Creators are Making Coin and Skipping College, TikTok’s Misguided Plan to Rebuilt Trust and Here Comes Honey BigCo!

10-24-2022: Here’s what’s new and what caught my eye last week

Creators Are Making Coin and Skipping College: Adobe just released a fascinating “future of creators” study that leans into monetization. The global study found that about half of what they call “non-professional” creators are monetizing in some way – and half of those say that revenue is the biggest share of their monthly income! The study also explores opinions on the metaverse, whether to create or attend college and much more. Even better, Adobe found that despite rumors of its demise, the creator economy is poised to thrive over the next few years. You can download the full study here – and props to Adobe for including their methodology and margin of error at the top. It appears both believable and actionable.

Big Business Discovers the Creator Economy: It’s been a golden age for creator economy startups over the last few years, and now corporate America has finally discovered it. First up: Walmart (a month ago I told you not to sleep on them). They just announced “Walmart Creator” - a comprehensive affiliate program that’s more liberal and welcoming than Amazon.  In addition to making money on product sales, the program aims to be a pipeline for deeper creator/brand partnerships as well. Apply for beta access now! On the financial side, Visa is now targeting the creator economy with financial tools, early payment plans and donation products.  Visa will partner with Linktree – among others – to bring these to market quickly. Financial startups - including Creative Juice, Karat and Stir - have significant momentum but now an elephant is barreling towards them. Competition will help these startups build even better products, certainly. Also expect more Fortune 100 companies to move into our space soon – weeding out the weak and buying up the best.

New Services Help Creators Build Their Teams: If you’ve tried to hire freelance editors, producers or others versed in online video, you know it’s not easy. Upwork, Fiverr and other services are difficult to navigate, and traditional services tend to favor TV pros, not online video experts. It’s a problem, and last week I discovered three new startups aiming to fix it. The first, YTJobs.Co is furthest along, focusing on everything from producers to thumbnail designers. Founder Paddy Galloway claims 2,500 users and over 100 job postings. The second, Editorof, is still in stealth. CEO Sherry Wong will focus on gig-style connections between creators and editors, ensuring that all freelancers have experience working with YouTubers. Finally, Insyt is in alpha, and currently focuses on gaming video editors but plans to expand to all social video platforms and a variety of experts. CEO Matthew Knight previously built a social video app for Vine editors.  All three are presumably raising capital and looking for partners. Maybe it’s just because I’m doing a LOT more video as part of the LinkedIn Creator Accelerator – and struggling to find editor help – but I definitely see a strong need for these platforms.

TikTok CEO Admits Company Needs to Rebuild Trust: Speaking to LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman at a posh exec confab in San Francisco, ex Bytedance COO Shou Chew says the company needs to be consistent and promises technical solutions to rebuild trust between Double-T and Non-Chinese countries. I call BS. Consistently dissembling and using black-box AI is not the way to rebuild trust – instead transparency, honesty and separation are the only answers – read my full analysis here. In a related story, ByteDance planned to use TikTok to follow US citizens around.

QUIBIS: 

• NBCUniversal Launches a “creator accelerator” –11 TikTokers get a development deal and mentorship. No word about upfront cash. 
• YouTube has a new head of gaming, more closely aligned with game publishers than creators.
• LinkedIn will auto-caption videos, presumably using AI.
• Phil Ranta reviews 12 top link-in-bio tools to help you find the right one.
• Three emerging live shopping formats – pick one for your stream!
• There’s big money in virtual creators (aka VTubers) – Anycolor now worth $2.5B
• The world has discovered Jellysmack ($) and Spotter (disclosure – I’m a Spotter advisor). Plus the new JellySmack studios.
• TikTok adds adult-only section of app. It’s not what you think (but how will they police it?).
• TikTok also finally releases Pulse – to share ad revenue with top creators.
• Interesting look at why Patreon is struggling.
• Generative AI has officially entered “the peak of inflated expectations” – here’s a good roundup of the opportunity. 
• AI writing tools are coming along too – but when will we see AI scriptwriting that’s 95% as good as media’s best?
• Everyone wants to find the next BeReal – today’s contender? Gas!
• Rex Woodbury muses on Gas, Generative AI and the future of social.
• Meta is selling Giphy – does this mean the UK/EU now regulate the global internet?
• You are all invited to TikTok’s virtual gaming event next Wednesday.
• Maybe the government will bail Musk out.

CRYPTIS: 

• The Lord of the Rings are coming to NFTs – but they’d better nail sustainable utility and community too.
• Digital assets coming to the US 1040 tax form – get ready. 
• I got a chance to demo the new Oculus Pro – watch my  dorky video first-look here.
• Finally! The Wienermobile is coming to the Metaverse!

MEETUP AT WEBSUMMIT – Are you going to WebSummit LLC ? If so, join me for a casual meetup/drink Thursday night at Carmo rooftop – I’ll be there from around 5:30p (17:30) until at least 7:00p (19:00). Address - Ravessa D. Pedro De Menezes, 1200-874 Lisbon Portugal - Entrance by Carmo square, or Rua do Carmo. Let me know if you can make it! Also, I’ll be hosting the Verified Stage on Wednesday and the Music stage Thursday morning. Stop by and say hi!

What I’m Watching (or listening to): 

• Gil Kruger ’s new “Mentally Gil” podcast focuses on mental health and creators. Worth checking out.
• Cool video from Cleo Abram about AI image generation and how they can upskill grunts into artists, but artists into superheros.

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! And if you want to hear some of the above stories discussed in more detail, listen to The Creator Feed - the weekly podcast Renee Teeley and I produce - get it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!