Twitch taps Steam's metadata to make streams more searchable

Newsbrief: Twitch is working to make its library of livestreams more searchable using metadata gleaned from games, starting with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Twitch viewers looking to watch someone play CS:GO can now filter the game's Twitch stream directory by both the map currently being played and the Skill (Valve's CS:GO player-ranking system) of the streamer. The data is pulled from a Steam API that feeds data to Twitch when a broadcaster chooses to link their Steam account to their Twitch account. The two companies announced the feature last summer, though at the time they highlighted it as a means whereby viewers could earn items in Steam while watching Dota 2 tournaments on Twitch. The company later added support for CS:GO tournament rewards, and has been testing these advanced CS:GO directory filters for some time. Today, Twitch rolled the metadata filters out to all users alongside a blog post with more details on how the system works.