Twitch for Musicians Second Edition. Karen Allen

       Participating in the Stream

      While you’re watching a stream, try participating.

      Chatting Most channels are set so that anyone can chat. The bigger ones sometimes require a follow or a minimum amount of time after following before chatting. Be sure to read the Chat Rules on the streamer’s Channel Page, if they have any listed.

      Making a Donation There is another way, outside of Twitch, to give money to a streamer. Streamlabs and StreamElements are two companies that will process monetary donations through Paypal or a credit card and use a chatbot or an alert to notify the streamer in real time that a donation has been made. Neither company takes a percentage of the donation. Paypal and the credit card processor charge their normal fees.

      Because no percentage is taken from the donation and the streamer doesn’t need to be an Affiliate or Partner to use this form of donation, lots of streamers use this.

      Donating will take you off Twitch and onto the Streamlabs site (streamlabs.com/twitchchannelname) or the StreamElements site (streamelements.com/twitchchannelname) and then to Paypal or a credit card to process, so it’s not as friction-free as donating money using Bits and Cheermotes.

      Look at the streamer’s Panels to see how they prefer to take donations. You could try entering the chat command “!donate” to see if the chatbot will return a message with a donation link.

      Friending and Whispering to Other Users You can click on a user’s name in the chat and get a pop-up window to see when they joined Twitch, get a link to their Channel Page, gift them a subscription to a channel you’re both watching, friend them, and to whisper to them.

      Friending is not particularly popular on Twitch, probably because there’s no newsfeed to see what your friends are up to or any other way to meaningfully interact with them.

      Whispering means having a private, off-chat conversation. Start a whisper by clicking the user’s name in the chat, then click Whisper. A private chat box will open at the bottom of your screen. If you get a whisper from someone, a notification will appear in the message icon at the bottom of your screen. Click the message icon to open the chat.