mixer.com
Mixer is a streaming platform specifically designed for gamers. It has recently stepped up its game to rival the company Twitch. Over the past few years, more streamers have chosen to use Mixer over Twitch. Mixer is different from Twitch in a way that many users enjoy.
In 2017, Beam merged with Microsoft and changed its name to Mixer. The new logo was designed in line with this change.
The company recently signed Ninja, a popular streamer, to Mixer. Since then, he has streamed exclusively on Mixer and driven significant traffic up for the website.
Website Design
The design of the streaming platform, Mixer, is one of my favorite features. A lot of other streaming platforms look overly complex and leave viewers wondering where to start. The simplicity of Mixer is beautiful. The flow of the web page is directional and easy to navigate.
Another good thing about Mixer is its consistent design. The designs for their desktop and mobile platforms differed considerably. Whereas, Mixer looks very similar on both versions.
The organization of the page falls in the middle. The initial categories are good. Scrolling to see more categories isn't bad and allows you to view a multitude of streamers. However, I like subcategories to filter through. This is mostly a personal preference though.
Content
Some of the content on Mixer is focused around video games, while other streamers focus on a variety of activities such as cosplay, playing video games and showing their artwork in progress.
The platform offers e-commerce called "Ember" to support favorite creators. There are also subscriptions. A great feature of streaming sites like "Mixer" is that you can interact with your favorite internet personalities in real-time.
Desktop & Mobile Accessibility
The desktop website is excellent. It is easy to navigate and pleasing to look at with a navy blue color scheme. The categories are viewed as you scroll down the page. Featured, Partner Spotlight, and Up and Coming are some of the categories you will find. If you would prefer to sort through favorite games, the Games tab is the easiest place to find them. The Bros feature offers a guide to the top streams in real-time.
The mobile browsing experience is identical to the desktop browser, with the application being optimized for mobile use. The consistency of design between all versions is great! The set-up in the app asks viewers about their likes and makes recommendations based on them, which is another cool feature.
Positives
It is also very organized. The Recent Updates tab keeps you up-to-date on all the new features and updates that have been made to Mixer.
There are many positives about Mixer. I will start with their website design. It is easy to navigate the system, has simple categories, and is broken down into Games and Popular Streams tabs. The website makes browsing popular streams easy by having them all in a central location - the Browse tab. It is also very well organized, with a Recent Updates tab that keeps you up-to-date on all the new features and updates that have been made to Mixer.
A major advantage of using Mixer is that there are no ads while watching your favorite streamers. It is a refreshing change from websites that run ads every 30 minutes or less. We hope that the website maintains this feature.
A fun thing about Mixer is the ability for anyone to stream. It's easy to set up an account and get your very own stream going. There are plenty of genres and categories to stream in, so if streaming is your dream, Mixer might be a good place to get started. The community feels very welcoming from the interactions I have had.
One of the features I appreciate about Mixer is its highlighted category. The partnered streamers have their own little section to flip through. Instead of flipping through them playing their games, there is a professional headshot of them with their names. Their profiles look very well put together, too.
Subscribers can enjoy content for a low cost by making a purchase. With this subscription, viewers gain access to emoticons and other features that enhanced their experience in chat.
Negatives
However, if you can overlook these shortcomings, Mixer is a strong contender for the next big social media site.
Although Mixer is an up-and-coming platform, it has some issues. The site is still in its growing stage and some features are still in beta mode. However, despite these flaws, the platform has many benefits. Overall, I find Mixer to be a strong contender for the next big social media site.
On the landing page, the search bar is not easily visible, which makes it difficult for me to find it. If you begin to scroll down the page, it will appear in the right-hand corner and hover. Another way to find the search by clicking on the browse field or games category is by clicking on it.
The variety of content on the site is somewhat lacking. Almost all categories are related to games, but some of the more popular games are relatively sparse in streamers. This is largely due to the growing popularity of the platform; if the company continues to concentrate on big-name streamers, more viewers are likely to convert. I am hoping that the diversity of streams will increase soon; I would like to see more artists, cosplayers, and crafters online as well as more tabletop games.
I have a small complaint about the lack of content filtering. I'm not positive if all streams are like this or not, but on a couple of occasions, I saw some curse words show up in the chat. This is not a big deal for me, as I am an adult. However, if the platform wants to market itself as a website for everyone, censoring to an extent is a must.
Improvements Needed
The website needs more traffic to improve its performance. If more people accessed the website, the website would likely outperform competitors. They are moving in the right direction, but it will take time to get there.
Collaborating with more high-profile streamers would be another great innovation for Mixer. The company should not only rely on the few big-name streamers that they have signed up. actively convincing other high-profile streamers to use their site exclusively would be great. Again, as Mixer is growing this task will take time. I am sure Mixer is already working on this and it will only be a matter of time before we see benefits from this decision.
Lastly, I would like to see more variety of content. Video games make up the majority of streams, but that is only a small drop in the bucket. If artists, cosplayers, and DIYers were featured it would pull in a lot more traffic for the website.
Summary
Overall, the Mixer streaming platform is good. There are many positive features and few negative ones. The history behind Mixer is interesting. The company managed to snag one of the top gaming streamers in the world and continues to impress viewers.
Mixer has an appealing website design and is consistent across all versions. The color scheme is easy on the eyes, and Mixer keeps a clean and consistent brand.
Some of the negative features about Mixer are the lack of categories beyond video games and the placement of the search bar. The search bar hovering after scrolling is quite annoying, but not a deal-breaker. The diversity of the site is also forgivable; it will undoubtedly grow as the website does.
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