11/07/2022: Here’s what’s new and what caught my eye last week
The Positive Case for Facebook: Maybe it’s not all bad at Big Blue. According to an analysis by Stratechery, Facebook is still gaining users, TikTok isn’t killing Instagram (in fact user growth has slowed to a crawl over at Double T), advertising’s not dead and Meta’s capital expenditures aren’t out of line. However, he’s also not sold on the metaverse.
WTF Creator Week? That doesn’t mean, however, that Meta can’t be cryptically tone-deaf. I’m still trying to figure out the point of “Creator Week” – which ends today. Is it a global conference? A news dump? A learning opportunity? Some good stuff here, but the lack of a coherent vision – or even a landing page with an agenda – certainly diffuses the impact. The most common message I saw on their home feed was “how to join”, which meant most of us are just as confused. Still, some good announcements, including NFTs coming to Instagram (via Polygon), subscriptions, gifting, stars and more.
Twitter To Charge Creators: Here’s a first. Instead of paying creators – like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and others, why not CHARGE creators to post on your platform. That’s the misguided “verified” plan that Twitter 2.0 plans to roll out this week. Despite walking back from $240 to $96 annually, the attempt to fleece creators was roundly criticized. Author Stephen King said what we all were thinking. Vanity Fair concurs. Not everyone was critical, Alex Kantrowitz lauded Musk’s early moves, while Napkin Math tried to develop a plan for Twitter to stay alive. Renee Teeley and I will explore Twitter 2.0 Week 1 in a special episode of our Creator Feed podcast later this week.
Patreon Expands Video Access: When Patreon first announced Native Video I was skeptical. But as creators move towards owned communities – and Only Fans, Cameo and others deliver meaningful results – I’ve come around. And now it’s available for all Pro and Premium Patreon creators. A lot of details to be worked out, but it looks like a step in the right direction.
TIL at WebSummit: Really enjoyed WebSummit last week. I hosted the Creator Economy and Music stages, met some super folks and learned a ton. Here’s a roundup.
- Generative AI is legit. It will turn artists into super-heroes and schlubs like me into artists. But the VC Lemming Class has now turned it into the next NEW HOT THING. It’s on a rapid path to falling off the cliff of the Hype Cycle.
- Music gets the AI generative treatment too via Soundful. Garbage Day’s Ryan Broderick interviewed their CEO on stage – scroll down for his thoughts.
- Kajabi’s acquisition of Vibely was announced at Web Summit. Congrats to Teri Yu! Vibely’s community platform, combined with Kajabi’s creator-monetization engine should be a winning combo.
- OG creator Cassey Ho is a legit and impressive startup entrepreneur. Only 1% of her revenue comes from advertising.
- OnlyFans has a Roku channel called OFTV, one way impressive CEO Amy Gan is trying to solve the discovery problem. Perhaps Twitter 2.0 can help?
- The average payout on TikTok’s billion dollar creator fund was just “$5 a month”.
- Everyone couldn’t stop talking about Twitter and Elon Musk – which I suppose is a win.
- Thanks to everyone who came to our first “Inside the Creator Economy” meetup. So great to see everyone on a rainy and chill night. The next one’s in Singapore!
QUIBIS:
- It’s Shoppertainment Time! TikTok’s new study explores APAC’s $1 Trillion commerce opportunity – and by extension a huge global potential.
- Another new TikTok study explores the efficiency and effectiveness of on-platform advertising.
- The “Rise of the Creator Economy” documented in new analysis – LinkedIn exec Cayman Rojas analyzes the conclusions.
- Yet another study to peruse – must be the season. This one from Tubular helps you navigate social video in 2023.
- Shorts comes to TV – how YouTube redesigned small tall videos for the big wide screen.
- Emerging YouTube Shorts creator Alementary shares his October stats. Still not a lot of revenue for all those views.
- TikTok is becoming a popular place for news.
- Who wants to be a Millionaire… on Linkedin?
- Twitter ain’t the only one – Silicon Valley pivots to paid.
- Reddit could unseat TikTok as Google search’s biggest competitor.
- The unbundling of social platforms has already started.
- So this is transparency – TikTok’s European users can have their data accessed by employees in China, US, Brazil and Israel – among others.
- Analysis of in-app spending shows TikTok/Douyin on top at over $900M in Q3. But what’s the China vs. ROW split?
- Congrats to Laura Lee, now Chief Content Officer at Twitch. Good and much needed hire.
- Tumblr reverses direction, allows nudity once again.
- Next time I’m in LA we’re doing a meetup at Pizza at Doughbricks!
CRYPTIS:
- Trouble for creators embracing NFTs – re-sale royalties aren’t baked into the protocol and marketplaces are revolting.
- Open Metaverse Alliance launches in Lisbon – a counterpoint to Meta.
GENIES (our new section focused on generative AI and the creator economy):
- Open AI to invest $500M in Decript as generative AI gets “hot”.
- Congrats to Jeremy Toeman for launching his new video creation tool Aug X Labs. An early entry combining generative AI with video to accelerate video production. Still unclear on the name though.
- Generative reimagining of top horror film posters (HT CreativeBloq)
Shameless Plug: Thanks to VidIQ for interviewing Renee Teeley and me about our Creator Feed podcast. Each week we deconstruct what’s going on in the creator economy! Later this week we’ll do a deep dive on Twitter Week 1, exploring what we like and what we didn’t Listen to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Stitcher!
Also join me in Singapore for Creator World November 24-27. I’ll be leading the business track, but so much more to see, hear and enjoy! Stay tuned for a meetup!
Tip of the Week: Good tips from the CEO of Kyra on raising money for your Creator Economy startup. Kyra raised $15M recently. He also pops a link to their deck in the comments.
See you around the internet, and feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested, and if someone forwarded this to you, you can sign up and subscribe on LinkedIn for free here!
