Hi, I’m Jim Louderback and this is my weekly creator economy newsletter. If you’ve reading this, it, then consider subscribing to get this newletter in your inbox weekly! Get it here!
July 28th: Here’s what you need to know.
Divining the State of Social Video 2024
Want to know the priorities for top video platforms? Don’t listen to what they say – but instead look at what they do. Analyzing recent feature launches and beta tests from Instagram, TikTok and YouTube provides a glimpse into their strategic direction. Despite what feels like feature parity – and outright copypasta (see TikTok’s thumbnail news below), the platforms do seem to be diverging at a macro level.
- Friend to Friend – Instagram is doubling down on the Social Graph. The focus seems to be on messaging and communication, making it easier for users to connect with close friends around content. As we shared last week, Instagram has 12 new ways for private and public notes to be shared around content, and they may be replacing the “post” icon with a “messaging” icon. And according to CEO Mosseri, the “Share” has become the new hero metric. It’s the “Threadification” of Instagram.
- Creator to Community – YouTube has rediscovered the power of the Creator Graph. Many of their new tests and launches center around ways for creators to enable, nurture and capitalize on connections between creators, content and fans. Key features include beta-testing of community spaces and expanded access to community posts. In many ways this is a return to YouTube’s roots.
- User to Stuff – TikTok seems to be shifting from a Topic Graph to a Shopping Graph. For years I’ve focused on TikTok building a unique list of topics a user responds to – and then emotionally exploiting that graph to drive engagement. But that seems to be shifting (or expanding) to separating users from their money as evidenced by shopping stunts (like Deals For You) and events with Eventbrite.
That doesn’t mean other priorities have been deprecated. YouTube still wants to own the living room, TikTok wants to suck up all your minutes, and Instagram wants, well, whatever Zuckerberg wants. Other platforms? LinkedIn owns the work graph, along with trying to make lemonade out of Microsoft’s misguided “AI Everywhere” orchard. Twitch is still mostly game streaming but dreams of being TikTok – and turning a profit. Snap continues to focus on friends as it pushes its subscription service, and X wants to be Elon’s bully pulpit.
- Related: LTK wants to be TikTok too.
Beware the “Social Media Trap”
New academic research from the University of Chicago debunks the notion that social platforms are “good” because so many people use them. The study analyzed TikTok and Instagram across a broad sample of college students. Turns out that despite some joy, a significant number of students just wish they didn’t exist. Why? FOMO drives much of social media use, compelling users to stay active. They KNOW it’s messing with their mind, but they just can’t quit. The researchers called it a “social media trap”, demanding engagement while delivering evil. More evidence that social media can be toxic – and the bigger the platform the more misery it spreads.
- Related: Fascinating profile of the lawyer suing social media companies on behalf of kids ($).
- Related: Snap under fire for not protecting teens ($)
Publicis Snaps Up Influential
The big advertising behemoths see the writing on the wall: creators and influencers are disrupting them. That’s why Publicis bought Influential last week. The mega-holding company joins WPP (with Obviously) to offer creators at scale to their clients. The WSJ pegs the deal at $500m ($), which puts other big agencies in play and casts a rosy patina across the rest of the creator economy. But I wonder. Even if you combine all of Influential’s data with Publics, can they really deliver actionable attribution at scale. And in a world where success comes from understanding the quirks of content and community, treating creators as just another line on the media plan seems misguided. At least – according to Lindsey Lugrin and FYPM – they treat creators well. That’s worth rewarding.
Kling One-Ups Sora
We all love seeing Sora samples. But it’s not available, so it’s just a curio. The impressive new Kling video generator, however, is now open for anyone to make five second videos for free. And better quality and 10-second videos are coming soon. It did the best job yet on my standard test – “A dog chasing a ball on the moon”. Give it a watch here. Kling also renders images, but I found it far less useful than Dall-E or Midjourney. Here’s the best it could do when given the same prompt for this week’s “Welcome to Social Video World” cover image.
- Related: Another sign of how rapidly AI video generation is advancing – Stability AI launches a “4D” video model, which creates short snippets of the same video as seen from different perspectives.
- Related: Overview of how documentarians and the rest of the traditional video industry is adapting to AI (or not). Can’t put this genie back in the bottle, although I expect Hollywood, Bollywood and others to try. AI’s Paranormal Activity moment will be coming soonish to a multiplex near you.
SPONSOR: Global creator company Whalar Group has appointed Emma Harman as its EMEA President. In this new role, Emma will lead EMEA marketing and will focus on strategy, innovation, and expanding Whalar Group’s unique creator ecosystem. Learn more about this role and Emma’s plans here.
QUIBIS
YOUTUBE
- Runway evaluated and likely scraped videos from almost 4,000 YouTube channels to train its popular Gen-3 model (along with many other media companies). Check out the full spreadsheet to see if your channel was affected.
- Google highlights Shorts monetization growth in its quarterly results presentation, “particularly in the U.S.”
- Russia plans on throttling YouTube to punish Big Red for its actions and inactions.
- More tips and insight from Rene Ritchie, including a great quote from Todd Beaupre as a way to think about the algorithm: “automated word of mouth”.
META
- Zuckerberg emphatically endorses open source AI, and releases its new Llama 3.1 405B model. FTC chair Lina Khan agrees, hinting that closed models might be anti-competitive. Sam Altman says that we need an AI industrial policy ($). Gary Marcus counters that this could be the end for OpenAI.
- 4 Tips from Instagram to get more from your live streams.
TIKTOK
- Custom thumbnails come to TikTok – thumbnail scientists can’t be far behind. Lindsey Gamble argues that this will incent creators to post on TikTok over YouTube, but I’m not so sure. I do agree that it should push Big Red to follow, letting creators duplicate thumbnails on both platforms.
- TikTok spending big, gearing for a Supreme Court showdown as it fights for US survival.
- New secret for TikTok success: Get your high-profile boss to retire.
- TiKTok Lite removed key protections and puts users at risk.
- TikTok Shop expands its European conquest with new outposts planned in Spain and Ireland.
OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY
- As rumored since late last year, Creative Juice has been acquired by Rho. Not sure what that means for customers of its banking app or its investments, as their website doesn’t load and founder Sima Ghandi has departed. Their linktree still works, though, as of 7/28.
- It’s creator vs. creator in a new lawsuit that aims to find out if a creator’s look, feel and format are copyrightable.
- Taylor Lorenz ruminates on the fractured memefication of news.
- Holy crossover Batman: Michael Bay, Adam Goodman and creator Alexey Gerasimov are bringing Skibidi Toilet to the big screen.
- Veteran talent manager Larry Shapiro writes about the power of communities to build together.
- How to write an effective LinkedIn post from Copyblogger. Except for the advice on hashtags, it’s very useful.
- Reddit launches revshare program with sports leagues – could NIL athletes and creators be next?
- Social’s current “it girl” Haliey Welch joins Fanfix. Congrats to Dylan Harari and the rest of the crew.
- They’re calling it “The First Real Social Olympics”. What about the last 8 since Twitter, Reddit and Digg launched? They don’t count?
- SAG-AFTRA strikes video game companies – could there be an opening for creators?
- How GenZ in Asia is rewriting their world – and what that means for marketers.
- Brian Morrisey writes about the dark side of performance marketing and how it changed web advertising. Could a similar reckoning be coming for the creator economy’s focus on attribution and live shopping?
- Good news for smaller creators – rates are up 20% for micro-influencers.
- Congrats to JaidenAnimations for 10 years on YouTube!
CREATOR TECH – AI, WEB3, VR, MORE
- Look out Google – OpenAI announces a new “SearchGPT” designed to deliver fast answers with relevant and clear sources. Sign up for the waitlist here. Probably just coincidence that they dropped the announcement right after Google’s quarterly results.
- Come to the Dark Side! We’ve got cookies. Now and forever.
- Roblox shows off cool 3D and 4D advancements at SIGGRAPH.
RESEARCH
- Do you need to make separate ads for TikTok and YouTube? No, according to new research from Google creative consulting spinout Sundogs. They also share vertical ad insights gleaned from their analysis. Money quote: “If people are forced to watch something, they want it short. If they choose to watch something, they want more of it.”
- Who Wants to Be a Creator? Izea’s 3rd annual “Influencer Aspirations” study explores how US consumers feel about becoming a creator – and being influenced by them. Key takeaways: 26% of social media users consider themselves influencers, and nearly two thirds would take money from brands to shill a product. More than half would quit their job to do it full-time. Also interesting – more than three quarters of those self-identifying as an influencer work at companies with more than 50 employees. Run a business or a division? 10-20% of your employees probably call themselves an influencer – do you know who they are?
- 15 tech trends you should know about: McKinsey’s 2024 Technology Trends Outlook report offers a great snapshot of today’s tech trends. Why should you care? Because success in media today requires a deep understanding of what’s happening in the world of tech. If you slept on AI over the last 18 months, for example, you’d be far behind. GenAI is – of course – covered, along with applied AI, industrial AI, digital trust, advanced connectivity, and immersive experiences.
- Deinfluencing is Real: Study from Harris and Credit Karma finds more than two thirds of all US consumers say they’ve consciously NOT purchased products shilled on social , growing to nearly 90% of GenZ. Much of that is linked to unhealthy overconsumption and counterfeit goods.
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.
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Let me know what you think – email me at jim@louderback.com. Thanks for reading and see you around the internet.
