Twitch hired Tracy Chan, who’s leaving Spotify after four years, as head of product and engineering for music.
At Twitch, Chan joins the Amazon-owned streaming platform’s growing music team under the helm of SVP and head of music Mike Olson. In the role, Chan will focus on evolving the Twitch experience specifically for live music and helping artists and fans better connect in real time. Earlier this year, Athena Koumis, an alum of Spotify and XITE, also joined the team as manager of music partnerships.
Chan joins Twitch from Spotify, where he was director of product management primarily focused on Spotify’s Creator platforms and developing analytics tools for artists and labels. He joined Spotify in 2016 after the music streamer bought Chan’s startup CrowdAlbum, a social photo and video aggregator that created a “visual history” of musical events from around the world.
Prior to founding CrowdAlbum in 2012, Chan was a product manager at YouTube, where he designed and launched YouTube Insight, the company’s analytics platform for creators.
“I have spent my career building creator tools and I believe there is a massive opportunity to help artists connect with their fans through virtual performances and live streaming, which is what led me to Twitch,” Chan said in a statement. “Across the board, and especially at this moment in time, we are seeing disruption in the music industry as artists are having to find new ways to both make money and interact with fans.”
Twitch is best known as a haven for video-game live streaming but the company says live music performances on Twitch have steadily been gaining momentum. Recently, Twitch has featured live performances from a range of artists including John Legend, Diplo, Willie Nelson and Lady Antebellum. Twitch is investing in new streaming and monetization tools to support independent musicians, including by forming partnerships with companies like SoundCloud and Bandsintown to help establish affiliate status on Twitch, according to Olson.
Olson said Chan’s experience in developing video and music creator tools “will be invaluable to our team as we pursue new ways to support artists and connect them to their fans around the world.”
Source : Variety
