Sam Houston

"My viewers like it because it makes them feel like I saw their comments. It can also be a cue to them to show when I saw a comment (basically a visual representation of the video lag). It's also great for VODs, since it's hard to watch VODs and see a dude responding to stuff and you have no idea what he's talking about." - Sam Houston

"On Google? Yeah, I could see that working. It'd be more of the "long tail" of people but it could be a cheap way to trickle in folks." - Sam Houston

"The biggest thing for me was "networking", which I kind of accidentally did a few weeks ago. I messaged a few folks that I saw posting on this sub-reddit and I also reached out to a few small-ish streamers that I liked. We started hosting one another and it led to their viewers following me and some of mine following them. I try to promote them as much as I can, since they have been super helpful to me and helped my stream grow a lot. Outside of that...it would be somewhat inexpensive to advertise your stream on Twitter and target the ads to the followers of large Twitch streamers. What's "inexpensive" is all relative though, since I bet it would cost you close to $10 to have 10 people click your Twitch link..and then who knows if they'd follow. You'd end up spending a lot of money per follower and viewer. Most online advertising is relatively expensive to normal people that don't have lots of money. Most ads are going to be cost-per-click and the more targeted they are, like on..." - Sam Houston

"Nope. I wear shorts :P" - Sam Houston

"My general and personal opinion is as long as I give away stuff that isn't that valuable, people won't likely sue me for it. If I start giving away really expensive stuff, or if I was a really wealthy streamer/company, I would worry a lot more about my legal liability. People could sue me but unfortunately (for them and me) I don't think they'd get much :P" - Sam Houston

"When I've felt like crap, because I had a shitty day at work or whatever the reason is, I just don't stream. When I'm feeling that down, it's better for my personal health to not stream than to have to fake it for 3+ hours in front of viewers. I'd rather my viewers see a more genuine me than an act that I'm putting on to meet a schedule :) I usually tweet about it and update my stream's title to tell people when I'll be back." - Sam Houston

"Haha, fair enough :) I suppose for now I'll stick with what I've got and try to find an more optimum settings setup for OBS and whatever PC game I play." - Sam Houston

"I use Deep Bot to view my chat, view viewer count, and to do bot stuff. It works alright. I also keep the dashboard open in another window. You could always click "hide player" so that it removes the video player." - Sam Houston

"Yeah, I was running into some issues while playing BF4 and streaming at 720p 30fps on the same machine." - Sam Houston

"Nice! Congrats :)" - Sam Houston

"I meant a box to ingest from your gaming PC (encoder box). Thanks for all of this info though. I'll probably have to go the streaming PC route, since space is at a premium in the SF Bay Area and I wouldn't have an extra room to put a server in it. Right now my streaming setup is an i7 2600k, which I use to play games on (occasionally, most days I'm just capturing console gameplay) and stream on the same machine. I'm wondering if I should just buy a more powerful processor and keep the streaming/gaming on one machine?" - Sam Houston

"Hey Ferrett - do you have any links or resources about building a streaming PC? The OBS link talks about a small raspberry pi box, but I'm wondering if that's not high-powered enough? Is there such a thing as a "cheap" streaming box? My uninformed guess is that the machine mainly needs a good processor and that's it..right? -Sam" - Sam Houston

"What are you using the capture card for? It sounds like you should put the capture card in the streaming computer, since it would be capturing the video from your gaming computer. You won't be able to use a Blue Yeti with a mixing board. It plugs directly into your computer, and for this setup, that would be your streaming computer. You could use a line-in audio cable out of your gaming PC and run it into your streaming PC, to capture audio that way. If you already have a mixing board for whatever reason, plug your audio cables coming out of your gaming PC into the mixing board, then run a line out of the board (depends on the board, but you could probably use the Headphone out jack or the Main Out jack) and run that into your soundcard on the PC. Or you could just create a streaming server like this: https://obsproject.com/forum..." - Sam Houston

"A way to visually see who you're following that is streaming, then click a button and start hosting the person of your choosing. A visual TV guide type feature that lists everyone you follow and when they stream. A way to easily bookmark or note a notable moment during a live stream so you can go back and create a highlight of your stream at that time stamp. A display on my dashboard that tells me what rank I am for the game I'm streaming and how many viewers other streamers have for that game (say the top streamer, then the one or two above me)" - Sam Houston

"Some of my favorites: Http://twitch.tv/hillhome Http://twitch.tv/r0b0ts Http://twitch.tv/giraffactory" - Sam Houston

"Awesome, thanks so much for writing this!" - Sam Houston

"I highly suggest checking out PixelKhaos.com . He did my stream's assets and he's a great guy to work with. He accepts PayPal, so you will need an account." - Sam Houston

"It's something I'm currently considering. I've never done something like this before, including a 24hr stream, so I'm kind of nervous. But I'm also excited to be a part of a great charity event :)" - Sam Houston

"Get a job at a game company. It's slightly more stable and better pay, and you can still rub it in mom's face (if that's what you're in to)" - Sam Houston

"Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app? That often can fix problems with mobile apps." - Sam Houston

"#2 - As a new streamer, the intro post was a great way to introduce myself to the world. It may have sent some viewers my way, but I'm not really sure if it did (hard to know). As a reader of the sub-reddit, intro posts make the subreddit hard to read and hard to find useful information. I personally use this sub as a way to connect with other streamers, discuss topics of interest, and learn from one another. Intro posts are often very noisy and crowd out topics/posts that may be more interesting to a broader group of people. Is there a better way to help streamers promote themselves? Maybe it's a weekly thread where people introduce themselves in the comments?" - Sam Houston

"That's awesome to hear, thanks a bunch. As I said in another comment, as a streamer I want more information and nudges to send me in the right direction. Most methods to grow include a lot of guessing or luck, knowing the right people, somehow finding someone to help promote you, etc. The more signal that Twitch can provide to help lead me in the right direction, the happier I will be and I will be even more passionate about creating great content :)" - Sam Houston

"For me, the biggest factor is if I'm interested in the game and it's fun. But that said, I *do* want more signals. Right now, I'm kind of flying blind and trying to figure stuff out as I go. Any additional nudges would be very, very welcome. I'd especially be interested in games that Twitch could indicate *may* lead to new viewership and followers. If it suggested similar games, but no one watches those games, then the credibility of the recommendation would be suspect. If Twitch could tell me: "People like your current viewers/followers like to watch X, Y, Z games", along with "Streamers like you have found success with X, Y, Z games". I need to know where to go, rather than spending money on a game and spending hours streaming and finding out that it's not going to work out. I totally get why it is this way, and I don't expect miracles, but additional insights and suggestions (via data) would be awesome. That want for data and signals is why I compulsively read this subreddit every..." - Sam Houston

"I like what you're describing, especially because there are sooooo many different timelines and approaches across the different streamers. Some people got partnered in a month, others it took over a year. Some people have 1000+ followers over a span of a month, others it took them 12 months to get to 300 followers. I need more data as a streamer to understand what the best approach is, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel (alongside everyone else) :)" - Sam Houston

"1) Right now I don't have specific numbers i want to hit, but I do want to see continuous follower and viewer growth over time. At my current viewership level, getting above 10 followers in a day is huge and getting over 20 concurrent viewers is a great accomplishment. Making progress on Concurrent Viewers and Followers is king at the moment, outside of building an active chat and creating relationships between viewers (thru chat). 2) The most impactful thing that I've done to create success is to stream a game that hardly anyone streams, but it has a passionate (and small) community: Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. Whenever I stream games like Destiny or Shadow of Mordor, only my hardcore regulars or curious followers will watch, but when I stream PVZ I pickup a lot of new viewers. It's a vicious cycle because I feel dependent on that game if I want to grow my stream, but every time I stream I feel like I'm becoming more and more attached to the game and that community. Outside..." - Sam Houston

"Out of the three guys, Tom's been the most private and wants his family life to be behind the scenes (understandably). It doesn't necessarily surprise me that he wouldn't want to share that with the world at the time." - Sam Houston

"I sure hope not, and right now it doesn't seem like that will be the case. It sounds like late last year and early this year were tough on them, but they've come out stronger for it. I operate under the mindset that everything post-breakup is a gift, since I never thought blink would have gotten back together. I'd love for many more albums, but more than anything I'm glad they're together and touring (and probably going to put out at least one more record) :)" - Sam Houston

"I actually really like this song. It's not as synthy as the most recent AVA albums, which I really like. I'll be really interested in seeing how this album sounds, as well as how this writing experience and style affects how he writes blink songs. I'd like more of these "post-punk" sounding songs rather than his self described "stadium" stuff in recent albums." - Sam Houston

"Depends on the type of games and if I find the person entertaining. If I like the person a lot, I'll watch them stream a variety of games." - Sam Houston

"Depends on the game that you're streaming. Maybe it's time to experiment with new games to find a new community of viewers?" - Sam Houston

"What kind of assignments are you referring to?" - Sam Houston