Live-stream tonight’s dinner on Twitch; Social Eating is now a ‘thing’

By Dave Palmer July 3, 2016

twitch introduces social eating category socialeating — Screen Shot of Twitch's new Social Eating Category Twitch

Twitch, a social video platform and community primarily for gamers announced that it is experimenting with Social Eating. Yes, you read that correctly. If you did not know that was a thing, you would not be alone. This Twitch category and community for interaction while eating is a new concept, but apparently a highly requested one from Twitch users.

In the U.S., Twitch is used primarily to live stream gaming, while other platforms are used to stream social subjects. Twitch, however, has a lesser-known category called Twitch’s Creative where broadcasters demonstrate cooking techniques and share recipes, among other things. Combine that with the fact that South Korean users love watching people eat live and campaigned for a Twitch social eating category, and you now have access to Twitch’s Social Eating category.

Raiford Cockfield, Director, APAC at Twitch said, “Twitch is a firm believer in letting the community’s interests dictate the direction of our platforms content. In the case of Social Eating, we were getting a lot of demand from our Korean users given how this is a huge cultural phenomenon in their part of the world … while it is definitely a unique request, the Twitch community is nothing if not unique, and we support their passion and interests.”

It will be interesting to see if the Social Eating idea takes off outside of South Korea. Either way, Twitch will likely still be the social video platform and community leader for gamers. Twitch has more than 100 million gamers watch and discuss more than 1.7 million broadcasters. Ultimately with that much traffic, Social Eating will not hurt, but may serve to attract more users, if nowhere else, in South Korea.

In addition to streaming video games, Twitch serves as an on-demand distribution network for developers, publishers, media outlets, events, user generated content, and e-sports.

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