My notes on the talk: When the Void Shouts Back: Broadcasters and Digital Communities at Scale

by Cheryl Platz

Principal Designer at Microsoft, working on the future of AI authoring tools as a Design Lead

Founder, Ideaplatz, Design Instruction for individuals and corporate training

  • She describes her work as livestreaming media driven asymmetrical interaction
  • Twitch and Youtube are big but Youtube is not as good at community
  • Twitch is smaller, more gamers, and healthy communities
  • Different levels of engagement from streamers to mods and managers, contributors, chatters, and watchers
  • Chat driven interaction is easy and fast but easily trolled and doesn’t scale
  • Richer interaction is possible through events like when a user subscribes through tips, donations, submissions, or subscriptions and can be revenue drivers
  • Can be lags however, it is rarely real time
  • Shadowrun was a 3-hour live game that could be watched on video or on demand
  • You could pay to buy dice to give to your favorite character and then the character could decide when to use the dice
  • Round the clock interactivity, they gave the characters twitter accounts and there were ones the viewers created
  • The audience dictated where the narrative could go
  • Users created artwork and they had a corresponding wiki
  • They created a clearly stated code of conduct
  • The sense of immediacy and making connections beyond graphic boundaries
  • You have the ability to create a safe community including people with depression, social anxiety, and those who cannot leave their homes