Twitch users can now send private messages to one another from within the chat window using a new feature called Whisper.
Announced in a blog post on Wednesday, Whisper allows Twitch users to send private messages to their friends without letting everyone else in on what they are talking about. Each whisper shows up in the public chat window, but only the intended recipient of a whisper will be able to read it.
To send whispers to friends, Twitch users simply need to type "/w" followed by the username of the person they want to send to and then type their message. Twitch will provide autocomplete suggestions with the last five people that users have whispered to, but users can also manually type in the name of the person to whom they are sending a whisper. Users can send whispers to as many people as they like, but each conversation can only include two people at a time.
Whisper works even when the user is in sub-only mode. Users can also send whispers to other users even if they are watching different streams. For instance, if one of them is watching MANvsGAME and the other is on the Lirik stream, they can still have private conversations with one another via the new private messaging system. Whisper also works during a group chat.
"Whisper to friends, followers and subscribers to chat privately one-on-one across all of Twitch," says Twitch in its announcement. "Your whisper will show up in-line with the rest of chat on web and mobile apps no matter what channel you're on."
To protect the privacy of users, Twitch allows its users to block people they do not want to receive whispers from. When a user blocks another user, Twitch will ask why to determine whether the blocked person has violated the site's terms and conditions. At the same time, blocked users will receive a notification that they have been blocked, so they know that their messages are not going through.
Aside from Whisper, Twitch is also working on a number of other private messaging features. In the future, users will be able to send messages to other people even when the recipient is offline. Twitch is also planning to roll out pop-out instant messages that do not take place on the chat window.
Twitch also said that it has added support for several languages for its iOS and Android apps, including support for Chinese, French, German, Russian and Arabic, among others.
