto and haven't really looked back. I tell my friend he should Stream on our blockchain, but he is partnered with Twitch, and it is actually against the rules for him to Stream elsewhere. However, he can embed his Twitch stream elsewhere, because anyone can embed a stream anywhere. Unfortunately/fortunately, the Twitch API is much more advanced and professional than our Podunk API.

We were trying to come to an arrangement the other day to promote each other and such, so I decided to take a look at the Twitch API dev page. This is what I found:

https://dev.twitch.tv/docs/embed/everything/

 <html>
  <body>
    <div id="twitch-embed"></div>
    <script src="https://embed.twitch.tv/embed/v1.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
      new Twitch.Embed("twitch-embed", {
        width: 854,
        height: 480,
        channel: "generalandrews1_0"
      });
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

So I threw this code into a text file and booted it up:


twitch general andrews.png

Imagine my surprise when it worked perfectly. This code embeds a streaming Twitch window directly into the web page... complete with chat window, subscriptions, and most of the other functionality you'll see if you were to go directly to the Twitch web site.

I seriously can't believe how easy it is to do this, AND NO ONE AT STEEM IS CAPITALIZING ON IT. We could straight up be embedding the Twitch API directly onto the blockchain and linking Steem accounts with Twitch accounts. We could be programming animations for OBS broadcasting that makes Twitch Streams interactive when they receive an upvote from our blockchain.

The amount of notoriety we could generate from working on a project like this is insane. I really feel like @dtube is dropping the ball here. I might even make the claim that all the Steem frontends (Steemit, Busy, Steempeak) are dropping the ball because none of them have the option to embed a Twitch Stream into the service, even though it's super easy to do.

This is basic-bitch JavaScript we are talking about. Twitch/Amazon have already done all the heavy lifting for us. They are practically begging for us to profit off of them because at the same time they would profit off of us. I'd say that deal is heavily tilted in our favor. We can piggyback off of the work they've done much more than the other way around.


twitter tips.jpg

Tips

Being able to tip Steem, SBD, and upvotes on Twitch would be a huge deal. More importantly, the work required to get er done is minimal. This is one of the reasons why I was super excited about the @steemtipper project. I figured they'd of cranked out functionality for Twitter by now and hopefully moved on to Twitch, which I feel is a smarter platform to target.

For the love of God, target the Twitch API

Why? Because users on Twitch are conditioned to tip, it is a mainstay foundation of the platform. Tipping on Twitter is counter intuitive for the users that have been using it for the last decade. In addition, Amazon has already created a digital currency hard pegged to the dollar (Twitch Bits) and Amazon is primed to make cryptocurrency plays in the future. We should definitely get ahead of the curve and capitalize on these eventualities. Keep on truckin @crimsonclad, I believe in you.

Imagine if we could approach the users on Twitch and offer them a deal: buy Steem coins as an investment, something that they actually get to keep instead of tipping it away. Then they can tip with upvote inflation everyday. If we were to create graphical interactions that linked Steem upvotes to OBS streaming, we would successfully create a positive feedback loop that would create a cycle of users constantly wanting to power up more coins. This is just one way Steem could go viral. We could go viral in other ways like this a hundred times over. Steem is not Social Media.

Do you have any idea how Twitch Bits work?
What an exploitative system.
$1.40 for $1.00? $7.00 for $5.00? $308.00 for $250?
Wow, thanks Amazon, what a deal.
AND PEOPLE PAY IT.

Why? Because of the positive feedback loop. You tip and the streamer has a macro set up to display graphics on the screen. There's a leaderboard that users compete on to see who can outdo the other. The entire system is rigged to promote excessive tipping to streamers, which in turn generates massive revenue for Twitch and Amazon.


Steem is a Japanese tentacle monster. We can creep our tendrils out into the Internet and leech these centralized services for all they're worth. They are practically allowing it to happen with their professional grade APIs. We can turn their own APIs against them in our favor.

@steemtipper

The core concept behind @steemtipper is incredible. Using the API of other platforms, @steemtipper allows people who don't even have a Steem account to receive Steem. Isn't that a crazy concept? How does that work?

By using the API of the given platform, @steemtipper allows users to login to Steem through a proxy. Let's say I had an account on Twitch under the handle of 'someguy123'. I could login to @steemtipper using my Twitch 'someguy123' credentials and @steemtipper would create a proxy STEEM account in my name using these credentials. Therefore, the only one that can access the proxy account is someone that knows the password to the real account. The native API provides the means to log in without exposing the password. The best part is, the proxy account gets created even before that. It get's created the second someone tips them.

Users with a proxy Steem account can make a real account to claim the funds, or they can pay it forward and tip their tip somewhere else. Given the centralized nature of Twitch, this is perfect for us. Viewers that get tipped Steem will re-tip that Steem to streamers, and streamers are bound to create their own Steem accounts because these guys will do anything to make an extra buck to fulfill their dreams of becoming professional video game players.

Using this concept we can practically force users on Twitch to become part of our network. We can offer them a superior deal and we can do it all without them even having to create an account at first.

Low/Mid level Twitch streamers are hardwired to make more money with micro-transactions anyway they can. A lot of these guys claw and scrape for every last penny they can get. I guarantee these guys are on board and ready to help if approached with an opportunity like this.


matrix dollar.png

Twitch viewers are hardwired to spend tons of money. Some of these guys spend thousands of dollars just tipping their favorite streamers. It's insane, but not as insane as the fact that we haven't tapped into this obviously parallel market. Steem is a tipping blockchain. Twitch is a tipping platform. Our currency is 1000 times better than their currency. How has no one pulled the trigger on this? Because crypto is still in the Wild-West phase. Guys, I'm super serious. Digital gold is literally everywhere. All we need to do is develop the software to mine it.

@dtube, you don't need to reinvent the wheel so hard. It isn't blasphemy to piggy back off of other streaming sites. This is a huge missed opportunity to integrate a built-in community that shares our values directly to our blockchain.

This is a great chance to undercut greedy ass Amazon and show them that they can't make a better digital currency than ours, because they are greedier than we are. Greedy corporations aren't capable of creating a digital currency that they don't fully control and profit from. We can use this greed against them as we siphon users to our blockchain.

It is a mistake to engage Twitch directly in a competitive battle. First, we should merge with their API, then, once we are actually ready, we can compete with them directly. The real question we have to ask ourselves then is this: is it actually worth it? Or should we simply allow them to continue operating unabated while we siphon value from their platform? You never know, it could turn in to a relationship of mutual benefit. Work smart; not hard.

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Making an announcement pretty shortly on a new login system and Reddit, it's just been a wild month or two that's kind of required eyes and hands everywhere but on this stuff. I think you lay out some pretty compelling arguments here~ looking forward to getting it all working!

Oh nice I'm glad you're still continuing to grind it all out. This service you are creating is poised to make every API platform out there take us very seriously.

Great Great Great info here!! And like @crimsonclad just mentioned we have announcement coming soon for new platform. BUT now we going to look at twitch immediately ;)

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

You guys know, waves and steemstar both sent to twitch and for the longest time, the player on msp-waves.com and the former steemstarnetwork.com were twitch too. The problem, as noted here and before is that the front ends don't allow embeds from anywhere much but youtube, not even our own ecosystem media sites have been welcomed into core condenser. This article isn't wrong, but we've been trying to get twitch noticed between both stations for a long time now...

Perhaps it makes more sense to create a browser extension that imports the Steem API and merges it with Twitch? Dun know. Obviously the extra step is a barrier to entry for new users. I'm personally very interested in makeing Chrome extensions powered by JavaScript and the Steem API.

The only golden ticket you can count on, like Follow said, is to build your own interface, dtwitch, more or less. though i doubt that name would fly in IP court. ;)

but yeah, there's the rub.

Its a metaphor but sometimes you know the answer, and you meet the girl and you wanna save the world, but in real life IOI is a bigger machine and outguns you. At least for most of the movie.

If you can't beat the machine or get it to do what you know is right...

Build your own machine. ;)

dtwitch
dwitch
ditch
d-Itch
lol

I suppose if you get a few high level influencers on Twitch to get Steem accounts and start earning even more money, the word would spread pretty quickly.

Posted using Partiko Android

The holy grail...

But it's proven hard to get card sharks to sit at a table that has so far been more of a house of cards than a game of skill.

fuck a browser extension. one of the reasons why im banking on steem vs ETH is because you don't need a special browser to connect to the network.

A browser extension is a better idea than a new browser but thats still not optimal. I really believe that we just need to abandon steemit, and look at the greater scope of things.

My vote goes for a new interface. Im looking at the future of steem as an ecosystem of DAOs utilizing SMTs and their own interface for both functionality and exchange tradability

This is an amazing idea. How do we make this a reality? Twitch might not like it since they don't get a caught out of the tipping.

Its not hard, we built steemtipper.com already and you can tip Steem on Twitter and Reddit, and now since this post we are going to look at integrating Twitch ;)

Very cool, this project needs more marketing for more adoption. I love the look of it.

Oh sounds great means that this application steemtipper.com may also have utility to use it as a means of payment of services in the future, without having a steem account?

Yeah I have no idea how they will react, or if they can even do anything to stop it. I suppose they could update the contract they have with their "partners" to ban Steem, but that might create more outrage than it's worth. Dun know. It certainly wouldn't be very consistent of them to ban a certain type of tipping mechanism. Such an action would be a very "on the back foot" desperation move, and could even gain our community fame and have unintended consequences.

I only see this being a positive for Twitch because they are still getting paid on every ad that plays. They have the api available for a reason, the "attempted" exploit is what they want to happen otherwise I am sure they would have made it A LOT harder to accomplish this.

Indeed, I forgot about the ads because of Twitch Prime.

Twitch Prime recently removed the ad-free benefit.

fuck it bro, if they cant figure out how to keep their business model up to date with advancing technology than they don't deserve that money. I for one am not against taking it whether they like it or not

this is an interesting idea, i wonder how Twitch would take it?

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

Oh dude they would be so mad... unless of course we show that we bring them more money than we take... which is a real possibility. Here's the thing with that though: it could be a network effect where both platforms make a ton of money. That's why I end the post on that note of: "Do we really even want to compete?"

maybe they want an SMT to extend their capabilities :D

Sounds like a stroke of diabolical genius! ;)

I've been saying over and over again that tipping will be one the main things that will give STEEM something other than pure speculative value. Twitch users buying STEEM, SBD and some SP to be able to upvote is an example of precisely what I've been talking about.

Would very much love to see this being a reality making crypto easy to tip people on live streaming would make that cryptocurrency a huge success

vimm.tv - you already have Steemians streaming :)

@fulltimegeek and @yabapmatt should see this, i think they could cook something out at there off-peak time.

Does Matt have any off time these days? 😂

We really need more devs like him on Steem.

You bet @protegeaa 😁😊

Great point of view, twitch is huge and the amount of money in tips that are being donated to streamers is just massive. It could be the best move ever to somehow implement it into Steemit. Great idea, would love to see it happen

This is pretty huge and awesome to see other eyes on it. exciting indeed...
Stay positive and constructive even during tough times and keep working towards something better.

be well


Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Soundcloud / YouTube / Goggle / Krazypoet.com

You've got an interesting idea...but it's not for Dtube. Dtube is decentralized. What you're talking about is something completely new. It might work... We would need a correlation of people who have Steem fans, then it might eventually reach critical mass, where people from here are upvoting users regularly, and they end up creating accounts here.

Thanks for the further explanation of how Twitch works. I've been lurking a bit on there lately doing research for my own streaming on Vimm.

Speaking of Vimm, you should check them out as an alternative interface that might be more willing to do the work than dtube. Dtube is great, but they don't have the gamer focus that Vimm has.

Paging @chiren!

Anyway, your ideas here are brilliant and if you need some SP delegated to make it happen, I'd love to donate some.

Twitch is ripe.

Posted using Partiko Android

Thanks man I really appreciate that. I'll let you know. I work 20 hours a week at a crap job so I can put all my other focus on learning JavaScript and the Steem API/blockchain.

We need Steem at $50 so we can all quit our jobs...

2021

Posted using Partiko iOS

I can live with that...

Posted using Partiko Android

@jarvie @asgarth
Not sure if you've seen this?

THIS IS EXACTLY what I have been LOOKING FOR!!!!!!!!!!!!

and getting so frustrated when coming up to wall after wall after wall........and big bucks to do what I want.

THANK YOU for bringing this out in the open!

Yeah thanks for pointing that out! I'm actually on Busy right now and @generalandrews stream is displayed... on my own post at the top.

So basically, the most important aspect is creating the feedback loop where a script runs on the streamer's broadcast after they get upvoted on Steem.

Shouldn't be too hard to implement with a browser source layer in the streamers OBS setup and a webserver running a script polling the blockchain for votes. That's how it was done on dlive (and probably vimm now). All of these things are doable, it's just not as user friendly as it is on twitch yet.

We can bypass twitch's "don't broadcast elsewhere" rule by only using twitch, then embedding the twitch stream in a post and using the OBS browser overlay to show extra steem vote & transfer notifications. No need to send anything steem related via twitch API :)

Another idea could be custom Steem animations that can be triggered by a Steem upvote (although with those sometimes going into the dozens or hundreds, there might need to be a minimum value) that does a short in Twitch Steem plug.

vimm.chat :)

I want to see this happen, it's obviously a no-brainer.

I'm streaming tonight on Twitch, same username, and going to talk about Steem and cryptocurrency.
Thanks for writing this article. I wouldn't have shifted over to Twitch if you hadn't, but I think you have some great thoughts here.
Let me know if you find a dev and want some extra help with SP delegation or getting the word out.

Much appreciated! I would never turn up my nose to a delegation, but I have quite a few projects and ideas I'm interested in, and I could never guarantee that I would spend all my time trying to connect the Steem API to the Twitch API.

I've got plans to create a couple games, a content filter, a decentralized exchange, and a reputation/review system that connects to everything I make.

I'm spread very thin; still trying to learn the basics of JavaScript and the Steem API.

Sure thing.

Since you're here, and I'm going live in about 30 minutes, did your post say I can embed that in my steem post? Cause if so I'm going to do that once I go live and then I can point out the Steem upvotes as they come in to people watching.

If anyone watches. :-D

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Good one. Someone take action.

Posted using Partiko iOS

Great point!

Posted using Partiko Android

Good to know! I actually multi-stream to twitch already! vimm.chat compiles the chat from vimm, dlive, and twitch! Interesting none-the-less, and I look forward to looking more into this.