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