Roblox Is Coming for You Too, Why TikTok is beating Facebook and Instagram, and AI-Generated Text to Video is Coming FAST!

9-19-2022: Here’s what’s new and what caught my eye last week 

How Web3 Will Change the Creator/Community Dynamic: If you’re a creator (or work with them) you need to read the latest from the always insightful Li Jin. Li explains how as Web3 develops creators will spend less time creating and hoping to attract an audience, instead currying a much smaller group of superfans to support, develop and own vlogs, songs, live streams and episodic videos. The cited examples show that this isn’t some sort of airy future potential. It is happening now. One example explains how a musician spent weeks connecting with potential token-holders on Twitter, Discord and other platforms before his successful coin launch. We will DEFINITELY need new tools to help creators find and build relationships with superfans. And as an aside, it’s why I’m so excited to helping Fernando Parnes ’ company Super.Fans. Read Li’s piece then check out what Fernando is building. 

Roblox Ages Up: Don’t sleep on the popular creator/game platform. At last week’s developer conference the teen/tween gaming platform rolled out exciting new features, including an age gate for more PG-13 content, new interactive advertising, an update on the move towards more realistic avatars and experiences, and a lot more. Just as savvy creators age up their content as their community ages, Roblox is doing the same thing. Roblox is one of many companies building the metaverse, but they are my odds on favorite to be one of the biggest winners. It’s a creator-first platform with a strong teen and pre-teen audience and huge communities. Don’t know who Tubbo, Ranboo or The Krew are? Here’s a hint – they were only the biggest things at VidCon over the past few years (Mr. Beast excluded) and are top Roblox and Minecraft creators too. Speaking of Minecraft, where’s Microsoft in all of this?

From Friends to Trends - What's Old is New Again: Interesting analysis of how TikTok is beating Facebook and Instagram in time spent. Seems that users are moving from wanting to see updates from friends to simply wanting to be entertained. Almost back to the future, as the megaphone of traditional media gave way to the two-way interactions in today’s social era. And now, it seems, we're headed back to a one-way stream of entertainment - with a thin social layer on top. It's a shift from friends to entertainment and trends - says the article - and even exclusive arrangements with your favorite creators might not make a difference.

Auto-Generated Video Will Soon Change EVERYTHING: Forget text to images – text to video is coming soon. I’ve been chatting with a founder about how he is integrating Stable Diffusion into his video startup – can’t reveal who yet. And thanks to this great article from Napkin Math about what happens when creation costs go to zero (yes, I know that’s FB, YT and TT’s model, but this is different), I discovered RunwayML too. The world is changing before our very eyes. Get behind it or get left behind, as this is as important as the internet was 20 years ago. 

QUIBIS: 

• The return of the son of the bride of advertising.
• New TikTok Now feature aims squarely at BeReal.  
• 4 models to building a creator-first “house of brands”, from Brian Morrissey .
• Night Media and The Chernin Group partner with $100M to roll-up creator economy assets.
• vidIQ adds services division to the popular family of creator tools by acquiring Tim Schmoyer & Co. 
• Ninja will now multicast his live streams across Twitch and other platforms
• OnlyFans Creators Made a LOT of Money Last year - $3.9B!
• YouTube paid out $6B to the music industry in the last year
• TikTok goes to Washington. It didn’t end well.
• Twitter whistleblower goes to DC too. The smear campaign is well underway.
• Leaked internal data shows Instagram Reels is in trouble.

CRYPTIS:

• Not every community is positive: Rebecca Jennings blows the doors off of Web3-focused “Launch House”.
• The merge worked! Good for the planet (the world now uses .2% less electricity), but not so good for Ethereum owners (at least short term).

THIS EDITION OF INSIDE THE CREATOR ECONOMY IS SPONSORED BY… ME! – and Renee Teeley ⏩ Teeley. Renee and I just launched a weekly podcast called “The Creator Feed”, which covers the most important trends and news in the creator economy to help you build your business, diversify your revenue, and make more impactful content! You’ll hear news, insight and analysis about what's important today, what will be important tomorrow - and what's really important to you as a creator.

Subscribe TODAY on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever fine podcasts are served. Much thanks to Rob Walch and Libsyn for hosting and help – and DJ Coffman Coffman and Spreadshop for being our launch sponsor! We love you guys!

RANT: Drain the Shark Tank

I've never been a fan of "Shark Tank" style shows, or startup competitions that directly lead to investments. Why? Investing is a nuanced and complex process that requires far more than a snap judgement, and many of the best opportunities can't be easily reduced into a made-for-TV sound bite.

Live competitions are bad enough but turning the investment process into a reality TV show adds even more problems. Reality TV is built on archetypes, and it's unfair to twist entrepreneurs and creators into stock characters (the geek, the hero, the villain, the charmer, etc.) for the sake of maximizing viewership. These are great for Survivor or Mr. Beast but have no place in the complex and imperfect dance between investors and investments.

If you get the urge to produce or appear in a “Shark Tank” style startup competition, just say no.  Grow your company, do your due diligence, and invest - for sure. But don’t participate in public spectacles - it demeans and debases everyone involved.

Tip of the Week: Not one, but a 37-page social media guide from David Paykin packed full of tips about TikTok , Instagram and YouTube . Download it for free here. Here’s a sample tip from the guide (slightly edited for clarity): 

Using the same exact hashtags in every video is NOT optimal for TikTok as it can be looked at as spam/bot activity. Instead Cycle between this structure of hashtags:

• 3 niche hashtags
• Money Example: #money #moneytok #moneytips
• 3 broad hashtags
• Example: #foryourpage #fypシ #tiktok 
• 3 niche hashtags & 3 broad hashtags
• Cooking Example: #cooking #cookingtiktok #food #fyp #foryoupage #trending
• 2 niche hashtags & 1 broad hashtag
• Law Example: #law #lawyer #foryou
• No hashtags

 What I'm Watching: 

• This video from the YouTube Creator technical team reveals new analytics features coming soon.

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!