A recap of this week's Wisdom Wednesday. Headline items: Timer Widgets are live, the first level 9 custom gift lands in the app this week, and the Global Fav Cup group stage freezes this Sunday.

Timer Widgets are live!

The Timer Widget went live during the stream, so you can run one alongside your goal widget. The box battle timer is tied to the box format.

A few notes on widgets right now:

• A new control is coming that lets you include or exclude the host or specific boxes for certain widgets.
• Summit and verification goals stay host only by design. We are not adding more gatekeeping here.
• Reminder: only gifts sent directly to a streamer count toward verification (and summit and XP). Coins sent to one of your boxes do not count toward summit.

There is a #widget-suggestions room in Discord for feedback. Bring requests and ideas. The most popular widget probably does not exist yet, and we want to hear what it should be.

Global Fav Cup

The big thing to know this week: the group stage ends this Sunday at reset. Any country that does not advance has its leaderboards frozen and finalized at that moment, and so does everyone sitting on them.

• If a country you back gets eliminated, its top 100 ranks lock right then. There is strategy both in pushing a country further and in locking your placement the moment it goes out.
• Expect heavy last minute action before Sunday reset. People will snipe for qualification and for podium right up to the buzzer.

What you can earn on a country's leaderboard:

• Top 100: the game ball for that country.
• Top 25: the GOAL item.
• Podium: medals.
• Winning country, top 100: trophies (a separate item from the victory trophy, which has not been shown yet).

More on the Licking Lion…

If you hit podium for any country, you unlock the Licking Lion. It is a variant of the existing lion gift, not a brand new item, so you can choose to send the regular lion or the licking version. It does not carry a country flag.

There will be other ways to unlock the Licking Lion in the future, so this is not a Fav Cup only item. (And no, the farting variants are not up for grabs.)

Level 9 custom gifts

The first level 9 custom gift hits the app this week. This is a first for the platform.

• kevincreekman was the first person to reach level 9 in the app, across gifter or streamer, so his custom gift is first. Requests are processed in the order people hit level 9.
• It is a personal gift, not app wide. You can send or receive your own.
• Verification levels mirror streamer levels and apply to both gifters and streamers, so you can hold two level 9 custom gifts, one on the streamer side and one on the gifter side.
• A behind the scenes "making of" video is on the way, since these gifts are built manually. The animation team recently expanded, and the process will speed up over time.

Audio and video

The switch to the new audio and video stack is about 90% complete, with full cutover targeted for the end of this week. Most of the remaining glitches come from people moving across the old and new versions during the changeover.

Gift tray

Improvements are rolling in:

• Recent and most sent gifts will be hoisted to the front of the tray, so you do not have to scroll through every country to find what you send most.
• Visual changes are coming to make it clearer which box or person a gift is going to.
• A tip almost nobody knows: you can flip the price sort (low to high or high to low) using the small arrow in the tray.

The larger gift tray overhaul, with more segmentation and filtering and the ability to build your own set of favorites, comes after the native rewrite.

Upcoming

🎉 Juneteenth gift

The Juneteenth gift lands in the app on Thursday, ahead of the 19th so it covers everyone across time zones.

🥊 Fav Royal Rumble

Austin's tournament, not a Favorited run event. After the hype from Fav Madness, his team chose the lineup, expect a mix of TikTok and Favorited creators. It runs Saturday, June 27, and it will have a prize pot.

🏆 Host your own tournament

We are opening up the prize pot. Any approved tournament that crosses 10 million coins thrown activates a 5% prize pot widget (retroactive to the first coin), paid out to winners based on the organizer's format.

Requirements to apply:

• At least 16 registered players
• Runs three days or less
• A clearly defined format
• A real marketing plan, on platform and off

Prior tournament experience helps your chances, and acceptance is at the discretion of the partnerships and product teams. The application form goes in the Discord after Wisdom Wednesday.

🖥️ Studio (desktop)

The Studio beta is wrapping for a bigger rollout. The goal is that by next Tuesday, web users can move to the downloadable desktop app and Studio comes out of beta. Sign up at favorited.com/studio.

🤐 One more

The biggest launch in the app since 2024 is coming soon. That is all we are saying for now.

In-person events

• Boston is this week. Zach is still keeping it a mystery whether he will be there. RSVP’s are still open - head to Discord for the Partiful invite.
• VidCon is next week, including a bowling party co-hosted with another company. Partiful invite to come.

Good to know

• Spotlight gifting: to send a gift to the spotlight person, tap the pill that targets them. If you just tap the tray, it goes to the host.
• Box gifting: sending to a box does not stick, you have to keep targeting that box each time. Clarity improvements are on the roadmap.
• Big sends: if you are about to send something big, screen record it yourself. Misfires usually are not glitches on our end.
• #myfavclip: posting clips on Instagram? Tag @favoritedapp or @favoritedcreators and use #myfavclip (one clip, singular). It helps the team find and promote great content.
• On the rumor mill: talk of an acquisition is not happening. There is, however, an idea in the works to gamify rumors and gossip, low stakes and just for fun.

Community feedback

Requests: a way to win the Licking Lion (answered, yes, through podium), stream categories, sub chats, the ability to build your own gift tray, and the return of Snipe the Summer.

Complaints: the timer widget showing "Time's up" for some viewers even when the host set a longer time, and viewers seeing a different time than the host. Leaving and rejoining seems to resolve it for now.

Praise: the path to leveling up is much clearer now, and people love that tournament applications are open to everyone, not just a chosen few.