This Week: Appeals Court agrees to ban TikTok, Sora could release this week, Pinterest, YouTube and TikTok roll out end-of-year wraps and predictions, and why creators are inevitable.
Hi, I’m Jim Louderback and this is my weekly creator economy newsletter. If you’ve received it, then you are either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you. If the latter – and you want to subscribe, get it here!
TIKTOK BAN UPHELD
As expected, the US affiliate court upheld the ban/sale TikTok law, due to go into effect on January 19th. The unanimous decision will likely be taken up by the Supreme Court – the highest court in the US. Aside from the court’s unanimous decision, not much has changed. TikTok will appeal to the Supreme Court, and I expect they’ll take up the case, which would push a decision out until June. The wild card? The new Trump administration, which has historically been tough on China. Lawyer Franklin Graves has a good look at what happened and what’s next. TikTok responds with its own statement. And Bloomberg columnist David Lee cast doubts on any Trump’s support.
- Related: My TikTok Countdown Clock continues to spotlight the days and hours until the ban. I’ll update it If anything changes.
- Related: Frank McCourt continues to line up investors to support his “people’s bid” for TikTok.
- Related: Romania annuls its latest presidential vote due to undue Russian election interference via TikTok and Telegram.
OPENAI EXPECTED TO RELEASE SORA
As part of 12 days of Shipmas, it looks like the much maligned Sora will finally see a wider release this week or next. Last week we talked about how early-access artists revolted against being used as SORA PR stooges – and perhaps their led to the now-expected general SORA release. Also you can now spend $200 a month on OpenAI’s new “PRO” model, which seems excessive for all but the most obsessive users. Aside, couldn’t OpenAI have asked ChatGPT to come up with a better name than “Shipmas”?
PINTEREST PREDICTS
If you had pickles, castles, corsets and mermaids on your 2025 bingo card, rejoice – you just won the Pinterest jackpot. For everyone else, check out Pinterest’s 20 trends-to-come for 2025. Extracted from its pinboard landscape, the company claims it can accurately predict the near future. How’d they score with 2024 trends? I didn’t really see a “Jazz Revival”, nor a run on piggy banks and stacked bows. And badminton definitely did NOT usurp pickleball. And 2025’s sea hag prediction seems like an extension of last year’s jellyfish infatuation. They did hit on at least two 2024 predictions: deeper offline connections and full-body skincare. As always, these trends offer insight – but YMMV.
MORE TRENDAPALOOZA
- YouTube looks back at 2024 and pulls together top 10 trending topics, songs and creators across 12 countries and regions.
- TikTok also looks back to 2024, wrapping up top trends, including demure, brat and pint-sized hippos – plus their own top 10 list of US and global music.
CREATORS ARE INEVITABLE
In a broad argument about the rise of creators – and the demise of traditional media – Doug Shapiro sees the “Creator (Media) Economy” growing from $250B in 2023 to $600B in 2030, similar to Goldman’s estimates. Shapiro also calls media and entertainment a zero-sum game –as creators grow, traditional declines. Money quote: “The last two decades in media were defined by the disruption of content distribution, facilitated by the internet, the next decade will be defined by the disruption of content creation, enabled by GenAI.”
Shapiro also explains why quality discussions are pointless, arguing that it only takes .005% of new YouTube content to effectively disrupt Hollywood’s entire annual output of TV and film. Well worth a read to really understand how creators will either save or destroy traditional models. See Doug speak about this and more at the One Billion Followers Summit in January.
SPONSOR: Whalar Group has unveiled Foam, a groundbreaking digital operating system designed to revolutionize talent managers in the Creator Economy. Foam equips talent managers with cutting-edge tools to streamline workflows, enhance pitching strategies, and secure better deals. Developed with top industry partners, it integrates live API data from Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Snap, providing real-time insights and eliminating manual tasks. Foam is shaping the future of talent, creativity, and brand collaboration, empowering teams to create impactful partnerships. Discover more at foam.io.
- Note from Jim: This is a really cool development from Whalar. Well worth a look.
QUIBIS
YOUTUBE
- Hacked and Banned: Another example of how creators aren’t YouTube’s primary concern – and it’s applicable to all other platforms too. Caveat Emptor.
- Search Summaries: Google’s working on new search features that summarize YouTube videos – presumably leading to less views for creators. Or maybe more views – as it may prompt users to watch relevant videos. Not sure I buy that reasoning, but we’ll see.
- Come to the Darkside: YouTube paid game streamer Myth $4M for two years of exclusivity. Related, Dr. Disrespect hints at a $25M payday from Rumble.
META
- Meta Shares $$$: Some creators are now getting tiny revshares from Facebook. Alas, I’m not cool enough yet.
- Instagram’s Disclosure Problem: New startup Ravineo claims that over 80% of sponsored posts on Instagram aren’t labeled as ads. However, without knowing whether the 13,432 posts analyzed were randomly selected, the results cannot be trusted.
- Titanic Collab: James Cameron will make 3D experiences for Meta VR.
- Talk Talk Talk: Instagram expands two-way community features with broadcast channels
- Stopping Threats: Meta drops 4 new integrity reports for the third quarter of 2024, including how they shut down 5 new covert ops, expanded community standards and Facebook’s most widely viewed content. At press time the adversarial threat report was mis-linked in Meta’s highlighted summary page above. You can find it here.
TIKTOK
- Shop ‘Till You Drop: TikTok reports over $100M sales on Black Friday, a 165% increase in Black Friday to Cyber Monday shoppers and recaps additional holiday season shopping metrics.
- Everything App: TikTok looks to be testing mini-apps to increase usage and retention on platform. @Jeremy Jauncey (linked below too) sees these mini-apps reinforcing the “infinite travel loop”.
- To Boost or Not to Boost: Linkedin is slowly rolling out the ability for users to boost their posts. Brendan Gahan lays out why this is a good idea, while Phil Ranta discusses some of the downside risk. The ramifications are all conjecture at this point, but on balance I think it’s good.
- You Can’t Unsee It: LinkedIn adds revolving slideshows to profile cover images. Time to polish up the tech bro selfies!
OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY
- Duolingo Top Marketer of Year: Zaria Parvez details how they expanded into YouTube Shorts and inspired others to post about them. And congrats to the team for winning Ad Age’s biggest award! See Zaria speak about this and more at 1 Billion Followers Summit in Dubai in January!
- Whither Eater? Vox lays off more video/tech/editorial across popular brands, including Thrillist and Eater. Hopefully Eater’s YouTube channel won’t be affected.
- Leveraging Micro-Fandoms: Good tutorial on how brands and creators can activate micro-communities.
- Party Time: Roblox rolls out a new way for up to six friends to connect together in a “party” – an in-app shared experience that could disrupt Discord.
- Cameo for ALL! Now anyone can join Cameo through its new “CameoX” initiative. Does anyone else think “CameoX” implies an Only Fans vibe?
- Kai Cenat Wins: 50M unique viewers, 727,700 subscribers and millions of dollars. But was Mafiacon 2 bad for Twitch?
- It Isn’t Easy Being Green: Scandal rocks the Muppet fandom world.
- Crypto Hawk: Why would any creator lean into pump-and-dump crypto coins in December 2024?
- Twitch Adpocalypse: Narrow but deep, as top brands pull ads from political streamers on Twitch.
- Travel Revolution: Great look at the past, present and future of social-infused travel, and how AI and creators are changing everything.
- Events Backlash Brewing: As part of its annual bloodletting, Conde Nast laid off much of its events leadership team. Is this the beginning of an experiential pull-back or an isolated data point?
- Gobble Gobble: VidCon parent company Informa buys Social Media Today and merges it into “Informa TechTarget” – highlighting the power of B2B media with “50M permissioned B2B professionals globally”. Oddly, Social Media Today ends up in the “Business functions and applications” group, along with content on search, oracle and HR software.
CREATOR TECH – AI, WEB3, VR, MORE
- Publisher Deals: Perplexity exec explains how their news/info publisher deals work. I’m hoping their revshare expands to creators too.
- From Type to Talk: GenAI offers a bridge to the future for wearable tech and natural language interfaces, argues Stratechery.
- Global Surprises: From Threads in Vietnam to Bluesky in Brazil – a look at 6 surprising global tech winners from “Rest of the World”
AI Disclosure: 100% written by me – no human or AI ghostwriters were involved (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.
