Creators Join the C-Suite: Marques Brownlee just invested, joined the board and will serve as Chief Creator Partner of tech accessory company Ridge. On the one hand I’m excited to see Brownlee expand beyond video. But on the other hand, it’s concerning. MKBHD is one of the world’s most trusted technology reviewers. But now he’s got a conflict that could derail some of the trust he’s built with his viewers. He’s certainly conflicted when it comes to Ridge competitors. But what about adjacent products? Brownlee says he has “a lot of product ideas, and together we’re going to actually make them happen”. In the last few weeks, he’s reviewed the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and the Apple Vision Pro. But how do we know he’s not developing a mobile phone or a VR headset with Ridge? Highly unlikely, but never say never. Trust is so hard to build, and so easy to lose. As a former tech reviewer and editor of PC Magazine, the potential for conflict has me concerned. It’s a slippery slope when you become what you review.
The Real Meaning Behind Reesa Teesa: Everyone’s talking about “Who the F Did I Marry” – a powerful 500 minute story playing out across TikTok in 50 chapters. Lots of pundits have tried to tease meaning out of the moment – in many cases using it to validate their own vision for the creator economy. But it’s not that simple. Yes, this could be a sign of our hunger for longer stories – and the demise of short form. Or perhaps it’s how TikTok will be saved. But it’s too soon to jump to any conclusions.
I see it as more of a lightning in a bottle unicorn that will be tough to replicate. Hot Ones was once the future of interview shows – yet it looks like podcasts were the right answer. Remember “What Does the Fox Say”? Turned out nothing. “Who the F” reminds me of Lonely Girl 15 – and “Bree” seems curiously close to “Reesa Teesa”. She’s certainly cranking up the monetization spigot, going live twice a day and encouraging Cash App donations. I wonder who – if anyone – is in the back-seat of this show.
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QUIBIS:
YOUTUBE
- More evidence YouTube is now old media – it’s bigger than Netflix and Disney+ in the US, and new creator channel pages for its TV app was the talk of the town – ironically announced via a 30 second short, making it impossible to actually SEE the wide screen shots.
- YouTube also testing changes to the desktop watch experience.
META
- More bad news for Meta and kids – parents managing their pre-teen kids sold explicit material to creeps.
- Meta’s new research aims to more realistically model the physical world.
- Meta launches new AI tools to help match brands to creators – and adds 8 new countries – to Influencer Marketplace.
TIKTOK
- EU investigating TikTok over possibly putting kids at risk – and could fine DoubleT a half-billion dollars. Read the LinkedIn community coverage here.
- TikTok leans into photos, claiming they deliver higher views than videos. Works for me, as a picture I just posted has 35% more views than my best video. 35% of nothing, though, is still nothing. (HT @Lia Haberman).
- TikTok’s aggressive moves angering users, creators, and business partners. Huge blunder?
- Fascinated by the new ByteDance regional HQ design in Xiamen, China (about 350 miles up the coast from Hong Kong) . Maybe they’ll move the real HQ there from Beijing if they ever go public. Would love to take a walk down “Music Wave Boulevard”.
OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY
- My two favorite CPOs – @manuel Bronstein from Roblox and @Tomer Cohen from LinkedIn got together and did a podcast. It’s like an audio version of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup!
- Reddit files to go public and invites top moderators and contributors to invest. Many Redditors are not amused.
- IAB updates its podcast measurement standards, but it’s unclear that anyone cares based upon the lack of certification.
- Pinterest has a new shoppable video show, produced by and streamed on Tastemade’s TV channels. Apart from Star Trek and pizza, shoppable TV has flopped. Could a QUBE reboot be around the corner?
- Twitter under fire for massive bot problems.
- Micro-influencers could be the key to swaying the US election.
- You probably don’t want to be a livestreamer in China.
- Buzzfeed unbundling continues as it unloads Complex to NTWRK – Tasty might be next.
- Related: It’s all about a pivot to performance.
- Roblox paid $741 Million to creators in 2023 – up 19%, but still tiny compared to YouTube.
- This Fortune story claims AI girlfriends are cleaning up – but it’s really just AI-generated images with human-written backstories and chats. Hint: if humans are powering the chat and writing the stories, it’s a puppet, not an AI creator.
- Twitch and Kick banned in Turkey over gambling issues.
- Supreme Court starts hearing today about whether social media sites “must carry” lawful but awful speech.
GENERATIVE AI
- Stratechery explores whether generative AI will be the key to making the Metaverse a reality.
- Stable Diffusion 3 is out, promises better prompt adherence, words, blah, blah, blah. If I can’t use it, it’s not real.
- Google releases and then pulls back its Gemini image generator because it overcorrected for previous bias.
- Reddit sells its data for $60M to help train AI. Wondering about price elasticity here.
- @Phil Ranta finds an AI music generator that he actually likes. You probably will too.
- RELATED: ElevenLabs is developing an IA Sound Effects product. This is cool.
RESEARCH
- From the self-serving data department, Collabstr mines their own internal numbers to predict the future of Influencer Marketing. Presumably on Collabstr. Interestingly, at $128B, their global creator economy market size is about half of Goldman Sach’s widely disseminated estimate. They do reach relative parity around 2030 though.
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Thanks for reading and see you around the internet.
