Hey guys,
I'm contacting the major pinball fora to suggest utilising the Twitch.Tv API to list pinball streams, to make pinball streams more accessible for 'pinheads' and to help those streams grow and expose pinball to more newbies.
Copy of initial message to Pside - I messaged them via contact, as I felt that would be better than getting caught or buried in the usual storm of circle jerks on there.
Also, hello as I'm new.
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Now that pinball streaming (on Twitch.tv) is becoming more of a thing, with more and more people wanting to do it, have you considered adding a pinball streams header or bar showing broadcasting streams on the site? I know there is a thread, but that doesn't do all that much. It'd help:
- expose more 'pinheads' to pinball streaming
- help the pinball streamers grow their viewership and consequently with higher viewership expose pinball to more Twitch viewers (mostly gamers), as channels are ranked and displayed according to number of viewers. Also, higher consistent viewerships help streamers get a 'partnership' making them more visible on the site, granting them other perks and allowing them to monetise the stream - bringing more viewers and allowing them to improve the stream.
The Twitch API would allow you to not only list said streams, but show viewers and embed the video on your site (so that people didn't have to leave the site itself). Further, as streams on Twitch are categorised by topic, using the API you could ensure that the streams only showed up as broadcasting on this site when they were streaming pinball. Lethal Frag, for example, streams to 2-5k viewers, but only streams pinball (play and maintenance) about once a week ... so you wouldn't have to list streamers who stream pinball (not necessarily exclusively), you could list pinball strems currently online, or list pinball streamers but only show them as online when streaming pinball. Lethal Frag's core viewership is of course due to games, but due to that core viewership, many people have been exposed to pinball who likely never would have seen, known, played or had the slightest interest in it otherwise. In helping some of the (smaller) streamers with a core pinball audience (Dead Flip is a good example - Jack, the guy who's hosted a few Stern streams) their viewerships would increase, they'd feature on the front page more often, and more people (particularly young gamers) would develop an interest in pinball. There are an increasing number of very small pinball streams, but they really struggle to get noticed, despite a number of them being great - I really like Stashkid and Owlnonymous for example.
Either way, I think it could really help pinball, pinball streaming and this site itself out.
Hoping you'll do it if you're not already considering or implementing it!
P.S. I myself got (back) into pinball because I happened upon Dead Flip's channel.
I'm contacting the major pinball fora to suggest utilising the Twitch.Tv API to list pinball streams, to make pinball streams more accessible for 'pinheads' and to help those streams grow and expose pinball to more newbies.
Copy of initial message to Pside - I messaged them via contact, as I felt that would be better than getting caught or buried in the usual storm of circle jerks on there.
Also, hello as I'm new.
-----------
Now that pinball streaming (on Twitch.tv) is becoming more of a thing, with more and more people wanting to do it, have you considered adding a pinball streams header or bar showing broadcasting streams on the site? I know there is a thread, but that doesn't do all that much. It'd help:
- expose more 'pinheads' to pinball streaming
- help the pinball streamers grow their viewership and consequently with higher viewership expose pinball to more Twitch viewers (mostly gamers), as channels are ranked and displayed according to number of viewers. Also, higher consistent viewerships help streamers get a 'partnership' making them more visible on the site, granting them other perks and allowing them to monetise the stream - bringing more viewers and allowing them to improve the stream.
The Twitch API would allow you to not only list said streams, but show viewers and embed the video on your site (so that people didn't have to leave the site itself). Further, as streams on Twitch are categorised by topic, using the API you could ensure that the streams only showed up as broadcasting on this site when they were streaming pinball. Lethal Frag, for example, streams to 2-5k viewers, but only streams pinball (play and maintenance) about once a week ... so you wouldn't have to list streamers who stream pinball (not necessarily exclusively), you could list pinball strems currently online, or list pinball streamers but only show them as online when streaming pinball. Lethal Frag's core viewership is of course due to games, but due to that core viewership, many people have been exposed to pinball who likely never would have seen, known, played or had the slightest interest in it otherwise. In helping some of the (smaller) streamers with a core pinball audience (Dead Flip is a good example - Jack, the guy who's hosted a few Stern streams) their viewerships would increase, they'd feature on the front page more often, and more people (particularly young gamers) would develop an interest in pinball. There are an increasing number of very small pinball streams, but they really struggle to get noticed, despite a number of them being great - I really like Stashkid and Owlnonymous for example.
Either way, I think it could really help pinball, pinball streaming and this site itself out.
Hoping you'll do it if you're not already considering or implementing it!
P.S. I myself got (back) into pinball because I happened upon Dead Flip's channel.
