Twitch released a small but powerful product update on Thursday, introducing a new tool that lets streamers create and share short, vertical video clips in seconds.
The new clip editor is accessible through the clips manager in the creator dashboard. Clicking on “edit and share clip” opens a slick editing tool, which simplifies things. You can choose a split view that takes two rectangular parts of a clip at once (the game stream and the camera, usually) or keep it streamlined with a full vertical snippet from the clip. Another option is a toggle for including your channel name, which is placed at the top of the clip.
Within the clip editor, Twitch offers direct integration for social sharing with YouTube Shorts. Direct sharing of TikTok or Instagram Reels is not supported at the moment – and it is easy to do manually – but Twitch plans to add more integrations in the future.
“We are committed to helping streamers grow and this is just one piece of our larger strategy to help streamers find new audiences while facilitating the promotion of their content and except for Twitch,” the company said in the update.
Twitch streamers will likely be relieved that a workflow that once sent them to third-party tools like StreamLadder is now done on the platform itself. The feature update finally makes Twitch feel more connected to the wider social media ecosystem, a boon for a platform that plays well with others and one for streamers who rely on cross- promotion to build their audience.
Unlike other social media platforms that have suffered years of identity crisis (looking at you, Instagram), Twitch has long been single-minded about its core product: long-form livestreaming. . Twitch’s new embrace of vertical, short-form video is a small thing, but it’s easy to imagine how the company could further leverage clips to help new streamers get discovered.
Twitch’s emphasis on livestreaming is a double-edged sword. Discovery remains a pain point on the platform – and one that keeps creators busy with streaming schedules, encouraging more live time than anything else. But the company’s leadership seems well aware of that fact, knowing that keeping streaming sustainable in the long haul is one of the biggest challenges facing the platform today.
Even with its laser-focus on livestreaming, there’s nothing stopping Twitch from getting creative with short-form video to solve some of its discovery problems. For now, the new clip editor is just a practical solution for overworked creators, but Twitch could be smart to turn it into something bigger down the road.