Tag Archives: plans

World

Japan plans to extend its state of emergency as Covid-19 cases rise and Olympics loom

Leave a comment

The move comes as questions persist over the country’s readiness to host the Olympics, which are scheduled to be held in Tokyo this summer from July 23 to August 8.

Eleven of Japan’s 47 prefectures are currently under a state of emergency that orders companies to facilitate work from home where possible, and requires restaurants to close by 8 p.m. Sports and entertainment events in Japan are also required to limit the number of attendees.

Suga told Japan’s Parliament Tuesday that he plans to extend the state of emergency — which is set to expire Sunday — until March 7 for 10 of the prefectures. The state of emergency is set to be lifted for one prefecture, he said.

That decision still needs to be finalized by the government’s coronavirus task force, and Suga is expected to hold a press conference Tuesday night over the state of emergency rules.

Japan’s Health Ministry on Monday reported 1,792 new coronavirus cases and 72 additional deaths, bringing the country’s total cases to more than 392,000 and more than 5,800 dead. Almost 50,000 Covid-19 patients are in need of hospital-level medical care as of Monday.

Around one third of confirmed cases are in the capital Tokyo, which on Monday reported fewer than 500 new case for the first time since December 28.

As the country struggles with its current spike, partly brought on by freezing winter temperatures, it is also grappling with mixed messages and coronavirus fatigue, having been among the earliest hit by the pandemic.

Unlike a number of other countries which have introduced lockdowns and social distancing measures, Japan lacks much in the way of legal powers to force compliance with the government’s orders.

Suga has been criticized for what has been perceived as his reluctance to take action to combat the spread of the virus. Kenji Shibuya, director of the Institute for Population Health at King’s College London said in January that Japan’s response is “too slow and confusing.”

“On one hand they encouraged domestic travel and eating out, on the other they just asked people to take caution,” Shibuya said. “The government is basically asking people voluntarily to behave properly, but does not do more than that.”

Read original article here

World

UK school principal plans to come out to pupils, staff during online assembly

Leave a comment

The principal of an exclusive private school plans to make history in the UK by coming out as gay during an online assembly.

Nicholas Hewlett, the head of the $25,000-a-year St. Dunstan’s College in Catford, southeast London, told the Sunday Times of London that he plans to discuss his sexuality and marriage to another teacher during an assembly Monday.

It is thought to be the first time a principal will come out in front of his pupils and staff in the UK, the paper said.

PEOPLE WITH UK CORONAVIRUS VARIANT MORE LIKELY TO REPORT THESE SYMPTOMS: SURVEY

Hewlett, 41, said he was inspired by a pupil who recently discussed how comfortable they were being gay.

“I was so blown away by the courage of him that something flipped in my head,” he told the UK paper.

“I thought then of my own situation and thought: ‘This is ridiculous.’ Here I am as a happily married gay man, and the children do not know that at school.

“There will be kids who are struggling with their own sexuality and who would benefit from knowing that you can be happy and gay, and I have a privileged position to show them that.

“I felt that I owed it to the pupils to be open and courageous too. I am inspired by them,” he told the UK Times.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Hewlett heralded the “astronomically different times,” noting that not too long ago it would have been “virtually impossible for me to become a [principal].”

“One forgets how quickly things have moved on — the difference is astonishing,” he said, while noting there are still “very, very few openly gay” principals in the country.

He expects to be emotional, especially as he discusses his marriage to Alberic Elsom, the director of music at the independent Whitgift School in nearby Croydon, in a civil ceremony in 2014.

“I am glad I am coming out in an online assembly. If I were delivering it from the stage, who knows if I might cry,” he told the UK Times.

Read original article here

Sports

Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes tells Dan Patrick his plans for future home

Leave a comment

CLOSE

SportsPulse: We could see unprecedented movement at the quarterback position this offseason in the NFL. Here’s were we see the top rookie QBs landing in our latest mock draft.

USA TODAY

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said he bought “a plot of land” for a future home near Kansas City during a wide-ranging interview Thursday on “The Dan Patrick Show” ahead of his team’s Super Bowl 55 matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

Mahomes, who agreed to a 10-year extension with the Chiefs in July that is worth up to $503 million, told Patrick he’s planning some epic amenities. 

“I’m going to have a half football field so I can get some work in with some guys out there,” Mahomes said.

And he joked about his basketball plans: “I’ll have a basketball court. But don’t tell (Kansas City general manager) Brett Veach. That’s not for me, that’s for the kids.” 

In 2019, Mahomes was seen playing basketball at a rec center, raising concern about a potential offseason injury. Veach called Mahomes’ agent, Leigh Steinberg, right after he saw footage of the pick-up game and called it a “big no-no.” 

In the interview with Patrick, Mahomes said he thought early on that the NBA would come calling, rather than the NFL. 

“I was a big basketball player,” he said. “I thought I was going to be a basketball player growing up. I was a taller kid. I played point guard, freshman year of high school, never grew again. How I played, wasn’t going to be in the NBA. When I was younger, I was all about Allen Iverson. I didn’t have the quickness, but I had some moves out there.”

Mahomes added that he didn’t envision ever playing against Bucs QB Tom Brady in a Super Bowl.

RATE THE COMMERCIALS: Help us pick the best and vote on all the ads during the big game!

“I didn’t know he’d be on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I’ll tell you that,” Mahomes said. “… It’s special. I’ve had a great start to the career, but it’s because I’m in a great organization with great people around me. I just try to take advantage of all the opportunity I’ve been given and do whatever I can for another Super Bowl ring.”

Autoplay

Show Thumbnails

Show Captions

Last SlideNext Slide

Read original article here

World

McCarthy and Trump discuss Republicans plans to take back House majority at Florida meeting Thursday

Leave a comment

“They discussed many topics, number one of which was taking back the House in 2022,” the statement read. “President Trump’s popularity has never been stronger than it is today, and his endorsement means more than perhaps any endorsement at any time.”

The statement described the meeting as “cordial” and highlighted a stronger than expected performance among key House GOP candidates, though Democrats maintained their House majority with a slimmer margin.

McCarthy’s visit comes at a tumultuous time for the Republican Party, following Trump’s role ahead of the January 6 deadly riot storming the Capitol that led to Trump’s second impeachment just days before he left office. Ten House Republicans voted to impeach Trump and the Senate is expected to pick up the former president’s trial next month. Still, all but five Republican senators voted earlier this week that such a trial was not constitutional, outlining just some of the divides in the party, as Democrats now control the legislative and executive branches.

CNN reported earlier Thursday that two sources told CNN that some people warned McCarthy not to go see Trump. A source familiar with the matter said it made McCarthy look weak. Another source close to McCarthy told CNN that the California Republican was told that he would look like he was “crawling back to Trump,” and that it would further isolate him from mainstream donors who want to move away from Trump.

McCarthy was also in Florida fundraising as the House is out this week.

This story is breaking and will be updated.

CNN’s Dana Bash contributed to this report.

Read original article here

Business

GM plans to exclusively sell electric vehicles by 2035

Leave a comment

The new goal comes alongside recent and upcoming EV introductions, including the Hummer EV poster child, new Chevy Bolts and the Cadillac Celestiq. GM so far intends to offer 30 new EVs by 2025, and hopes that most or all Cadillacs will be electric by 2030.

GM has backed electric transportation for a while, but critics have accused it of shifting its focus depending on who runs the US. It supported the Trump administration’s lawsuit attempting to strip California of its power to set independent fuel emissions rules, but backed out shortly after Joe Biden’s election win. President Biden signed a series of pro-environment policies just a day before GM’s announcement, including a review of fossil fuel developments — while GM might not have made a snap decision, it clearly knows that combustion engines won’t have many fans at the White House.

The question is whether or not other American automakers will follow suit. Ford and Fiat Chrysler have talked about electrifying their lineups for years, but they have yet to set a cutoff point where EVs are the only options in dealerships. While GM’s announcement may be as much about generating positive press as helping the planet, that might not be a problem if it spurs rivals to follow suit.

Read original article here

Sports

Jason Witten retiring from NFL after 17 seasons, plans to do so with Dallas Cowboys

Leave a comment

FRISCO, Texas — After 17 seasons, Jason Witten is retiring from the NFL. He intends to sign a one-day contract and retire as a member of the Dallas Cowboys in March when his contract with the Las Vegas Raiders expires at the end of the league year.

Witten, 38, played 16 seasons with the Cowboys and spent 2020 with the Raiders. No tight end in NFL history has played more games than Witten’s 271, and only Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez has more receptions and yards at the position.

“A coach once told me, ‘The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example,'” Witten told ESPN. “As I hang it up, I walk away knowing that for 17 seasons I gave it my absolute all. I am proud of my accomplishments as a football player on the field and the example I tried to set off of it. Football is a great game that has taught me many valuable lessons, and I look forward to passing on that knowledge to the next generation.”

Witten first retired after the 2017 season and spent 2018 as an ESPN Monday Night Football analyst but opted to return to the Cowboys in 2019.

A third-round pick in 2003, Witten developed into one of the best tight ends in NFL history. He was named to the Pro Bowl 11 times, tied with Hall of Fame defensive lineman Bob Lilly for the most in Dallas history, and was considered a complete tight end because of his ability as a blocker in addition to his pass-catching. In 2012, he was named the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year winner for the work he and his wife, Michelle, have done with their foundation.

Witten is the Cowboys’ all-time leader in receptions (1,215) and yards (12,977) and is second in touchdown catches (72). He had four 1,000-yard seasons, and in 2012 he set the record for catches in a season by a tight end (110) — a record that has since been broken.

He played in a team-record 255 games, including a franchise-record 245 starts, missing just one game in his career because of a broken jaw as a rookie. He had 13 catches for 69 yards and two touchdowns for the Raiders, but was lauded by coach Jon Gruden and fellow tight end Darren Waller for his mentorship.

Coaching has long been mentioned as a possibility for Witten’s next move. He has been linked to opportunities in the NFL and college levels immediately should he want to start down that path. Undoubtedly he will be inducted into the Cowboys’ Ring of Honor, and he will be eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2026.

Read original article here

Science

NBA plans for private equity investments in teams

Leave a comment

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver addresses the media prior to the game of the Miami Heat against the Los Angeles Lakers in Game one of the 2020 NBA Finals as part of the NBA Restart 2020 on September 30, 2020 at AdventHealth Arena at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida.

Garrett Ellwood | National Basketball Association | Getty Images

Ownership accoutrements.

It’s the phrase National Basketball Association commissioner Adam Silver used in 2019 to help frame the attraction of becoming a sports owner. And Silver suggested the NBA could incentivize those looking to join its club, even on a minority level.  

The NBA’s plan to lure private equity money is in motion, and it’s betting on the allure of owning limited partnerships in its clubs will pay off.

With valuations in clubs rising to astronomical levels, the NBA joined the private equity chase when owners approved a plan to allow investment firms to own stakes in teams. NBA executive J.B. Lockhart is one the individuals who oversees this strategy and the league picked Dyal Capital as its partner.

They way it works: The NBA rounds up stakes in clubs and sells them to private equity firms like Dyal, who can then technically sell the limited partnerships (LPs) to private investors. Last May, Barron’s reported Dyal was seeking to raise $2 billion to purchase the LPs.

Some in the private equity space praise the NBA’s move, and even attempt to connect it to a more global play down the line.

The pros and cons of PE

By turning to private equity, the NBA solicits more capital for its league, can strike quicker deals to assist with liquidity and finance its future endeavors.

Also, NBA valuations are skyrocketing. The average price of a club is now over $2 billion, and its last two franchises (Brooklyn and Utah) sold for an average of $2.45 billion when considering Nets owner Joseph Tsai paid $1 billion for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn in a separate deal.

Hence, the league needed to expend its investor base as even minority stakes are getting expensive.

“This provides the NBA, its member teams, its entire infrastructure with financial optionality,” said Chris Lencheski, the chairman of private equity consulting company Phoenicia and adjunct professor at Columbia University.

Allowing private equity investments will also help minority owners looking to sell and exit ownership groups. On the majority side, owners who want to recover from Covid-19 losses by can sell shares and benefit, too.

Lencheski, who also serves as CEO of Granite Bridge Partners’ Winning Streak Sports, sees the NBA’s global “economic moat” as a draw for investors as there’s unlikely to be any viable competition for high-level professional basketball. Plus the league is backed by global licensing, merchandise, sponsorship and approximately $2.5 billion in annual media rights income, which runs through the 2024-25 season.

But the move is not risk-free.

Addressing the NBA’s ratings slide at the 2019 Sports Business Journal Dealmakers conference, Silver described cable television model as “broken” and added league’s young viewers “are tuning out traditional cable.”

So should its media rights drop in price as cable subscribers continue to cut the cord, valuations could drop and investors can lose money on LPs. One sports banker pointed to 2009 when valuations dropped due to a bad economy as proof the NBA isn’t immune to a decline due to economic turmoil, either.

And few foreseen the abrupt stop to its estimated 40% in revenue due to the pandemic.

But it could have help from the public’s allure.

Anthony Davis #3 of the Los Angeles Lakers shoots the ball against the Miami Heat during Game Four of the NBA Finals on October 6, 2020 at AdventHealth Arena in Orlando, Florida.

Nathaniel S. Butler | National Basketball Association | Getty Images

The SPAC play

Dyal and investment firm Owl Rock merged with Altimar Acquisition Corporation, a $275 million special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) currently trading on the New York Stock Exchange, allowing the combined firms to go public. The new firm is called Blue Owl, and public investors will soon be able to invest in it under the ticker symbol “OWL” on the NYSE later this year.

And one of its attractions will be its NBA fund.

Dyal did not respond to a CNBC request for comment, but managing partner Michael Rees spoke about the firm’s NBA strategy on a Dec. 23 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission call announcing the plan to launch Blue Owl.

“We’re proud to be a partner, an exclusive partner, with the NBA, the National Basketball Association, where we’re the only approved buyer of a portfolio of minority equity stakes in the 30 teams in the NBA,” said Rees, according to the call’s transcript. “That business is just being launched, and we’re hoping to have our first closing in the not-too-distant future.”

“We think we can grow certainly a very attractive basketball strategy off of this platform, but also possibly expand to a broader sports business that could have tremendous upside,” added Rees, who will also serve as one of the co-presidents of Blue Owl.

It’s not clear what Blue Owl’s overall sports strategy is, nor how it expects to make a return on NBA LPs. A person close to their planning told CNBC it would purchase stakes in some clubs, not all 30 teams.

When discussing the NBA’s private equity play, a Wall Street CEO said the firms make no money on fiduciary capital until it sells something. The person requested to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of discussing the matter publicly.

The CEO, who has an extensive history in private equity, also questioned how private firms would make any return on $2 billion. A long-time sports executive, who also requested anonymity, noted NBA teams can redistribute annual profits to new investors.

So, if a private firm is betting on sports teams as a long-term play, it could earn on clubs revenue while holding on to the LPs through dividends. Then, it could sell the LPs at a higher price.

And with the NBA such a global product, billionaires around world looking for an entry point into U.S. sports could be potential consumers of NBA accoutrements.

Paris Saint-Germain’s Qatari president Nasser Al-Khelaifi arrives for a training session at the Luz stadium in Lisbon on August 22, 2020 on the eve of the UEFA Champions League final football match between Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich.

Miguel A. Lopes | AFP | Getty Images

Foreign investment an option?

Private firms can purchase the LPs and then sell them on the secondary market. If the NBA goes the private equity route, there will be guidelines in place, but it will lose some control on who the LPs are sold to.

Foreign investors could be a way for firms to make money on the LPs.

There is chatter that points to Middle East investors as future buyers of the minority shares. The NBA prohibits sovereign state investment in its teams, but investors from Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Qatar have been linked to the league before. In 2010, it was rumored investors were interested in purchasing the Detroit Pistons.

Lencheski added the NBA could also use the private equity investment vehicle to examine individuals who could look to buy majority positions in teams at a later date. The sports executive used Tsai’s entry as an example. He paid Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov $1 billion for a 49% stake in the Brooklyn Nets in 2018 before taking full control.

Lencheski pointed to David Tepper’s entry into the National Football League as another example.

“One of the many factors that certainly helped Charlotte’s ownership in the NFL was the minority interest initially in the Pittsburgh Steelers,” he said. “If David Tepper doesn’t see the way the Steelers organization operates, understands what a best-in-class organization looks like when he goes to his NFL colleagues and says, ‘I want to buy a team,’ he has the funds, but more importantly for the NFL, he understands the culture of a winning community-focused sports organization.”

The NBA appears bullish on its product. Live sports still keeps the cable model from shattering. The league continues to produce international superstars to protect its economic moat — $8.3 billion in revenue. And the NBA’s credit is in good standing.

The NBA’s new focus is expanding the list of those seeking ownership accoutrements via private equity.

“You get some of the benefits of being a team owner,” Silver told SBJ, according to SportsPro. “So it’s not just a pure, ‘What’s my return financial investment?’ Not that that’s not important, but try to come closer to some of the same reasons that traditional franchise owners buy into teams.

“Part of it is financial,” Silver said, “but part of it is the amenities, and the cachet, and the desire to be directly involved with these leagues.”

Read original article here

Technology

Gabe Newell has big plans for brain-computer interfaces in gaming

Leave a comment

Valve co-founder and president Gabe Newell talks about Valve’s exploration of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for gaming and beyond, in an interview with New Zealand’s 1 News. Although Newell admits that the idea of having your brain interface directly with a computer sounds “indistinguishable from science fiction,” he says developers would be making a “silly mistake” if they ignore the area.

Newell says that Valve is currently working with OpenBCI headsets to develop open-source software with the aim of making it easier for developers to understand the signals coming from people’s brains. At its most basic, this could allow software to understand whether a player is enjoying a game, and adjust the experience accordingly. For example, games could turn up the difficulty if they sense a player is getting bored. But Newell’s more ambitious ideas involve actually writing signals to people’s brains, rather than just reading them.

Newell suggests our ability to experience existing games is limited by our physical body — or “meat peripherals” as he puts it. But interfacing directly with a player’s brain could open up a lot more possibilities. “The real world will seem flat, colorless, blurry compared to the experiences you’ll be able to create in people’s brains,” Newell says.

Valve has spoken publicly about its work on brain-computer interfaces before. Back at 2019’s Game Developers Conference, Valve’s principal experimental psychologist, Mike Ambinder gave a talk on the company’s work in the area, VentureBeat reported at the time, covering many of the same possibilities and use cases that Newell outlines in his recent interview.

Beyond their use in gaming, Newell says that BCIs could help with other areas of human life like sleep. “One of the early applications I expect we’ll see is improved sleep — sleep will become an app that you run where you say, ‘Oh, I need this much sleep, I need this much REM,’” he says.

Despite the possibilities, Newell admits that brain-computer interfaces carry their risks. He says that the idea of a BCI making someone feel pain is a “complicated topic,” and adds that the interfaces will be susceptible to viruses like other technologies, suggesting that they’ll need similar safeguards in place.

“Nobody wants to say, ‘Oh, remember Bob? Remember when Bob got hacked by the Russian malware? That sucked — is he still running naked through the forests?’” Newell quips. “People are going to have to have a lot of confidence that these are secure systems that don’t have long-term health risks.”

Regardless, it sounds like Valve doesn’t have any plans to commercialize its research just yet. Newell says that they’re making such rapid progress that any device risks being outdated once it’s gone through the slow process commercialization. “The rate at which we’re learning stuff is so fast,” Newell says.

Other high-profile companies currently exploring brain-computer interfaces include Facebook, which is working on a way to allow users to type with their brains, and Elon Musk’s Neuralink, which is attempting to develop a less-invasive way of connecting a computer to the human brain.

You can check out more of Newell’s thoughts on the potential for brain-computer interfaces in the full write up from 1 News, who he also recently spoke with about Valve’s future game development plans.

Read original article here

Technology

CodeMiko talks reason behind Twitch ban, her approach to streaming, and plans for return stream

Leave a comment

Popular VTuber and Twitch streamer CodeMiko is known for her creative streams that allow viewers to get involved by influencing parts of the broadcast. She uses her setup and virtual character rig to engage with her audience—which averages nearly 8,000 viewers per stream—and fellow content creators through various segments and interviews.

The Technician, or the developer behind Miko and the stream, does all of the coding, engineering, and rigging herself and is always pushing the level of interactivity with the broadcast forward, describing it as “a quasi interactive, RPG.”

The nature of some interviews, however, has led to Twitch banning Miko from the platform, including two short-term suspensions in September 2020. She found herself suspended from the platform yet again when her account was banned on Jan. 19—this time for two weeks. Neither Miko nor Twitch clued the streamer’s audience of nearly 360,000 followers in to what caused the ban.

Following her third ban, Miko spoke with Dot Esports about what led to the suspension, how she approaches content creation, and her future plans, including details about her return stream planned for Feb. 5 at 2pm CT. 

You said you had more details about why your channel was banned and it wasn’t because of your usage of the word “simp.” What was the reason this time? How long is the ban?

Miko: It was not because of the word simp. It is a long story, but the short of it is, I messed up when I was chatting with a friend and fellow streamer and kind of got lost in the moment. 

Was it something specific that broke the Twitch Terms of Service?

So I have this interview content and basically feature other streamers. During an interview, they often share things with me and send it to me to show on stream. So they will share it and I will put it on screen. 

At this particular moment, we were talking about female harassment online and I asked her what was like the worst comment she had ever received. When I saw the email, it was pretty bad and was more like a threat than a comment. From my experience, threats are almost never from a user’s actual email address, but when I threw up the screenshot, that is basically what got me banned. I violated terms [of service] around privacy.

Obviously, my friend didn’t mean for this to happen, she is very sweet, and I think we both overlooked it because we were so focused on the threat of the email, but I learned my lesson.

What made this ban different from the two your channel was given in September?

Yeah, those were also little slip-ups. It is unfortunate, but I just have to be more careful with things like that and work to prevent them from happening in the future. 

My content isn’t about that stuff, it is about the innovation behind livestreaming and I just want to show what I can make and the innovative side of my stream. I’m actually really excited about coming back because I have been using this time to work on some new stuff and it has been good. 

The suspension is horrible, but at the same time it has kind of given me this time to really really work on my stuff and I am really excited to show it off when I come back. 

How has Twitch been communicating with you since your ban?

I am getting myself an account manager and I think that will help a lot when it comes to communication with Twitch. Once I get one, I hope communication will go a lot smoother in the future. 

Are you going to approach streaming any differently when you get back?

I want to focus more on the innovative side of my content and really push more in the direction of creating fun things to drive that live interaction, in terms of mini-games I can play with chat and the guests during our interviews. I imagine it will be like my interviews but on steroids. 

Basically, I want to focus on adding more interactive aspects to chat that will help the humor of the interviews and situations within the interviews and just adding a lot of color to the content. 

I am always super excited for new stuff. Currently, I was only working on interview content, but now, I am going to implement game show aspects to it as well. I have been going head-on with the live, interactivity part of it. I am planning my return stream to have big streamers that I have worked with and making it into a really fun event. 

I am also just planning out my everyday content as well and it will have different things other than interviews.

You touched on it a bit there, but with how you have been working on your content during the ban, what are your plans for your return stream?

I want to have it be a big game show with my big streamer friends and I am going to hype it up! It will be something that has never been done before on Twitch, in terms of like how I am going to run my version of the content. 

Twitch has done game shows before, but they have done them in a way that is very 2D with cameras and an overlay type of thing where it is flat. But with my VTuber capabilities being in the 3D space I can have it feel more like they are actually inside a studio. 

In my interviews, the streamers come in on a monitor and that is how I interview them, but this way I am going to do this by giving them robot bodies but their heads will be like the computer screen. So they will have certain controls for how they can move their robot bodies and it will feel like they are more inside the space because they will have additional elements that are used in game shows, like a podium and there will be camera cuts to the streamer with their face on the robot head. It will just feel a lot more immersive that way.

They will be able to interact with a wheel that they spin, there will be animations, so when they spin their character spins the wheel we can still see the streamer’s expression because their camera is being fed on the PV screen of the robot. Stuff like that is what my game shows will feel like and chat can always throw fun things at us during the show to throw the streamers off or make things happen to the avatars. I’m excited to debut this when I come back. 

Your content has picked up dramatically in recent months. How have you been able to grow your channel? What have you been doing that you feel works?

I have been streaming since the end of March beginning of April and throughout those first few months, it was just me trying new things every day. My schedule used to be really crazy, where I would go to sleep at around 9pm, wake up at 2am, dev until 12pm, and then stream. I would stream for like four or five hours and then eat and do some other stuff and then repeat all over again.

During that time, it was very rough developing because I would quickly code things in to just see what would happen in chat. It was just testing as I went because there was no rulebook when it comes to that kind of live content that tells you stuff like “chat prefers when they can spawn random things, mini-games, and interaction that is more in the background.” I had to figure out what chat likes in that interactive space because there have been a lot of things that have worked, but a lot of things I have built I have had to scrap because in my head it worked, but when I tested it out live, chat just got really bored. 

Those early months were a lot of RnD and trying to figure out how I could have fun with chat. And then I got to the point where I was doing interview content, just over a Discord call, and I noticed that chat really liked just sitting and watching me talk and interact with another person while being able to affect the interview in various comical ways. So I just pushed that more and created a new environment for it with the TV and format I use and chat really liked it. 

It did really well so I decided to stick with that for now, but I am still researching and developing more things that I can do. One of the biggest projects that I have is I want to create an RPG world where Miko can go on adventure and the bosses would be like big streamers, and chat and Miko have to work together to defeat the boss, like Hasan [HasanAbi], maybe it would be a giant Hasan. 

It is a process that I am constantly going through and that idea might not even end up working. Chat might not feel like it is fun and, in that case, I will scrap it and try something new, but it has just been an ongoing development process and I think that is what I enjoy the most. I love making things and seeing if they are fun, and if they aren’t fun, I scrap it. If it’s fun, I keep it, and I just keep going like that. 

Other than chat liking the content, what made you pivot so hard into interviews on stream? What was the idea behind it? 

Before I started the interviews I would just talk to chat all the time, but having another person that I could interview, I don’t know. I just feel like my content became funnier because I could bounce off of someone, what they said, create more humor with that back and forth. It just led to more funny moments and chat really liked the interactivity with the streamer I am interviewing. I think it kind of created a very fun, sometimes chaotic, sometimes more serious atmosphere. 

When I interview someone I can figure out where their comfort level is, which I do ask them prior to the interview what they are comfortable with sharing and not sharing and if they are okay with me occasionally trolling them on some things, all of those things. Some streamers I take a very laid back approach and we can be more calm or serious to have a nice talk, but with others, I know they are all for being trolled and the humor part of it so I can mess with them a little bit and it becomes a fun back-and-forth. 

Overall, the interview format was just really fun, and was doing really with chat so I decided to keep going and innovating with it. 

What are your thoughts on the growing impact of VTubers and similar styles of creators becoming more common in streaming and content creation, specifically as it starts to expand into Western markets more and more?

I think it’s great! I really like the creative side of Twitch, and it is really exciting to see different content creators try new things and bring new, innovative content out because it just shows that you can do really cool things with just livestreaming. 

I feel like it makes the future of entertainment in this livestreaming and digital format really exciting. So I hope it keeps expanding and more new things pop up on the creative side of Twitch.

Read original article here

The Ultimate News Site