Our Shocking Frankenfarm Future

Snap, YouTube and Twitch laid out grand plans to embrace creators, grow communities and bring us all into the shiny future. But I can’t help but wonder if we aren’t sowing the seeds of our demise.

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Let’s start with platform silly season and ease into our dystopian future. Oh, and thanks for Whalar for sponsoring!!

9 NEW FEATURES “MADE ON YOUTUBE”

“It’s all about powering your creativity, not replacing it”, said YouTube’s chief product officer Joanna Voolich, as she rolled out a series of new AI tools that generate video from text prompts, aid in brainstorming, video packaging, dubbing and more . Many of these features replicate those already developed by third parties – taking page from Microsoft and Apple’s engulf and devour playbooko. And – as I write about below - AI’s rapid development could soon devalue human creativity and upend monetization.

YouTube also boosted its comments section with a new “Communities” feature with Discord overtones. I adore the concept. Done right, it should increase depth of engagement and development of super fans. But it’s still building on rented land. Not sure how it will play out in the living room, though, as TV remains YouTube’s top growth engine. That big screen experience got a boost too, with new Netflix-like features.

YouTube also rolled out ways for creators to “hype” smaller YouTubers to help them grow. Finally, new monetization options are coming, including digital gifts powered by jewels (featuring The Merrell Twins, of course) and expanded shopping in Southeast Asia.

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TWITCHCON – NVIDIA, HYPE and MORE

Twitch also leaned into its own “hype”, with new Hype Train related features allowing users to spark a donation swarm and influence live streams. As part of a cavalcade of TwitchCon announcements , Twitch is also improving their mobile experience to aid discovery and consumption. AI powered clipping and sharing also gets a boost, as the mobile experience becomes more TikTok-like. I was particularly intrigued by Twitch’s Nvidia partnership , which adds HEVC support and auto-converts streams into both landscape and portrait on the desktop. NVIDIA claims this will add a 25% boost to both efficiency and quality. AI takes center stage here too with both quality and performance improvements. The downside? Simulcasting and restreaming via third parties won’t work – at least for a while. Finally, Twitch’s confusing strike system is being overhauled to make it easier to understand and harder to be banned for life.

SNAP PARTNER SUMMIT

Snap rolled out a simplified feed , sort of like TikTok, and reiterated its commitment to AR/XR at its partner summit. The company debuted its latest spectacles – but you can’t buy them. They will only be rentable by developers for $100 a month. How do they work in practice? This hands-on first look offers an intriguing peek into the future, along with a sobering explanation of what’s really needed to drive them into the mainstream. Think 2030 at the earliest. New AI features took center stage, with new lenses and more. And like YouTube, Snap’s rolling out an AI video generator to select creators with presumably more to come in the future.

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KITS, CATS, SACKS, WIVES, HOW MANY WERE GOING TO ST. IVES?

Bits and Cheers on Twitch, Jewels on YouTube, Crystals on Snap, Diamonds on TikTok, Stars on Instagram. We need a currency exchange to keep track of how much the platforms skim, what creators actually take home, and fluctuations in relative value – all pegged to the dollar, euro or Krugerrand. Let me know if you build one.

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WHY THE CREATOR ECONOMY IS WELL AND TRULY SCREWED

Ever wonder how business brand Forbes became an “expert” in credit cards, roaches, CBD gummies, and sports betting? Ever wonder why I never link – and don’t trust - Forbes content? Read this fascinating and chilling expose of “Forbes Marketplace” , which author Lars Lofgren calls a parasite SEO business. It’s a great read, but what does it have to do with creators? History is about to repeat itself.

The text and image internet went from useful and insightful blogs and websites to SEO frankenfarms, turning early web startups into either clickbait hell or fading microsites. The creator world is next. Enabled by cheap AI videos and fake/cloned creators, I expect similar crap factories will dominate our social video future. Think YouTube will save us from it? Think again. Google owns YouTube, and big G has done nothing to stop these monsters BECAUSE they deliver more ad dollars while they surface cheap crap that we all happily click on.

In the end YouTube will do what’s right for shareholders, not users or creators. If GenAI content and virtual creators deliver better results, they’ll drop messy human creators like a hot potato. That’s exactly what Google did with SEO and websites.

Will things be better on the Amazon-owned Twitch? Have you tried to search Amazon recently? Meta? Nope, AI and the Metaverse are way more important. TikTok? Raise your hand if you trust them. Thought so. And they are also just as screwed as we are (see below).

Perhaps you’re OK with this. Want to build a video frankenfarm and make billions? Lofgren lays out the playbook for success. We don’t HAVE to live in this dystopian future, but I fear the creator economy will go the way of Slate, io9, The Awl, Tumblr and Blender.

• Related: Perhaps the whole AI industry could be well and truly screwed instead – and will collapse under the weight of outsized expectations and costs.

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TIKTOK IS PROBABLY WELL AND TRULY SCREWED

I’ve been saying all along that the divestiture / ban efforts by the US hinge on national security, and national security trumps freedom of speech every time. That was evident at last Monday’s court hearing where TikTok again was under fire because of its foreign ownership. Lawyer Franklin Graves wrote a great analysis of the day’s hearing , and despite US public sentiment, I still think it’s going to happen in some way. However, expect the case to make it to the Supreme Court, where – as we’ve seen recently – anything can happen. Kaya Yurieff was there and says things looks dire for double-T . Bloomberg too, slashing TikTok’s likelihood of winning from 70% to 30% after the hearing.

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KIDS ARE WELL AND TRULY SCREWED TOO – NEARLY HALF WISH TIKTOK DIDN’T EXIST

New research out from Harris and NYU Prof Jonathan Haidt show that despite using it heavily, most kids feel they are trapped by it. Nearly half wish TikTok had never been invented, more than a third feel the same way about Instagram. And almost a third say they have been personally harmed by social media. How much more proof do we need that social is toxic for kids and needs to be tightly regulated until you are 18 or older.

• Related: Instagram launches new Teen Accounts designed to limit contacts and content for those under 16, along with nag-alerts an hour of doom scrolling, and a 10p to 7a time-out. Would have been great in 2019, but too little too late today. Meta’s internal TTC Labs released a white paper detailing their on-going work here – including why they separated “early teens” from “late teens” and new ways to independently verify age. Meta added age appeals, which means stories about Grampy Stu landing in a teen time-out will soon follow.

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QUIBIS:

YOUTUBE

• YouTube is testing a new feature that lets creators edit content after being flagged for a violation .
• Big Red elevates new voices inside the company, as their internal blog highlights Michael Beckmann, the PM behind their creator monetization products ; Ebi Atawodi, PM for YouTube studio ; and Danielle Darby, PM for the new AI background generator “Dream Screen” . Looking forward to hearing them speak at one of my upcoming global creator events!

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META

• Meta’s “Connect” conference takes place this week – you can watch it live on FB.

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TIKTOK

• You’ll have to wait until October 15th for TikTok’s partycon for developers .
• More shakeups at TikTok, as global head of marketing Kate Jhaveri is out and Zenia Mucha consolidates power as global head of marketing, comms and brand - according to The Information ($).

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BRANDING AND MARKETING

• Dentsu launches “House of Creators ” – a global creator accelerator focused first on Roblox. Feels like an agency-based in-house MCN to me. I wonder how many creators they will ultimately hire?
• Tarte Cosmetics once again under fire for its boneheaded influencer gifting program.
• LTK leans into “power gifting” , and says its 300k creators drove $5B in sales so far this year. They also launched an AI co-pilot .

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OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY

• The US FTC finds that 9 top social platforms use “vast surveillance” to collect and retain mountains of data from users with “woefully inadequate” retention and protection policies . They called for ”comprehensive federal privacy legislation that limits surveillance and grants consumers data rights” and more protections for kids and teens. You can download the full report here .
• See, that wasn’t so hard was it, YouTube? LinkedIn lets users opt out of having their content used to train AI .
• Patreon launches a feature similar to YouTube’s new “Hype” , allowing creators to shout out their favs.
• We talked a few weeks ago about founder mode and the creator economy – and how to decide WHEN to bring in people to help your creator business. Dylan Collins wrote a great article on how to ensure you HIRE the right person when you do decide .
• Gleam Futures founder Dominic S. launches a new branded studio designed to “set a new standard for how audiences, brands and creators interact with each other” . Can’t wait to hear more!
• Settlement forces NY City Police to expand its definition of a journalist beyond those issued official press passes. Another example of how creators are changing journalism.

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BEAST WATCH

• Five of the contestants on the first “winnowing” round of Beast Games have filed a class-action lawsuit . Based on my informal discussion with one participant, you do NOT want this to go to trial, as some of the conditions and outcomes were horrific.
• Rolling Stones has a new report on the “Fyre Fest” – like atmosphere at the initial Beast Games round in Vegas. The author also confirmed that a crew member injured by a falling tower is still in the hospital.
• Logan Paul, KSI and Mr Beast teamed up to offer Lunchly , a premade lunch featuring a bottle of Prime, a Feastables chocolate bar and pizza, turkey “stack-ems” or nachos. They claim Lunchly is better than market-leader Lunchables - which a CR scientist said “definitely shouldn't be considered a healthy school lunch”. But fatty, sugar-filled processed crap is still processed crap. The health backlash prompted the Beast to respond .

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CREATOR TECH – AI, WEB3, VR, MORE

• Roblox expands its ecommerce ambitions with a Shopify integration – but will they deliver a shopping experience as seamless as Amazon?
• Lionsgate will share its IP with RunwayML in hopes of accelerating AI movie production. It’s for “augmenting, enhancing and supplementing our current operations”, said a Lionsgate exec. They did NOT add, “until it can do all that stuff on its own”. But they were probably thinking it.
• Runway also launched a cool video to video model, with some fun demos .
• New California laws protect residents from having their voice or likeness cloned by AI without consent.
• OpenAI dumped a ton of videos on its YouTube site , highlighting its new reasoning model. They clearly spent a lot on production.

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RESEARCH

• Pew updates its 2023 study and finds that even older Americans now regularly get news on TikTok .

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100% written by me – no human or AI ghostwriters were involved in the production (except for the cover art!).

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Let me know what you think – email me at [email protected] . Thanks for reading and see you around the internet.

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