ChangeTip Donates $10,000 USD To Twitch Streamers
Following the recent introduction of ChangeTips API, an independant developer has integrated the tipping service with Twitch.TV. ChangeTip has provided the funds to show support, and drive adoption.
ChangeTip, the social media tipping platform, announced in a press release last week that a Twitch Tipping Bot has been launched for tipping on Twitch.TV, a social platform for gamers. “Fans chat while watching their favorite gamers make their way through virtual worlds, and we think ChangeTip is a perfect fit for showing appreciation on this platform.” stated the announcement.
“With its unveiling, both gaming fans and professional gamers themselves are able to tip their favorite streamer in the chat box,”
— – ChangeTip
Vice President of Product for ChangeTip, Dan Held, explains that ChangeTip formed when Nick Sullivan came across a Bitcoin tip bot on the popular website Reddit. He was delighted with the functionality and wanted to expand on the idea.
ChangeTip can be used with many social platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and recently Disqus. The Disqus network alone reaches 1.6 Billion unique visitors, and 3 million discussions communities a week. Tips are displayed as (Bitcoin/ US Dollar), or can use a moniker which represents a static dollar value.
“Monikers are like tags. They are just words that represent an amount of money. For example: 1 beer, 2 coffees, or five donuts. It’s really fun to create your own monikers. You can even assign a value to phrases, like ‘thank you’, ‘cool story, bro!’ or ‘This is awesome!’.”
— – ChangeTip
Held explains that ChangeTip enables users to express how they feel in a wider variety of ways by tipping a value. “A favorite or like button is a binary decision: yes or no. Tipping enables users to express exactly how they feel. And with that, we’ve now financially connected the audience directly with their favorite content creator,” said Held.
Held believes that the interaction between the streamer and their followers is very close, and ChangeTip hopes to enhance these relationships with tipping. Choosing Twitch came easily to the team at ChangeTip. “We’ve been working closely with Steve Mance, the developer who created our Twitch.tv tip bot for over a month,” said Held. “Twitch.tv is an important new social media channel that opens up tipping to a new type of audience. We think every new social media channel we add enhances the overall value of the ChangeTip network,” said Held
“Twitch is the world’s leading live video platform and community for gamers with more than 100 million unique viewers per month. We want to connect gamers around the world by allowing them to broadcast, watch, and chat from everywhere they play.”
— – Twitch.TV
Twith.tv began as a spin off from the general interest streaming platform Justin.tv in 2011. The popularity of Twitch.tv overshadowed Justin.tv, which subsequently shut down in August 2014. In a report supplied by DeepField, Twitch was recorded in the week of 3 February as the 4th largest platform in terms of peak internet traffic. Their live chat system, TMI, regularly delivers over 1 million messages and according to Twitch, that number is growing.
Streamers and followers on Twitch.tv will now be able to use this unique technology, enabled by ChangeTip, to show appreciation in a new way – with in the live chat. According to ChangeTip, Twitch integration was implemented by an independent developer using ChangeTip’s new API, and not a member of the ChangeTip team. According to ChangeTips CEO Nick Sullivan, “Our API enables community members to craft the tools they want to see in use. This bot allows fans to connect with their favorite players in a new way.”
“We are excited to see development work like this come from our community,”
— – Sullivan
In order to attract the gaming community to ChangeTip, and learning about Bitcoin, ChangeTip will be giving away $10,000 USD. This will be portioned out amongst a select group of popular streaming gamers, to tip their followers. This demonstration, for the Twitch.tv community, will show the possibilities of Bitcoin and Blockchain technology.
According to Held, until ChangeTip the only way to monetize content was by advertising or selling user data. “With micropayments, ChangeTip has the opportunity to refine the way the Internet is monetized. ChangeTip enables a direct financial connection between content creators and their audience. Now, the audience can directly fund their favorite content creators in unique and engaging ways,” said Held
The big picture of ChangeTip is to enable a truly global economy. “We believe micropayments are a great use case for Bitcoin technology. By showing what can be done today that can’t be done by existing payment channels, we will work together to drive the mass consumer adoption of Bitcoin, and educate and empower people to understand and use their money along the way.” said Held
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