YouTube lowers barrier for monetizing but leaves out Ad revenue, a reckoning comes for creator economy startups, and Meta releases music Gen-AI tool
Calling all creator economy folks 📢 I'll be in LA for VidCon. Join me for a meetup (more info soon), I promise we're fun :D DM me if you want to hang out!
YouTube is introducing significant changes to its Partner Program (YPP). The updated YPP offers reduced eligibility criteria, enabling creators to start earning sooner with access to fan funding features like channel memberships, Super Chat, and Super Thanks. Creators with a minimum of 500 subscribers, 3 public uploads in the last 90 days, and either 3000 watch hours in the past year or 3M Shorts views in the last 90 days can apply for YPP. This opens the door to fan funding features and the potential to promote personal products with YouTube Shopping. But I noticed that Ad revenue is nowhere to be found. That’s the biggest revenue stream for YouTubers, so to me, it makes no sense to exclude it from this update. What do you think?
Tons of startups thought they could make bank by selling tools to all the creators out there. Per the people interviewed for this article by The Information , there aren't enough creators willing to spend on these fancy services. For finance creator tools, one creator said “I haven’t had a need for that, or the energy and time to check it out in depth.” Now, startups are stuck playing a sad game of musical chairs, trying to find buyers or completely change their business model just to stay afloat. I think so many creator economy startups are failing because the market became oversaturated, and many didn’t truly have a stellar product to offer. Creators don’t need another “cutting-edge” or “disruptive” tool. They need tools that give them more time to focus on what truly matters to them - making money doing what they love.
Guess what's got the music industry shaking in its boots? Meta 's latest -Gen-AI model, 'MusicGen,' is designed to create music based on text or melody prompts. Trained on 20,000 hours of music, this tool can generate unique music tracks based on user instructions. However, the big wigs of the music industry aren't thrilled with this AI making tunes without their say-so. Legal drama, here we come! Like it or not, we'll soon be bopping to top 40 hits generated by our new AI overlords.
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Meta's chief product officer, Chris Cox, previewed the company's upcoming standalone app, currently known as "Project 92," to rival Twitter . Based on Instagram and integrating with the decentralized social media protocol ActivityPub, this app will allow users to migrate their accounts and followers to other apps that support ActivityPub, including Mastodon . The new app promises a trustworthy platform where creators can grow their fanbase without the drama. They've got celebs on board, and the hype is real. A release date hasn’t been announced, but it might be coming sooner than we think.
Musk's making waves on Twitter again, with Linda Yaccarino barely settling in as CEO. Elon has announced that content creators will soon be able to download a list of info, including their email addresses, on their Twitter subscribers, so they can contact them off-platform if they choose (with opt-in, of course). This move is shaking things up because until now, most social media platforms have been super cagey about letting users download and use off-platform contact info. I think this is a step in the right direction when it comes to creators owning their follower’s info, and if this goes well, I hope other platforms will follow.
And just like that, you're done in a flash ⚡
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1y🎉 Thanks for sharing!