
Revlo (YC S16) is a fan-engagement platform for Twitch broadcasters - katm
http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/05/revlo/
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aresant
If I was a PM at instagram, vine, twitter, youtube, etc I would be circulating
this article / Revlo to every person in my org - you guys just hit the nail on
the head.

Perfectly timed to capitalize on the brewing discontent of content creators
who get LOW quality support for these kind of engagement tools @ platform
level.

And nice balance of gamification & engagement for end-users that I can see
working, leading into nice sponsorship revenue models, etc.

I'm impressed.

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cahoodle
Hey everyone! James here, one of the founders at Revlo. Happy to answer any
questions/discuss feedback for our product.

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swanson
Some tough questions because I think you can handle them :)

\---

What happens if/when Twitch builds these tools into their app? (if possible,
don't answer with "we hope they acquire us")

Per your website, it's "100% free" \-- how do you make money? My hunch is that
Twitch streamer viewership has a long-tail -- some tent-pole users (might pay
for tools) and then tons of small <100 viewer amateurs (will never pay for
tools).

What, if any, steps are you taking to ensure that the viewer engagement is
real and not people idling in chatrooms for hours on end to 'farm' points? The
value proposition to stream advertisers could be hurt if the numbers are
inflated by 'zombie' users.

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cahoodle
Hey Swanson! Thumb typing here so please excuse typos and etc.

re: Twitch, Most of these streamers interact with their communities and build
fan-bases through multiple platforms, Discord, Twitch, Twitter, Youtube, our
goal is to link these communities together and encourage interaction in all of
them.

Re: monetization, We wouldn't ask the streamers or viewers to pay for the
product. Our integration into content creates a lot of native ads
opportunities that are a lot less disruptive to the audience. We have had good
interest from brands and will be experimenting with them soon.

re: farming. It's honestly something that we haven't found a really good
solution to yet. It's the same issue in television where you never know if
someone is passively watching or just not there. We built in features like
contests and bonus points system for things for trivia so that active viewers
are rewarded with more points. Combined with quantity limits and periodic
resets, this has been a solution on a couple of channels. We are looking into
more ways to do it better with less effort from a streamers side, open to any
suggestions you may have!

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DanFeldman
Super interesting and incredibly niche. The quality of twitch channels is
vastly influenced by the tools employed in them. The production behind popular
channels is extremely impressive, it makes sense that these tools are popping
up. Watching streamers evolve over the last few years (especially with League
of Legends streamers), the interactions users are expecting are getting more
and more complex. Things like automated raffles, twitchbots with 'minigames'
that earn users points, and donation messages make a huge impact on viewer
engagement and thus a direct boon to the streamers bottom line.

Good luck Revlo, excited see these in action.

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JoshTriplett
> The quality of twitch channels is vastly influenced by the tools employed in
> them. The production behind popular channels is extremely impressive, it
> makes sense that these tools are popping up.

This is incredibly true: custom OBS plugins, custom graphics and animations,
automatic triggers based on donations and subscriptions, game event
integration, run timing, and especially tools that make it easy for streamers
to engage without being distracted. Standing out on Twitch is about the
streamer and their channel, not just the game they're playing; very few
popular channels are just a game or game and facecam anymore.

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overcast
Interesting product, and well done. My first thought with anything involving
virtual currency, and gaming apps. Is the risk of botting, scamming, and
straight up theft. Someone is always going to ruin it for everyone else,
if/once this gets big enough.

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swanson
Note to themacro editors: it was hard to find the link to the company (it's on
the sidebar). I was expecting it to appear in the body content or the
headline.

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katm
Good catch - thanks!

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swanson
Looks like a link has been added in the body, thanks if that was you :)

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mrmch
Congrats to the Revlo team, awesome to see more Canadians doing great things
w/ YC :)

