Understanding Twitch Chat: Analyzing Hype and Sentiment with Ex Machina's Chat Decoder

INTRODUCTION

Making sense of Twitch Chat

Twitch chat is a unique feature that sets Twitch apart from other live stream platforms. However, the fast-paced nature of chat can be challenging to follow. Chat Decoder is a real-time Twitch chat analyser that provides insights on the hype levels, topics, sentiment, and engagement. It can process millions of chat messages in real-time to analyze what moments during a live Twitch broadcast are most engaging.

Understanding Twitch Engagement: Analyzing Hype and Sentiment with Chat Decoder

Chat Decoder shows these insights on a dashboard of widgets to find attention-grabbing moments, popular words and emotes, and the sections of the broadcast that resonate most with the audience.

This powerful platform has been utilized in renowned events like E3, Twitch Summer Game Fest, TwitchCon, and Xbox and Bethesda showcases.

OBJECTIVE

Real-Time Twitch Chat Analytics

The objective for Chat Decoder is to make sense of Twitch chat during large events. By analyzing chat messages from any Twitch channel, it delivers real-time insights through a dashboard for production teams.

The following objectives were set for the platform:

A server infrastructure and analysis engine to process millions of chat messages across multiple channels in real-time
Design a user-friendly dashboard interface with a wide set of widgets to showcase results
Develop production tools for identifying 'hype' moments in both live and on-demand broadcasts
Enable production teams to add and track Twitch channels for live and on-demand analysis
Provide real-time access to live data through an API

SOLUTION

From Data to Dashboards: Chat Decoder’s Analysis Engine and Widgets

Chat Decoder consists of a highly scalable server architecture that is able to track selected Twitch channels and analyze all chat messages in real-time. The platform is accessible through a web based dashboard and the real-time Chat Decoder API. Each user has the ability to customize and manage their own dashboard and widgets.

The Chat Decoder analysis engine consists of a machine learning platform that aggregates and filters all incoming chat messages and sends them through various analyzers to create data profiles.

Annotations allow for deeper insights by creating broadcast segments across multiple Twitch channels to compare the hype and engagement during a shared event.

Examples of Chat Decoder widgets include:

Text Chat Sentiment Using real-time Language Processing to create a ranked list of prevalent sentiment in chat.
Hype Meter An innovative measure combining chat activity, exclamations, and engagement data to quantify overall "hype."
Hot Topics Identifies key topics in chat that are being discussed at that moment.
Chat Emoticons Tracks the number of chat messages per second containing at least one emoticon.
Chat Activity Measures active users in chat that post messages.
Chat Word Cloud Visualizes the most popular words in the channel as a dynamic word cloud.
Emotes Leaderboard Ranks the most popular emotes in the channel, with values scaling based on viewer count.
Messages per Minute Analyzes chat messages per second against a channel baseline, offering a normalized view of chat frequency.
% of Chat Users Calculates the percentage of active users in chat, based on their chat activity.

We were following all of you and your chats with Chat Decoder for the moments that got everyone hyped during the Xbox Bethesda stream.

Bruce & Kason

Hosts of Twitch gaming

RESULTS

Real-Time Chat Analysis: Chat Decoder Reveals Popular Moments

Chat Decoder has been used to provide chat insights for some of the largest Twitch events including Summer Game Fest, E3 and the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase. It was used to understand what moments during a broadcast were most popular and what messages and emotes were used to express that.

The Hype Widget was used to create a live hype meter during the broadcast that showed a progress bar on screen and indicated Hype levels based on chat engagement.

Twitch Chat Decoder provides better insight for the production team to understand what to focus on, what subjects to discuss in the post-show and to understand the popularity of different show segments for different streamers.

The Hype Widget was used to create a live hype meter during the broadcast that showed a progress bar on screen and indicated Hype levels based on chat engagement.