As Twitch grows, they continue to innovate ways for improving discoverability on the website. This month, they’ve added Tags, a feature that will increase the scope in which a streamer can be discovered, and have improved Catagories such as IRL to better define what the stream is about.

Tags are sort of like hashtags on Instagram or Twitter. If you’re looking for a game, a specific hero, a challenge, or just someone doing a competitive game, Tags will help you in finding these. The streamer can set up to five tags directly from the Live Dashboard and they will appear alongside the stream title, video thumbnail, and anytime the video is seen on Twitch. It’s a great way to give someone an idea what your stream is all about before someone clicks on it.

Tags can also help with recommendations. If you’re a lover for “Overwatch” then more Overwatch streams will be recommended for you. If you just can’t get enough of the “Competitive” scene, more Competitive streams will be recommended for you. It’s a system that hopes to open up discoverability more for streamers.

In recent years, the IRL and Creative channels have blown up! To help define exactly what a streamer is doing, these two categories are being expanded into 10 areas on to better define the streams. These include:

• Art
• Makers and Crafting
• Food and Drink
• Music and Performing Arts
• Beauty and Body Art
• Science and Technology
• Just Chatting
• Travel and Outdoors
• Sports and Fitness
• Tabletop RPGs
• Special Events
• Talk Shows and Podcasts
• ASMR

Definitions for all of these can be found HERE. Defining these categories will help to define the exact content that will appear in the stream and group similar interests in a similar category.

In introducing Tags and these Catagories and moving away from Communities, Twitch hopes to open the door for more streamers to be seen.