Drop Ins Make Collaborating Quick and Easy
For anyone who has watched me stream, you know that one of things I enjoy most is collaborating with other streamers. Collaboration can happen anytime, anywhere — whether I’m at home and we are just chatting together or I’m out on the road doing IRL streams with other creators. The reason I enjoy it is simple: it’s fun and it creates entertaining content.
I spend a great deal of time talking to streamers and I consistently hear that collaboration has been critical to their success on Twitch. However, planning a collaboration can be challenging. First you need to reach out to someone to see if they want to collaborate and then you need to find a time that works for both of you. For longer collaborations, this might be worth the effort, but for short collaborations there is sometimes too much overhead to make it feel worthwhile. Also, part of the magic of Twitch is that it is improvisational and you simply don’t know what you are going to get. You don’t want to have to plan out everything that you are going to do.
So, I am excited to announce the launch of the Drop Ins feature for Stream Together. This feature is designed to make it easier for people to just “drop in” on each other while they are streaming.
Let me first quickly describe how it works at a high level. When you are streaming, you can look at your Followed Channels list or go to another streamer’s channel page to see if they are available to collaborate with you.
If they are, you’ll see a collaboration icon that allows you to simply “knock” on their door. That streamer will then get a notification in chat that only they will see. If the streamer is free and they want to collaborate, they can let you in, and just like that, you two are streaming together. The audio connection uses your desktop audio and you can easily set up video in OBS or other streaming software. You can also preconfigure your video setup ahead of time so you’re ready to drop in at a moment’s notice.
Drop Ins work with multiple streamers at once. Once you’ve started a collaboration, other streamers in your network will see the collaboration icon and can knock on your door to join. You may also find other streamers you want to drop in on and add to your stream. Before you know it, it’s a party. No advanced planning needed.
Now, let me talk about some of the features we included to make sure you are in control of the experience.
Only people who are actively live streaming can knock and request to collaborate. Viewers cannot drop in on you.
You control who can knock on your door. You can set your preferences to All Streamers, Affiliates and Partners, Partners only, People you Follow or your Favorites list. We have selected defaults, but it is easy to change these settings from the Collaboration panel in Stream Manager.
You can pause this feature on any stream if you don’t want to be interrupted.
Knocks are private. Your viewers will not see when another streamer requests to collaborate with you until you accept.
So, let’s talk about how you might use this. The simplest way is to drop in on friends who are live for one-on-one collaborations if you are looking for something fun to do. Maybe drop in on someone right before you raid them and hang out for 10 or 15 minutes. You also can have Drop In parties where you get a small group of friends that are streaming at the same time together. But you also could plan a Drop In stream where you actively look for collaborators. One of my favorite streams was when I went into Will Neff’s chat and got him to join me using Stream Together and then we went and got T-Pain to join us. Before long we had WakeWilder, Thugshells, Will Neff, Low Tier God and others all hanging out together on stream. Larger streamers might decide to drop in on their community members or smaller streamers playing their favorite games to give them some tips or simply to support their stream.
I’ll be doing a number of streams where I drop in on various Twitch streamers to chat with them and learn more about their communities. If you are interested, check out my X account where I have posted a link for people to give me information about when they stream.
For a detailed walkthrough of how to drop in on another stream, or to find more info on getting started check out our help page. As always, we value your feedback and I invite you to share it with us via Uservoice.
FAQ
What happens when I click the ‘Knock’ button?
When you click ‘Knock’ a private request will be sent to the streamer you have selected. They will then be able to preview your stream, accept, or decline.
What happens when I accept a knock?
When you accept a knock, the requesting streamer will be prompted to start an audio-only call with you. You can then choose to add video with a few additional steps detailed here.
What do I need to connect over audio?
Just ensure you have desktop audio capture enabled in your streaming software and call audio will come through the moment you accept an invite and join.
I understand it’s easier than ever to connect with audio, but how do I add video when dropping in?
You can easily add video and show your collaboration on your stream by setting up a browser source. For step by step instructions on getting setup with both video and browser sources check out our help article.
I’m open to collaborating but worried about being interrupted at a bad time, what can I do?
When someone knocks, you can preview the streamer, accept, or decline the request. You can also proactively pause requests within Stream Manager if you know you don’t want to collaborate during a given stream.
I am not interested in collaborating, how do I turn this off?
If you are not interested in collaborating, you can “Pause Requests” in the new Collaboration panel in Stream Manager. You can update this setting at any time before or during your stream.
I only want my friends to be able to request to collaborate with me, what can I do?
If you want to limit who can knock, you can add specific streamers to your Favorites and set your Permissions to Favorites Only from the new Collaboration panel in Stream Manager.
Dan Clancy, Twitch CEO