Armadillos All the Way Down

Creators descend on Austin and SXSW.? What could possibly go wrong.

This Week: In the thick of SXSW, this special issue recaps the event so far.? But you’ll also find 4 new research reports full of insight, along with the usual mix of analysis and everything else you need to know now.

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SXSW EMBRACES CREATORS

Although SXSW has had elements of the creator economy at its previous events (including back in 2008-2011 before we even knew what to call it), this is the second year they’ve officially had a “creator track” but this year’s version was sponsored by YouTube and felt like a real creator event.? Kajabi had a house, Epidemic Sound and Colin and Samir were everywhere, and a global audience descended.??

Writing this Sunday night and it’s been a ton of fun so far. I was honored to speak to a packed house on Saturday, with attendees from Poland, UAE, Abu Dhabi, Argentina and Brazil in attendance (and that’s just who I talked to). ? I’ve been all around the event and connected with a bunch of old and new friends.? Kaya Yurieff and Jasmine Enberg led a great session unravelling?big Creator Economy stories – along with some new research data.? Key takeaways: brands have pulled back from TikTok, keeping the lights on but eschewing new initiatives – including for shopping.? And many brands now won’t work with TikTok-only creators – requiring them to have a presence on at least one other platform – any platform.? And the tariffs threatened and enacted by the US have caused many Chinese brands to pause campaigns in the US – along with derailing some new creator product launches.??

The Creator Economy NYC group and Passionfruit graciously invited our Bay Area Creator Economy group to join them at a fun party Sunday afternoon, with great conversation and wonderful attendees.? I learned about the new brand-safety ratings company CreatorScore, caught with friends from Singapore who teased a new home for Creator World, was wowed by Morgan J Ingram 's sales insights and the African podcast network that Molly Jensen is building.

Also got my nostalgia fix at the first Live Diggnation since 2011, where Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht entertained a packed house with their shenanigans.? But the best part was when they brought Alexis Ohanian Sr. on stage to join them.? Ohanian and Rose were mortal business enemies back when 17 years ago when Reddit and Digg competed for attention.? With a nod to his parents in the audience, Ohanian shared that he was always jealous of Rose’s Diggnation and how it helped promote Digg.? The proud parents looked on as their son found redemption on the stage – along with joining Rose in relaunching Digg.? Kevin told Alexis, “You Won” the Digg vs. Reddit war, while Ohanian said that the new Digg was a chance to “take all the lessons (we learned) and build a new platform for today’s social landscape.??

SXSW is now firmly a stop on the creator economy event landscape.? In 2008, SXSW was spring break for geeks – if they keep up the strong creator fuse it’ll become spring break for creators too!

• Related: The new Digg promises to lean into the “Social Spinters” theme from last week’s newsletter and promises to build more intimate communities. ?Hope they bring back Mr. BabyMan (and maybe Screen Savers too).? Digg got a lot of buzz here in Austin, but the proof will be in the product.? Can’t wait to see it.
• Related:? Twitter co-founder Ev Williams returned to launch new features on his private face-to-face networking app Mozi – and took a star turn on the Diggnation stage as well. Download it here.

• Related: Alexis Ohanian joins Frank McCourt’s bid to buy TikTok, will take it “on chain”.
• Related: Based on all the groups I’m part of, I’m calling this SXSW the year of Whatsapp.

BEASTLY PLANS

MR Beast’s pitch deck was leaked to the world, details his plans for global domination.? Some red flags were raised by VCs, including Sam Lessin, previously called it Buzzfeed 2.0 (which did not end well).? Others were concerned about liquidity and worried about the focus on food.? Verge reporter Alex Heath got his hands on the deck and dissected it ($).

SPONSOR:?

How are the world’s most creative minds using AI? In collaboration with Whalar Group, Fast Company polled their “Most Creative People in Business” honorees finding that AI is now a routine part of the creative process, with a return to AI-free work almost unfathomable. Learn more about how Creators are unlocking the possibilities of AI through the full results:??https://www.fastcompany.com/91285651/most-creative-people-in-business-survey-2025.

• From Jim – it’s a good and insightful read, and I said in my talk at SXSW, we’re moving from a co-pilot to an agentic era in AI – so this story will likely be very different in 12 months!

QUIBIS ???

YOUTUBE

• 20 Years:? Good historical feature on YouTube from Variety, but not much new. Variety’s owned by Penske Media, as is SXSW – where YouTube is sponsoring the Creator Track.? Coinkydink??
• Related:? YouTube’s up to 120M subscribers and wants more – introduces “Premium Lite” for $8 that lacks downloads and music.
• Trouble in Oz: Australia removes YouTube from the Under-16 social ban bill.? TT, IG, Snap and others were not amused.
• View From the Top: How YouTube’s biggest creators optimize the platform.
• Casablanca Moment: Big Red is shocked, shocked to find creators talking about gambling sites on its platform, will restrict the conversation to only approved and “certified” sites.? Wonder how much that costs?
• Programmatic Comes to Shorts:? One of my favorite startups, Agentio, is expanding its automated ad placements to Shorts.

META

• Stuff On the Wall:? Instagram developing Discord like community feature – with up to 250 participants.
• Tips R Us:? More Reels posting tips from Instagram? – that counteract what they said a year ago.
• Use Edits Or Else:? Rumors on the street about how the Instagram algorithm might prioritize videos created via their new editor “Edit” over all others.
• Related:? A sneak peek inside Instagram’s new editing app.

TIKTOK

• A Long Way to Go:? TikTok thinks it can bring in $77b in live shopping revenue by 2027 globally (ex-China).? Their global GMV was about $33M in 2024.
• State of the Stop:? Negotiations on the TikTok Ban seem to have hit an impasse, and President Trump says he might extend the ban

OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY

• News Overhaul: Inside the White House’s remake of the press team to focus on memes, reactions and rapid response.
• From the Ashes:? Tweetbot creators building new Bluesky client called Phoenix.
• B2B Creators Everywhere:? Nice piece on “The Confessions of a LinkedIn Influencer”.
• Building On LinkedIn: Love this piece on Lindsey Gamble , one of the B2B LinkedIn creators you should follower.
• Must Visit:? LinkedIn unveils a new “Experience Center” in London.

CREATOR TECH – AI, WEB3, VR, MORE

• Russia Infects AI Chat: New study shows that Russian propaganda has infiltrated OpenAI, Perplexity, Grok and other popular chatbots.? Video’s next.
• Build-A-Agent: Geeky guide on how to build your own AI agents to create content and more.
• Run AI Video Generator Locally:? This guide shows you how to install and run the impressive Wan 2.1 video generator from Alibaba on a local – albeit beefy – Windows PC.

RESEARCH

• Social Engagement Plummets: Research from RivalIQ – which dropped last month – found that Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X have seen drops in engagement from 16% to almost 50%.? TikTok’s engagement lead is slipping, and health and beauty might be headed for a fall.
• GENA – 2 Billion Strong:? Loving the research coming out on GenA/GenZ and fandom.? This one from SuperAwesome’s a month old and packed with great insight on kids and Gen Alpha – including findings on fandom, mental health and more..?
• Latest Food, Wellness and Beverage Trends: New Consumer looks at where these three key categories are headed.? The data is particularly interesting for trend-surfing creators and those considering launching a branded product (consider mushroom coffee).
• Related:? Kickstarter’s 2024 “Creative Download” is worth perusing on its own – but also good fodder for anyone looking to launch their own products.

100% written by me – no human or AI ghostwriters were involved in the production (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 [email protected]. Thanks for reading and see you around the internet.?