Twitch Rolls Out New 'Cheering' Platform To Tip Streamers

(RTTNews) - Live-streaming video platform Twitch has introduced an animated way to show support for your favorite streamers.

The company has introduced the beta of a new feature called "Cheering," which enables a viewer to buy animated chat emotes and post them in Twitch chat to show their support to streamers as well as financially compensate them.

The animated chat emotes can be purchased with real money. A viewer can buy cheers using a new form of currency called "bits," which is available today. 100 bits can be purchased for $1.40 via Amazon Payments. Twitch is a subsidiary of Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN).

Bit emotes can be used anywhere in a chat message by typing the word "cheer" followed by a number. This will cause a colorful, shape-changing emote to appear alongside the viewer's message.

A higher number will create a larger and more elaborate emote. "Cheer1" will be small and generate a grey bouncing triangle, while "Cheer100" will bring up a dancing purple diamond. The biggest emote, 10,000 bits, is a giant red star.

Bits emotes can be used one by one, all at once, or anywhere in between. Using many bits emotes at once shows more support and creates cooler emotes.

"Cheering shows your support for the partner just like subscriptions do, and as you Cheer in a channel, you earn Cheer Chat Badges for that channel so that your support is recognized," Twitch said in a blog post.

The company said that eligible partnered broadcasters will receive a share of the revenue from Bits used to cheer for them.

While the feature is in limited beta now, Twitch said it is looking forward to make it more widely available as soon as it is ready.