Put your NFT in my Getaway Car and Get the Athflow Outta Here!

“Athflow” Is Not a Scatological Term: “Getaway Car” isn’t about bank heists. And “Skinimalism” isn’t an OnlyFans clone. Nope, they are among the thirty trends Pinterest GUARANTEES will happen over the next 12 months. “We can see the future,” boasted Pinterest CMO Celestine Maddy at Pinterest’s first virtual event for marketers. It seems that by scavenging through pin boards, trends emerge, and they emerge on Pinterest first. The company is also leaning into stories, video, and creators, calling themselves “the last positive corner of the internet,” and as Creator Chief Aya Kanai insisted, “inspiration is the new influence.” Quick link — download the trends PDF here.

NFTs Changing Collectible Value: You’ve likely heard the NFT TLA recently. It stands for “non-fungible token”. No, that’s not about finding a subway pass in a mushroom patch. It’s about allowing version zero of original digital goods to store and retain as much value as an original Picasso or hand-drawn Peanuts cartoon. NFTs promise great value for creators. Imagine Mr. Beast selling last month’s “$100,000 ice cream” original with an NFT attached. He’d probably make more than that ice cream cost just by selling the original to a fan. Both Mark Cuban and Elon Musk are selling their original tweets for thousands via NFTs. Learn more about NFTs here.

Innovation Gives Way to Imitation: Rather than building new ways to engage and advance the creator economy, copy culture seems to dominate. Snap’s story format has now been adapted by everyone from Instagram to YouTube and now Pinterest. TikTok’s authentic short-form formats have been aped by Shorts, Reels, and Spotlight. And now Clubhouse clones on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere are the next “big thing”. There’s still innovation, but startups now lead the way. We will keep bringing you innovative startups, with four new ones highlighted in our half-day social audio summit later this month. I want to highlight one early: Stationhead lets you spin records and start your own pirate radio station — but it’s actually legit. You AND the artists can make real money! Try it now.

New Startup Uses A.I. to Help YouTubers Brainstorm: If you’re making video regularly, you’ve likely hit the creative wall now and then — aka “creator’s block”. I just caught up with a new semi-stealth startup working on creator-first tools focused on the ideation to production phase, rather than around optimization and packaging. Gensight’s first tool in its upcoming “Fan Intelligence Platform” uses A.I. to mash up your channel with another on YouTube to generate a list of possible titles. Some are crazy, some are gibberish, and some are brilliant. My favorite so far: “We Drove One Million Miles in an Old Toyota Truck With No Engine and Survived”. I’d watch that.

Unpacking the Creator House Hype: Are they new frat houses? Or emerging engines for extreme innovation and economic growth? The answer is yes! On Tuesday, you won’t want to miss my live discussion with the brilliant teams behind the Sway House and Collab Crib as we explore the three-legged stool of successful creator cohabitation. Featuring top creators (Robiiiworld, Griffin Johnson), brilliant talent minds (Michael Gruen, Keith Dorsey), and financial/brand experts (Maxwell Mitcheson, Chris Young), this free session focuses on “why now?”, emerging innovative business and content models, how to build DTC brands on steroids, and much more! See you Tuesday at 12 PM (PT) at live.vidcon.com!

This Week at VidCon Now: Join VidCon Now Mexico Wednesday at 9 AM (PT) for a conversation about creators in the beauty industry, moderated by ultra-popular actress and creator Altair Jarabo. And, if that isn’t enough to get you excited for this week, we have some amazing creators in the house!

The incredible Cydnee Black will be joining us in our Discord community Wednesday at 12 PM (PT) for our weekly Creator AMA! Then, on Thursday at 3 PM (PT), Hrush and Nicol Concilio are in the spotlight and telling all during our Truth or Dare session! 

Tip of the Week: This week’s tip comes from Independent Consultant Liron Segev about YouTube data that unlocks the “recommended video” goldmine:

“YouTube has revealed two very important analytics that creators need to pay attention to: ‘Other channels your audience watches’ and ‘Other videos your audience watched’. These two reports expose the channels your viewers are watching, and the type of content they consumed over the past 7 days. These are a goldmine for finding content and topics that will resonate and satisfy your audience. When this is done correctly, it can trigger the YouTube Suggestions algorithm that is likely to recommend your videos to watch next, resulting in more views and ultimately more subscribers.”

QUIBIS:

• Subscription Models Are Eating the Internet — Blame Google and Facebook
• How Apple, GDPR, and locked down social graphs are killing the internet.
• The Times gets preachy about deepfakes. Hint: Tom Cruise really isn’t on TikTok.
• NeimanLab compares Facebook and Australia to The Usual Suspects. 
• Good (and balanced) profile of controversial internet celeb Trisha Paytas (slightly NSFW pic at top).

What We’re Watching: That moment when you catch someone playing your song on the streets. And you’re Lindsey Stirling. When TikTokers interview for real jobs! And the “Waddup Council” guys are hilariously back. Huntington Beach will never be the same.

Have a great week! 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 here!

(HT to friends Maja Mrkoci and David Spark for contributing stories!)

Jim Louderback

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