ok, Ima chime in on this. DISCLAIMER: I'm talking about using the app while in the full mode, not snapped
PC vs Consoles- As we all know by now xbone has a dvr built right in. For those of us that have used it we know that it looks like crap and while it's great for those "Yo look at this sick 4 kill no scope spree" kinda clips...If you're any sort of serious about it then you either A. have something better already or B. should be saving up for something better. Unfortunately this also applies to streaming and you can instantly tell if it's being streamed via console since it looks/sounds horrible. (granted it could also be someone with a really bad computer but usually it's just them not tweaking their broadcast app of choice ie xsplit, obs, and that other one I'm forgetting...) Microsoft hasn't given us any options for tweaking our streaming settings however so we're stuck on using whatever quality they give us. Hopefully this changes. As for figuring out which is which...at the moment it's not very hard since there's only like 5 games on twitch that could possibly be played on the xbone and you can usually tell from the thumbnail's quality if it is.
Friends/Following - Ok so one of the rather cool features that's up is that if you're playing a game and a someone on your friends list starts streaming (granted you have to have the twitch app and they DO NOT have to be favorited) you will get a notification that X has started streaming. You can then go and watch them directly from the notfication and there'll be an option on the tab to the right of their live video that allows you to follow them. You will still get notifications via xbone if they go live however (to my knowledge) you will get them for having them on your friends list. NOT for having them followed for the twitch app.
Searching - So there are a few options when it comes to searching for games/channels on the twitch app. If you are looking for a particular game then there's a game tab right when you boot up the app. If you know the name of the streamer you want to watch then you can use the actual search tab to manually search their name. Let's say for example you look up "Cosmwright" then you would see his stream ONLY IF HE IS LIVE AT THAT MOMENT. That's the major flaw right now in the app version. You cannot view actual profiles so unless that streamer is live at the moment of searching then their stream WILL NOT show up when you search for it. Since you do have to link your xbone with your current pc account you can easily look him up there via his profile and then follow him their and he'll show up on your following list on your xbone.
Ads - Ok so I'm gonna be real brief on this one. Ads work on twitch the same way they do on youtube. If someone has ads then they are partnered and it's one of the ways they make money. HOWEVER you must remember they are usually partnered for a reason and usually this is because of popularity and quality of content. Whether or not that's enough to watch a 20 second ad is up to you however.
Delay - Streaming will always have delay, it just comes with the territory. Right now streams are usually 20-30s ahead of where chat is (so saying "do this here" is useless as they've more or likely already gotten passed it) delay wasn't this bad forever however and twitch's delay used to be much shorter then that but they recently changed it to the 20-30 to "make it more stable" This is a twitch issue, not microsoft. As you continue to watch a stream it will continue to get more and more delayed. The way to fix this is to simply refresh the stream which on xbone is just backing out of it then reselecting it.
Chat - Chat was just recently enabled on xbone with the march update. It is purely text based since having it mic based would be horrible for the streams that pull in thousands of people at once. I'm not sure if it's integrated on smartglass but really it's not hard to just type it out via the controller...just don't try writing a paragraph... Also twitch faces are possible on xbone chat so you can express your inner FrankerZ
Content - Ok this is the big one.Twitch is a website...and with that comes a wide range of entertainment (obvs all of which is video game related) Some of it is for the whole family, however most of it is for the teenage and higher demographic. There's quite a few streamers that are a lot more casual when it comes to playstyle and "dialect" There are however codes of conduct that you agree to when you sign up and the twitch staff is no stranger to standing their ground on this no matter whom it is that breaks them. There's a few sorta cliches on twitch that fall into catagories. 1. Esports (League, DotA, Counter Strike) These guys are the more professional like streams. Alot of them are sponsored by major companies and as such conduct themselves as representatives of that said company, These guys (esp League) pull in massive viewercounts and are by far the most watched genre. 2.FGC (Fighting Game Community[Marvel vs Capcom, Smash Bros, Street Fighter]) These guys fall under Esports as well but I don't count them as one group as the FGC is a lot more brash and are usually in some sorta of controversy. There's usually a tournament going on every other week as well as some channels have weekly local ones. 3. Speedrunners (Play games to complete them as fast as possible using a set of guidelines) Usually these group of players use exploits within a game to complete games as quickly as possible using a series of guildlines that differ on the game. There's usually a set few that are among them like Any% and 100% (Any% is beating it as fast as humanly possible no restrictions and 100%..well...being 100%) I could do an entire thread about speedrunning though so I'm just gonna stop here. 4. Casual Players (basically just let's players) These guys don't really get that much of a viewership unless they are already an established person (aka internet famous) However there are a few exceptions to this but it's not nearly as much, as say youtube. 5. And then there's TwitchPlaysPokemon...ya...
That's really all I can think of as of right now but if anyone has questions I can try and answer them for you.