A recap of this week's Wisdom Wednesday. Headline items: Widgets are live (starting with Goals), the verification badge UI got a refresh alongside it, and the Global Fav Cup launches tomorrow.
Widgets
The first version of Widgets shipped during the stream. Goals is the launch widget, with four flavors: verification, summit, gift, and coin goals. Anyone in your live can tap the widget to see who's contributing.
A few things worth knowing:
- You can only have one goal widget up at a time. Different widget types (timers next) will run alongside it.
- Switching the widget mid stream wipes the previous contributor list, so screenshot or shout out before you swap.
- Mods can add and manage widgets by default. Toggle it off in your mod settings if you don't want that.
- Widgets stay put during battles, so you can reset a goal per round.
This is V1. More widgets, a larger display mode, and bigger celebration moments when goals are hit are all in progress. Hitting goals may eventually factor into algorithmic visibility, though that's not implemented yet.
Verification badges got a visual refresh alongside the launch. Levels are clearer at a glance, and the path to higher levels is meaningfully shorter than it was. Gifter prestige and streamer verification show in different colors (blue and red). Tap your own row in chat to see your level.
A #widgets room is going up in Discord, plus a separate space for sharing how you're using them in context. Bring requests, complaints, and ideas. The most popular widget probably doesn't exist yet, and we want to hear what it should be.
6/9 event
Yesterday's surprise event was a one off side quest, not a full event. Takeaways:
- The peach gift is permanent, unlocked at a 69 day streak (sitting next to the eggplant).
- Chat badges from the event lasted 24 hours. Event dailies on profile went to the top 3 (christina_bramberc_tripleb, natas, queendenorda on the peach side; baja_niju_advil_mf, akannie, jeff_lavallee on the other).
- Heard loud and clear: next time, post the rules and prizes up front. Even on a small surprise drop, people want to know what they're playing for.
Expect more of these mini, low stakes drops. Nothing critical will ever be locked behind a no warning event. Bigger activations (like the one starting tomorrow) will always be fully explained ahead of time.
Audio/video rollout
The majority of users are now on the new audio/video. Remaining glitches are mostly old version to new version bridge issues. Full cutover is this week. If the App Store doesn't show an update, tap into the Favorited listing directly and the update will appear.
The three audio modes:
- Speech: call mode, focused on your voice, cancels everything else. This is the default and how the old system worked. Wide Spectrum (iPhone) only shows up here, because it's an Apple call feature.
- Balance: a new mode designed to pick up your voice and background audio (Alexa, music, ambient room). Better than the old Speech + Wide Spectrum workaround if your environment is good. Switch back to Speech if a dishwasher is running.
- Raw: zero processing, pure microphone signal. Use this for acoustically treated rooms or specific external gear. If Raw sounds too quiet, that's expected, you probably want Speech or Balance.
External devices (mics, AirPods, plugged in instruments) auto switch you to Raw, with a purple notification. New UI tweaks added little lock icons so it's clearer you can't switch out of it.
Filters: the filters conversation we've been promising for over a year is finally happening in the next few weeks. A smoothing filter is coming, and the wider discussion (gift triggered effects, where filters belong on a connection focused app) will get a dedicated town hall.
Upcoming
🌍 Global Fav Cup
The activation has a name: the Global Fav Cup. It starts Thursday, June 11 and runs six weeks, wrapping Sunday, July 19, the same day the real World Cup ends.
- 48 countries, 144 gifts, 98 leaderboards, one trophy.
- Smallest country gift is worth 1 goal. Largest is worth 600.
- Group stage runs about a week and a half (through Sunday, June 21). Countries are grouped four at a time, matching the real World Cup draw. Top 2 in each group advance, plus the next 8 highest scoring countries across all groups.
- Knockouts are head to head, one week per round: round of 32, round of 16, round of 8.
- The final week is different. Instead of a semi plus a final, the top 4 countries face off all at once, with first, second, and third place.
- No daily leaderboards. There's an overall weekly gifter and streamer leaderboard.
Unlockable items: finishing in the top 100 (or on the podium) for any country unlocks items tied to that country. Smaller countries will be easier to crack. Once a country is eliminated, its gifts can't be sent anymore unless you already unlocked them.
You can support any country, or every country. There's no team lock in and no IP restriction. Not all 144 gifts will be live tomorrow, the full set lands early next week with room before the group stage closes.
🥊 Royal Rumble (June 27)
Austin Widing's tournament, not ours. His team has been scouting the app for the past month and personally inviting people, including some with 10 viewer lives. Stream like someone important is watching is literal advice right now.
- Format: single day, free for all elimination style event. A drawing sets your entry position, you stay in until you're knocked out, last person standing wins.
- The previous Rumble on TikTok pulled 20,000+ concurrent viewers. Many of those people will check out the app whether or not they're invited. If you're live that day, be welcoming!
A system for anyone to propose and host a big tournament on Fav is in the works. More in a few weeks.
🎛️ More widgets
Timers are next. You'll be able to run one goal widget and one timer widget at the same time. Beyond that, the team is watching how Goals gets used before deciding what ships next, and the most popular widget probably isn't even an internal idea yet.
🖥️ Studio (desktop)
Targeting full migration to the new downloadable Studio app by the end of June. More beta testers wanted, especially anyone with unique webcam or mic setups. Email beta@favorited.com.
🔧 Native app rewrite
Continues in the background. This is the permanent fix for overheating across all devices, plus the foundation for everything that comes after.
🛡️ More for mods
More mod powers are coming. Being a great mod is going to matter more, not less.
☀️ Snipe the Summer
Still targeted for August, with a different shape than last year.
🤐 One more
The biggest feature launch in the last year and a half is coming later this month. We're not announcing it yet, but it's close.
Coming someday (no firm timeline)
- A design overhaul for profile medals.
- A retirement process for some older gifts. Details closer to the date. (The pineapple is safe.)
In-person events
- Boston is coming up. Details on the event page and in Discord.
- VidCon: we'll be there, smaller footprint than last year, with an industry talk on the 26th about clipping and live streaming.