A recap of this week's Wisdom Wednesday with Zach and Meggs. Headline items: the promised algorithm deep dive is here (say hello to +Algo), subscriptions are now fully in-app on iPhone and subs doubled within a day, and the Global Fav Cup wraps up this Sunday.

Global Fav Cup: the final week

This is it: the Cup ends at Sunday reset.

• The Global Fav Cup trophy went up in the app.
• The top 100 on the winning country's leaderboard earn the trophy: a trophy medal plus a trophy item, and it displays the position you actually finished on the team.
• Top 25 and top 100 keep their exclusive items as before, with something extra for the actual winners.
• More info is being pushed out as the finale approaches, so keep an eye on your notifications.

Community consensus this week: the Cup's length felt just right, largely thanks to the live games running alongside it. The team is happy with how it went and will fine-tune some things for next year based on your feedback.

The algorithm deep dive

As promised last week, here's the big one. The short version: the algorithm is going from 10 ranking elements to roughly 50, and it's being gamified so it's a living thing that changes rapidly, not the static ranking you see on other apps.

+Algo boosts

Starting this week, exciting moments in your live trigger temporary algorithm boosts, marked by a new "+Algo" notification:

• Someone prestiges in your live: live as of today. The boost scales with the prestige level: small for a bronze, significantly bigger and longer-lasting the higher it goes. At Celestial, it's crazy.
• Leveling up your streamer verification: coming very soon. Hitting level 9 will be a significant boost that lasts longer than almost anything else.

The boosts themselves don't require an app update, but the animation everyone in your live will see when a boost hits arrives with the app update rolling out over the next few days. The idea: a boost brings new people in, and the activity you create with them keeps the momentum going after the boost expires.

How the base algorithm works

Every single person has their own algorithm. The core goal is showing you two things: the people you deeply engage with, and exciting moments happening right now.

• Engagement drives everything. If you keep scrolling past someone without engaging, no matter how much activity they have, you'll gradually see them less.
• New affinity signals are coming: messaging with someone, sharing their live, receiving a share of their live, and co-hosting (a co-host boost is being tested) will all build affinity beyond just visiting lives.
• Followers with the bell active are more likely to see you.
• Roughly a two-hour window of activity in your live feeds into where you show up.
• Ceilings, static content, and sleeping lives get pushed down in the main feed. Progress is already being made on the "why am I seeing ceilings" complaints.

A few honest notes

• Camera-off is not one thing. Camera off while you're actively engaging and chatting is fine. The system can now tell the difference between that and a camera pointed at the ceiling for hours. Trying to game your hour in for bonuses will hurt your algorithm on an ongoing basis.
• Sleep lives are respected. Genuinely falling asleep on live with your people is very different from gaming the system, and sleep lives will get their own treatment (and their own dedicated conversation soon).
• Resetting your live loses any active boosts for that live (your base algorithm is unaffected). This might change, and the team is looking at ways to let game streamers avoid resetting entirely.
• Numbers are in flux. Big changes landed today and more come tomorrow, with testing, observing, and adjusting week over week. Don't read too much into recent view counts while things settle.

Why all this? Other apps' algorithms optimize for serving ads. favorited doesn't have an ad model. The goal is connecting you with the people you actually want to be connected with.

Subscriptions

• The full subscription experience is now live in-app for iPhone users. No more separate browser trip: tap sub on any creator you haven't subbed to and pay right through the App Store. Within a day of the rollout, subs doubled.
• Reminder: streamers keep 100% of what favorited receives from subscriptions. favorited takes no cut (credit card and app store fees are outside our control).
• The waiting period between getting verified and having subs activate is shrinking, and will soon be immediate.
• When someone unlocks subs, they'll now get an activity feed message with a shareable image to promote their subs, alongside profile sharing.
• New to favorited? The FAQ at the top of the Discover page breaks down bonuses and percentages. The higher your verification level, the better your bonuses.

Sub chats

• Pinned messages in sub chats are coming, plus a batch of group sub chat changes.
• The room voted a near-universal yes on this one: when you go live, your live will be automatically shared into your sub chat immediately, so your subs can be the first ones in, ahead of the regular two-minute notification delay. Expect it on by default with the option to turn it off.

Bonuses

• Box bonus split is live. Gifts sent to boxes now split between the box and the host, the same way coins do. Previously the bonus went only to the box.
• Because the change landed midweek and wasn't displaying correctly, last week both sides were paid in full: boxes got the full bonus and hosts got the split on top. Everyone earned a little extra, and you keep it.
• Coming up: UI improvements for mod bonuses, including a way to see your percentage per host if you mod for more than one person.
• Bonus processing is getting faster (currently up to ~20 minutes after reset) and it'll be clearer that your bonus is processing rather than missing.
• Bonus history, the ability to see previous weeks' bonuses, is also on the list.

Verification and the road out of beta

• Get verified before favorited exits beta to lock in the 70/30 split. After beta, new creators start at 60/40 and climb. Anyone verified before the cutoff is grandfathered in at 70/30 regardless of level, and levels still stack on top (a level 10 keeps 80%).
• A valid ID remains required for verification. That's an industry-wide necessity, not just a favorited rule. For those without a workable ID, an alternative path will be in place by the time we come out of beta.
• Important distinction: moving to the new platform is not the same as exiting beta. The app rewrite is one step in that process.
• The rewrite is on track: roughly two months from the full transition, done by Spooky Season. It'll spend time in beta users' hands first, and it's not a new app to download, just a new version of this one. Once it lands, expect way cooler event mechanics without last year's glitches (TTS, filters, and more are riding on it too).
• Streaks are coming before the full rebuild, with milestone recognition for things like 500 days and two years (which, fun fact from this week's stream, nobody ever calls "730 days").

Gaming medals and Studio

• Podium medals for the gaming ranks start this week, weekly to start. To appear on gaming ranks, you must choose gaming as your category on Studio.
• Rankings will be monitored so nobody can game the system. If you're on the gaming ranks, you should actually be gaming.
• More people are getting Studio access: if your computer meets the (pretty low, and dropping) spec requirements, you'll be able to game on Studio. Studio web is being wound down in favor of the desktop app.

Upcoming

There's an event planned basically every month for the rest of the year. Confirmed so far:

• Snipe the Summer returns in August.
• Spooky Season kicks off October 1st, and with the rebuild done by then, expect way cooler mechanics this year. ("You just wait.")
• Snowy Season returns. Takeaways from last year are in hand, including that unlocking the cookies was a hit, even if some felt it took too long. (We will not be discussing the real-life cookies. #cookiegate)
• Community month is the leading idea for a returning event. The 2024 original had you earning points by visiting and supporting OGs, brand-new creators, and people you hadn't seen in a while, and a lot of friendships came out of it. It would return in a new form.
• September and November events exist but aren't ready to announce yet.

Club365 tournament

The 365 tournament runs at the end of this month, and applications are closed. Details are rolling out, so pay attention to announcements.

Looking back: the unboxing

Meggs' mystery package finally made it to the office, and Zach unboxed it live: a custom PSA-graded trading card of Zach, Lucky Charms-inspired, personally signed, sealed with a wax stamp, and finished with seasonal holographic backs (Snowy Season, Love Fest hearts, and a disco variant). Zach, a certified card nerd, immediately shared proper card care: penny sleeve first, then the top loader. The softer the material touching the card, the safer it is.

Honorable mention: the community broke the box record with 69 people in boxes in one live. It glitched, it's not supported, please don't. But the fact that the live survived at all has the team excited about bigger box formats, and there was already brainstorming about Tetris boxes and box roulette.

Community feedback

Requests: immediate sub chat notifications when a streamer goes live (answered live with a yes, see above), and a way to watch Zach's AI conference talk.

Complaints: the Snowy Season cookies took too long to unlock, and people are still seeing ceilings in the watch feed (improvements are actively rolling out).

Praise: the Fav Cup's length was just right, and the cookie-unlocking mechanic itself was a favorite from Snowy Season.