This Week: TikTok becomes just another geopolitical bargaining chip between the US and China. What could possibly go wrong? Yes, I know, the super bowl was yesterday. Blah Blah. Enjoy this week’s super-bowl free issue. Although I really want to make a “political football” reference – I will decline.
TIKTOK BECOMES A BARGAINING CHIP
As I predicted here last year, TikTok has become a bargaining chip in a broader China <> US trade war. Despite President Trump’s promise to get something done in 30-75 days, Bytedance seems to be slow-rolling the negotiations. Although losing TikTok in the US would be a blow to Bytedance, it dwarfs the downside risk of an all-out trade war. Luckily Vice President JD Vance is on the case, so hopefully he’ll be able to get something done. China’s stance is worrisome, but I see it as just a negotiating ploy between the two superpowers. I think a deal will go through, but I still worry about whether it will conform to the letter of H.R.7251. Interestingly it looks like Larry Ellison and Oracle are front-runners, with presumably son David and Paramount in the mix. Finally, we will likely see DeepSeek caught up in the conflagration, as saber rattling and threats emanate from US state and federal governments.
Other Developments
- TikTok’s Engineering Diaspora: TikTok lost more software engineers than it hired over the last six months. Exclusive data shows where they went and why. TLDR, they left for more liquid compensation packages, not the brass-ring of options and promises.
- Waiting For Godot: Stanford student writes about why he secretly hoped for a ban and what that reveals about TikTok users everywhere.
- Not Interested: Elon Musk says he’s not bidding on TikTok.
LOTS OF LINKEDIN LOVE
LinkedIn seems to have won Valentine’s Day with lots of love and adoration. First up, they rolled out a slew of new features last week, including video on the desktop, video in search and a neat profile preview inside the video player. Creators get a new watch-time metric too! LinkedIn also rolled out a new “Guide to Creating” for those who want to up their game on the platform. And Brendan Gahan reiterated the opportunity for brands, calling LinkedIn similar to YouTube 2010. Pro tip: it’s still not a TikTok replacement.
ROBLOX Hearts CREATORS TOO
In last week’s earnings announcement, Roblox said they shared nearly a billion dollars with creators via “Developer Exchange fees” – up more than 25% from 2023. The company also plans to expand revenue opportunities with creators through merchandise, Shopify and other ecommerce integrations, paid experiences and much more. Last week we explored Spotify’s push to attract creators, now Roblox has emerged as a major source of creator revenue too. I’m excited to see how this develops and encourage creators not to sleep on the Roblox opportunity. Read more about it in their shareholder letter.
- Related: Top Roblox game Brookhaven acquired by gaming developer/roll-up Voldex. The beginning of a run on creator-built games?
- Related: 2024 was a great year for Roblox, but can they sustain momentum in 2025? @rich greenfield has 6 questions – but no answers.
CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT
But it’s been great for at least one streamer, as Economics Explained just produced a documentary that was funded by Curiosity Stream with a 5-year platform exclusivity. More proof that in the wake of Beast Games and Mormon Wives, traditional media is leaning in hard. Aside, I would pay to see Mormon Waves on Beast Games. Want another example? The Paul Bros too, and their upcoming Max reality show. Hope Tana shows up! We’ve seen this boom-bust cycle of traditional media leaning into creators a few times over the last 20 years. Will it be different this time? I think so, but I’m an optimist.
BEST HEADLINE ADVICE EVER!
Looking for a good title for your video? How about a great email headline? If so, you must read this essay from @sarah lacy. It’s about selling books not writing hooks. But her advice is timeless. It involves colorful index cards and sharpies (which it turns out I have a lot of). And it’ll make you want to go to Palm Springs for some field research too.
SPONSOR: Sixteenth, part of Whalar Group, has launched Sixteenth Sports—a new division redefining Athlete Creators and legacy-building beyond the game. Led by Ray Brown and Alexis Ramos, it transforms Athletes into storytellers, entrepreneurs, and cultural icons through brand partnerships, IP development, and long-term career strategies. To learn more about Sixteenth Sports read here.
- Jim’s Take – so smart, as creators are poised to completely disrupt sports – just like they did to most other media over the past 20 years.
QUIBIS
YOUTUBE
- Let’s Hang Out: YouTube expands its dedicated conversational feature called “Communities” to more creators. Part of Big Red’s focus on sustaining parasocial relationships and building connections between fans.
- Come to the Red Side: YouTube woos creators with ads on TikTok. No need for a “fund” when you already share 55% of ad revenue with creators. The cookies are pretty good over there too.
- But Not For Fantasy: Big Red claims it’s the best place for football culture year-round.
- User Experience Be Damned: YouTube embraces super-distribution service Repurpose.IO as a way to auto-post to Shorts, Reels, TikTok and beyond.
- Sims at 25: YouTube celebrates the wildly popular simulation. Fun fact, Sims creator Will Wright filled me in on the project when it was under development. He called it “Doll House”.
- YouTube on TV Gets Better: Roundup of what’s new in the first quarter, including shorts updates, simultaneous surface display and more.
META
- Make Or Break: CTO Andrew Bosworth says (in leaked memo) that 2025 will be a pivotal year for VR.
- Shadowban Secrets: Instagram CEO explains how you can find out if you’ve become “not recommendable” .
- Hashtag Zero: Mosseri also said hashtags don’t work – but a comment in a recent Reddit thread (summarizing all 10 of Mosseri’s latest tips) suggested that brands still use them to find creators because “Instagram’s search functionality sucks”.
- Bull in China Shop: Creators call foul on Mosseri’s tips, complain about declining engagement. According to a new study (highlighted below) they might be on to something. It found Reels down 18-23% on interactions, reach and impressions.
TIKTOK
- OmniHuman: Bytedance explores a new generative AI model that turns a single photo and motion description into a video. Early stage, but the examples in the research report are impressive.
- Yes, Yes We Do: Double T explains how it protects US data.
OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY
- Bye Bye Beast Games: The last Beast Games episode drops Thursday and will signal the beginning of chin-wagging punditry attempting to explain “what it all means”. The Hollywood Reporter and media analyst @Mike Shields got an early jump on the navel gazing with a HR comparing GenZ to GenX and Shield’s musing about if Beast Games was an actual hit.
- Fear is Expensive: The wizard behind Duolingo’s bird shares insight on how trust, guardrails and posting speed translate into tangible results.
- Kids Off Social Media: New legislation proposed in US Congress to ban social for 12 and under.
- GenZ Backlash: Design It For Us releases its “Declaration of Digital Rights” – 12 principles it wants social platforms to adopt.
- Leaning In to Africa: Spotify trains African musicians and helps them breakthrough – an insider look at a recent bootcamp.
- Prime India: Amazon launches 100 new shows on its newly combined Amazon MX Player in India. Given their Beast experiment, I’ll bet creators play a bigger role here going forward.
- Bernie’s Back! Rooster Teeth is back where it belongs, as founder @Bernie Burns buys it back! Looking forward to what’s next. Bring back RTX!
- Bye-Bye Belsky: Adobe CSO @Scott Belsky (a frequent link here) put his vision where his mouth is and jumps to AI movie studio A24.
- Channel 4 Hearts YouTube: Top TV channel in the UK sees success moving its long-form programming to YouTube.
- Rizzing Up the Fizz: Anonymous college social app Fizz hires TikTok exec @David Vazques to lean into shopping and recommendations.
- Use Code XOXO At Checkout: Influencer becomes the next performance marketing darling.
- Beast vs. Paul? Saudi sours on Jake Paul’s tendency to pick on opponents of a certain age. Here’s a matchup they’d like to see!
CREATOR TECH – AI, WEB3, VR, MORE
- AI Laws: Sam Altman rolls out his 3 laws – aka observations – of AI. The first one riffs on Moore’s Law, positing that the cost of a given level of AI drops 10x in 12 months. Read his post for the other two.
- Gemini Available to All: Google opens it up to everyone. Another signal that generative AI costs continue to plummet as capabilities advance.
- AI Transparency: OpenAI provides – presumably in response to DeepSeek.
- Hollywood’s Cold Shoulder: AI Video generator Sora’s just not on their agenda yet, says OpenAI.
- Network Effects: @Andrew Chen uses historical context and lower API pricing to predict how consumer, content and other AI companies might thrive over the next few years. No answers, but good context and insight.
- Image Metadata: An interesting test of how 12 different models created alt-text for a 10k image database. Video’s next.
RESEARCH
- Social Media Trends: Metricool analyzed 21 million global posts to figure out Social Media in 2025. Probably not random, so not predictive – but definitely directional. Key findings include: Linkedin Up 99%, Pinterest up 55%, but Reels Reach down 20%. You can download it here.
Jim Update: This week I’ll be hanging out in Venice, CA at the opening of The Lighthouse – a new creator co-working and social club started by Whalar Group. Say hi if you’re there. This week’s cover image was created by Google’s Imagefx, an increasingly better model than DALL-E3 inside ChatGPT. Version 4 will be out soonish, according to an AMA on r/OpenAI.
100% written by me – no human or AI ghostwriters were involved in the production (except for the cover art!).
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I’ve built and sold multiple creator economy startups to top media companies – including Discovery and Paramount. Subscribe here on LinkedIn to get this newsletter every Monday.
Let me know what you think – email me at jim@louderback.com. Thanks for reading and see you around the internet.
