Inside the Creator Economy James Louderback

Shaken Not Stirred

Coinkydink or Not?  All of Facebook's properties go down due to networking "configuration changes". Then TikTok goes out for a few hours. Shortly after, a massive Twitch hack due to a "server configuration change" releases just about everything of note from the streamer including source code, earnings for top streamers and much more. To quote Bond super-villian Goldfinger, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time its enemy action."

Wheel of Snapchat! It started out so well – Snapchat spent a million dollars a day to get creators to post short videos on Spotlight. But it didn’t last long. Now instead of paying creators outright it plans to enter them into a raffle instead. In other words, if you make great Snap Spotlight content, you earn the right to maybe, possibly, perhaps win a few bucks. Imagine if I tried that at VidCon. “Hey team, love all the great work you’re doing! You’ll all be entered into my ‘VidCon Challenge’, where one lucky employee actually gets paid each week”. That won’t fly here – and likely won’t incent creators either. Even if they could get Vanna White to hand out the prizes.

So much for IGTV.

Rewind is Dead too.

Facebook encourages hate speech for profit, says whistleblower: The whistleblower behind the leak of an enormous cache of Facebook documents to the Wall Street Journal, Frances Haugen, went public on 60 Minutes on Sunday, revealing more of the inner workings the most powerful social media platform in the world. Revealing her identity on national television, Haugen described a company so committed to product optimization that it embraced algorithms that amplify hate speech.

BOOK TOK!

Linkedin Pays Creators - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/linkedins-latest-investment-creators-andrei-santalo/
LatAm Creator Economy is super strong but needs more monetization - https://future.a16z.com/latin-america-creator-economy/
The Future of Social Tokens and the creator economy - https://digitalnative.substack.com/p/social-tokens-and-creator-centric
Good News from the Pandemic - https://digiday.com/media/football-has-lost-its-soul-how-copa90-is-repositioning-itself-around-the-creator-economy/
Roblox rolls out age verification system - Roblox will start verifying the age of teenage players - The Verge
Creator Marketing Survey and Report - The Creator Economy Survey by The Influencer Marketing (globenewswire.com)
TikTok Parent limits kids usage in China -  TikTok parent ByteDance adds time limit for kids under 14 on its video app in China - The Verge

Podcaster Shaan Puri is launching an experimental 1 of 1 NFT///  This is an experimental 1 of 1 NFT. This token gives the holder the right to 5 minutes of airtime on the My First Million Podcast.


THE FACEBOOK FILES - Wall Street Journal Facebook Inc. knows, in acute detail, that its platforms are riddled with flaws that cause harm, often in ways only the company fully understands. That is the central finding of a Wall Street Journal series, based on a review of internal Facebook documents, including research reports, online employee discussions and drafts of presentations to senior management.


Disturbing Portrait of TikTok Celebrity: The reality TV show starring Charli D’Amelio and family dropped a week ago, and it paints a disturbing portrait of how fame twists and assaults vulnerable teens.

The CryptoPunks are going Hollywood. - https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/uta-cryptopunks-nft-film-tv-vieo-games-1235005392/
The red-hot NFT crypto-art project from Larva Labs has signed with United Talent Agency for representation across film, TV, video games, publishing, and licensing. UTA will also represent Meebits and Autoglyphs, two other crypto-art projects created by Larva Labs.
The Power of Protest - Can Twitch Streamers Taking a day of make a difference?  -
TIKTOK is NOT Bigger than YouTube - TikTok reportedly overtakes YouTube in US average watch time - The Verge
Apple Muzzles Internal Slack - https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/31/22650751/apple-bans-pay-equity-slack-channel
TikTok Finally Releases an API - Creator Marketplace API
Not sure why Instagram needs a quarterly magazine, but “Instagram Insider Fall 2021” is out.

YouTube Killing Off the Thumbnail: If you’re a YouTuber, you’ve likely stressed over the perfect thumbnail for your video. Consultants, A/B testing tools, and even sessions at VidCon have helped countless creators optimize for clickability. But it looks like the thumbnail is being upstaged –– at least in search –– by auto-generated chapters and time-stamped images. Sounds good for users, but somewhere Jeremy Vest is tearing his hair out.
Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri visits Bloomberg Technology to talk to Emily Chang about new products features, the booming creator economy, and the role social media platforms play in content moderation - mostly around video first content & new features.  This interesting 12min of video covers a big swathe of information on Instagram & where it's heading. What really intrigued me was the "Insta for kids" bit at th 7min mark. Kids under 12... how do you make this safe & build it for parents to really be able to monitor kids' time on site & safety when parents are already frazzled & phone addicted? HOW DO WE SET KIDS UP FOR SUCCESS & MENTAL HEALTH & SAFETY ONLINE IN A WORLD WHERE THEY'VE NEVER KNOWN ANYTHING OTHER THAN BEING CONNECTED THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA? WHAT ARE THE RIGHT STEPS TO TAKE?
When Creator Funds Run Dry? Everyone from TikTok and YouTube to Instagram and Snap has proudly announced their multi-million-dollar funds to lure creators to their platforms. But the lessons of the First Punic War still stand: when you buy a mercenary army, you have to keep paying up. Snap, alas, is learning this lesson the hard way.
Has the world gone QAIQAI... WHAT THE FLUF?! The future of brands is in the metaverse! Rabbit faceGlobe with meridians. FLUFs are designed to be interactive and dynamic multi-media avatars, adapting to relevant content. So who do you think will be the first major brand to buy a FLUF?
Facebook may be forced to sell Giphy one year after buying it | Ars Technica
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2021/aug/12/being-too-aspirational-is-repellent-now-the-rise-of-the-genuinfluencers
No one wants to invest in OnlyFans
https://hypebeast.com/2021/8/tyga-deletes-onlyfans-launches-myystar

As creator economy startups multiply like rabbits, the bigger platforms are getting into the game by upping their product chops. First up, LinkedIn. I love distributing this newsletter there, but their creator-first products are lame. Clearly LinkedIn knows that as well, since it just bought tutorial video app Jumprope and plans to convert CEO Jake Poses into the head of creator product, with CTO Travis Johnson running core engineering.  Also Discord just snapped up one of my favorite writers, Derek Yang, to run creator product as well.
TikTok tests Fleets/Stories like product - https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tiktok-launches-test-tiktok-stories-193554510.html
Creator Economy is upending entrepreneurship as well - https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/377588
Great interview with YouTube product chief Neil Mohan - https://www.theverge.com/22606296/youtube-shorts-fund-neal-mohan-decoder-interview
News: Europe is about to do to copyright what it did to privacy, copywriting dance moves with “Labanotation” and Shorts Shorts Shorts