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Show HN: Twitch Roulette – Find live streamers who need views the most(twitchroulette.net)
137 points by ellg 14 hours ago | 55 comments

Hey HN, I re-launched an old site I remembered back in the day that someone made called twitchroulette.net with a lot of new features and stats and I would love for people to check it out. The idea is you can easily browse the less browsed parts of twitch and find cool and new streamers to say hi to, and maybe make some new friends.

I also added some real time stats and breakdowns per channel and I think some of the things they show are pretty interesting. Check it out!

muppetman 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Oh my god I love this. I tell every one I load up how terrible they are and to give up now.

I think I’ve discouraged about 250 so far!!

What a wonderful project.

torlok 2 hours ago | parent [-]

No, stop, you're misusing it. The purpose of this site is to build parasocial relationships with strangers online.

flowgrammer 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Great idea. One of my saddest projects was making a site to help Twitch streamers get sponsorship for playing games. You automatically got picked if your view count was high enough. I saw thousands of people streaming on Twitch by themselves for weeks with no viewers whatsoever. Surely many of them had families and partners, but I'm also sure many did not.

sanswork 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I used to live code on Twitch regularly with zero viewers and it didn't really bother me. It forced me to actively talk through my decision making processes just by streaming which slowed me down but was often useful. I'm not sure what the family/partners part is about, I certainly had both while streaming.

neonroku 11 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I’ve thought about doing this at work. Schedule an hour of programming once a day or once a week where others are free to join and watch, and comment or otherwise engage, or not.

prox 31 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, the snark by some commenters is unwarranted.

There is this programmer and he is just chilling, programming and listening to music. Just 2-3 viewers. On occasion I say hi, make a chitchat. It’s harmless and a bit of fun/socializing.

I think most streamers know what they are doing.

meehai 40 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Actively doing this. It indeed forces me to think things through, organize thoughts and speak them out. I open paint/miro to draw. It's good practice.

vector_spaces 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe I'm naive, but my sense is not everyone streaming on Twitch is trying to make a career out of it. Even for those that are -- everyone starts somewhere. Hopefully those that aren't successful on first brush notice and realize that it takes more than simply starting a stream to build a sticky audience.

Also, there are many people out there who lead fulfilling lives without families and partners. Either way, I don't think you should pity people so readily. At best it's somewhat condescending and missing much of the complexity and nuance of what it is to be a human person

mmarvin 2 hours ago | parent [-]

why would you stream on Twitch then? just because it‘s „fun“? come on

victorbjorklund an hour ago | parent [-]

You think everyone on instagram/tiktok with a public profiles tries to become an influencer?

esperent 23 minutes ago | parent [-]

I think that way more of them than would ever admit to it - even to themselves - want that, yes.

But aside from that, nearly everyone on Instagram has followers, at least their families and friends.

monssooon 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It can also be a way yo practise or find like minded

vasco 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What does having a family have to do with anything? I see many people with different hobbies that aren't "successful", do you also think if they have families or not?

I don't even get the implications, presumably it'd be worse to stream all day if you have a family you're neglecting, but even that is making wild assumptions.

carlosjobim 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If you have a family, why would you be screaming into the void while playing video games? Go spend time with your family, where there's endless company and good to be done.

nkrisc an hour ago | parent [-]

One needn’t spend every single waking hour with their family. Everyone needs some time to themselves.

carlosjobim an hour ago | parent [-]

So why live stream your alone time?

nkrisc an hour ago | parent [-]

Ask them, not me.

bobsmooth 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>What does having a family have to do with anything?

Presumably that at least one of their family members would be pity watching.

Lorean1 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm not sure about the framing from the title, it's like "find businesses which need your money the most" - not a great advertisement

chundicus 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What about https://nobody.live/?

ucarion 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Leads me to discover: https://www.twitch.tv/chat_loadtest_01 ... neat!

nubinetwork 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Theres a lot of weird channels on twitch, I run into ones with "ingest" in their name quite often.

ellg 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

also neat! never heard of it, seems like we have a bit different ways about browsing similar data. very cool site

56745742597 26 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No thanks. Why would anybody watch someone else consume an entertainment product?

john_strinlai 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

these types of projects are always fun, whether it is the old youtube videos with no views, or the few other twitch ones like this i have seen. thanks for sharing it.

it would be great to be able to filter by language, but i have no idea if twitch exposes that information or if it would have to be some hack with the title/game/etc data.

and, probably not your fault, but, probably 1/2 of the spins give me a 10-second pre-roll. weirdly, it isnt an advert, but some twitch-related thing i have never seen that says stuff like "preparing the stream" and "an intern stepped on a wire while your stream was setting up". i am signed in, so not sure what is going on there.

anyways, spun the wheel for awhile and had fun talking with a few people. crazy amount of people still playing call of duty, i had no idea.

Akronymus 4 hours ago | parent [-]

those preroll "ads" are the alternative to mid stream ads.

lovehashbrowns 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

really fun! already found an MLB stream, someone streaming Age of Empires 1 no talking and chat in emote mode, someone going absolutely crazy on a racing game I think multi-streaming with their audience primarily on YT. and now I'm on a BG3 playthrough I'm pretty sure.

mister_mort 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Perhaps you can add a check to see if the stream is behind a login/agegate? I pushed the random button and got a stream that I was locked out of.

ellg 10 hours ago | parent [-]

ill check, I honestly didnt even know that was a thing, thanks for letting me know

JohannesCortez 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Great concept! Brought me to a girl playing COD. She only has me as a viewer.

She thanked me so I stayed for a while lol

jmpavlec 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Very nice. Currently on mobile where it mostly works in landscape. (Unusable in portrait). Will check it out on desktop later.

Love the idea of making someone's day.

mememememememo 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Old discussion has lots of comments too https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23114103

password4321 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Similar in spirit to IMG_0001⁰, IMG_0416¹, and astronaut.io² for YouTube but live on Twitch!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47308547

¹https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42314547

²https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20432772

ellg 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Check out a cool real time feed of people discovering new streamers here: https://twitchroulette.net/discover

And some neat global stats around twitch streams here: https://twitchroulette.net/stats

recursivecaveat 12 hours ago | parent [-]

For anyone who is curious btw: twitch will count you as your own viewer. So anyone with their own chat open in a browser (almost everyone so they can read it) will have that 1 viewer. Which is why the bottom of the distribution is so weird looking.

ellg 12 hours ago | parent [-]

ya it's why I have the default set to 0-5, theres weirdness in what twitch counts as a viewer

monssooon 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is there something like this for YouTube?

AlphaTheGoat 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Great idea for when you bored and want to discover new twitch channels. Just a suggestion: it would be better if you can ask the user what their preference is and then suggest accordingly.

ellg 9 hours ago | parent [-]

check out the +filter button on the homepage!

nosmokewhereiam 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There are some soundcloud and mixcloud versions that might need inventing ...cool concept!

munro 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Awesome haha, they look so shocked when you send a message, and then I get embarrassed and spin again

kimchelgi03 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Cool concept! Discovery is the hardest part for small streamers — most viewers only see the top channels and never scroll down. The real-time stats breakdown sounds interesting.

twentyfiveoh1 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

my first one was junk essentially. I don't even think the host was there. They said they were streaming music videos, which is already questionable. Instead they were streaming an interview with a music artist.

QuiDortDine 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Kind reminder that Twitch is owned by Amazon, which is a monster of a company. Check out Owncast and Peertube for alternatives.

sudo_cowsay 3 hours ago | parent [-]

monster yes, but also very powerful

xyrox1 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Good job

jaequery 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

i am actually even more impressed that you got this to front page

ellg 12 hours ago | parent [-]

did I do something wrong or something

password4321 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not that I can see. I think most on HN root for the underdog.

R_D_Olivaw 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Next up: HackernewsRoulette

dezgeg 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Roulette to find all those vibe coded apps with zero users, sounds great!

jaequery 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

what? no, i love projects like these. but re-reading my comment, it does sound a little messed =p. what i meant was it gave me old HN vibes, back when weird, fun projects popped off instead of everything being AI-wrapped.

dzonga 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

this is pretty dope !!

was the only viewer to some guy playing far cry

saadn92 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Can we make a version for YouTube as well? I'd love to be discovered haha

sulplisetalk 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"Twatxh Loulette"