A select few streamers are getting access to a new feature on Twitch that will enhance their ability to communicate with their viewers in the form of pinned chat messages.
Initially unveiled late last month during a Twitch Patch Notes broadcast, pinned chat is a tool that creators and moderates can use to take a message and highlight it at the top of Twitch chat for an extended period of time.
The idea behind the pinned chat is to help streamers manage situations like having repeated questions from viewers. Instead of needing to make a command to answer the question, streamers can simply type the “/pin” command followed by a message that they would like for everyone to see for a period of time.
Reporter Zach Bussey initially reported that the feature would be coming “sometime soon” back in July. His post to Twitter included screengrabs of what Twitch eventually showed to fans in August.
In a post to Twitter this afternoon, Twitch did not detail who was given access to pinned chat or how many streamers are involved in the experiment. The platform also did not say how long the experiment will last or when we can expect pinned chat to be rolled out to all users.
Related: How to pin and unpin chat messages on Twitch
By default, pinned chat messages stay pinned for 20 minutes, but streamers can use the Unpin After settings to change how long messages stay pinned. The pin time for messages can range from 30 seconds to 30 minutes. Messages can also be manually unpinned by a creator or a moderator.
