Twitch just got a lot more social.
On Monday, the Amazon-owned video-game streaming company rolled out a new social media tool called Pulse. The feature allows users to post messages, photo and video for the friends and followers. Other streamers can comment or react to your posts. It essentially mimics Facebook, but on Twitch’s platform.
Unlike Facebook, posts will appear chronologically, at least for now. In a blog post announcing Pulse, the company said it’s working on an algorithm to discover content based off your interests.
“Our goal is to connect viewers with the content that they’re most likely interested in,” Twitch spokesperson Sheila Raju wrote in a blog post. “Going forward, we will be working to determine the best way of surfacing posts to do just that.”
Pulse plays off of Twitch’s Channel Feed, which launched as a beta in December and will roll out to everyone later this month. Rather than just being visible on a streamer’s channel, however, Pulse will appear on the front page of Twitch. Posts from Channel Feed will be also be integrated into Pulse.
The idea, Raju said in her post, is to allow streamers to reach more people with their posts.
“This will allow you to not only interact with followers and viewers you regularly engage with, but also with those who might not visit your channel page as frequently,” Raju wrote.
While streamers can share content via their Channel Feed or Broadcaster Dashboard, viewers can also post from the front page. For now, Pulse supports media content from Twitch, Vimeo, YouTube, Imgur and Gyfcat, but there are plans to expand this in the future.
Monday’s announcement appears to be part of a series of changes Twitch is making to its platform this spring. Last week, Twitch announced it was adding an e-commerce element where viewers can purchase games directly from the site via an Amazon account.
Pulse is the company first real venture into social media, but the company has been fiddling with Twitch’s social scope for the last several months. In addition to Channel Feed, Twitch rolled out IRL in December. The platform is designed for people to share real life experiences rather than video games.
Pulse could attract more users Twitch by making it look more like Facebook or Twitter, but, with 10 million daily active users, it still has a long way to go before it can compete with the social media giants.
