TikTok Fights Back

Happy Monday ICErs, this week we’ve got TikTok Fallout, DumDum Companies and I’m headed to Singapore Friday for Creator World (meetup details below).? Finally, I’m curating Open Sauce’s Industry Day in June.

TikTok Plays Hardball: TikTok’s going to court. ?Lots of pundits seem to think Double-T will have a strong free speech case in the US, but I think not.? The Biden administration and Congress worked hard to craft a bill that would stand up in court – as it’s focused on national security.? US History is full of examples where media and telecom companies (which TikTok is arguably both) have been curtailed during wartime, including the “Espionage Act” in 1917, which gave the Postmaster rights to revoke mailing privileges for suspected publications (mail being the internet of its era) and Huawei and ZTE being banned by the US more recently.? Also hearing rumors that top US staff will either quit or be terminated RSN.

• Related: TikTok’s general counsel steps down to focus 100% on the ban.??
• Related: If the US prevails, TikTok can always sell.? But it seems that the company would rather pull out of the US than sell its operations.??
• Related: Rich Greenfield thinks Snap is well positioned to benefit along with Meta and YouTube.? Their TikTok-style competitor Spotlight is up 125% YoY.
• Related: Triller (remember them) planning a reverse merger with China-based investment firm AGBA.. “Truth Social” vibes.? Chris Erwin has a great analysis of this opportunistic and junk-grade deal.
• Related:? Crickets from angry TikTok users on the potential sale or ban this time around.
• Related: TikTok strongly encouraged Mandarin among new hires, as Chinese employees were transferred to the US en masse.
• Related: EU threatens to ban “TikTok Lite”.
• Related: Creator Economy startup founders say they are well positioned to thrive – ban or no ban.

Clueless Company Tells Employee-Creator to Stop Promoting Them: When will employers wake up to the power of creator/employees? With 1 in 12 Americans identifying as a creator, every business likely has at least one.? Chik-Fil-A had a gem inside one of their stores - and muzzled her.? Shake Shack jumped in and took advantage.? So now a Chick-Fil-A workers makes branded videos for Shake Shack – garnering millions of views. Wake Up Corporate America. (H/T Jessica Atkinson ).

• Related: Krispy Kreme loves creators.

How Not to Build a Paid Community: ? Watcher made a bombshell announcement 9 days ago: they were abandoning YouTube and moving everything to their $6 a month paid site.? Predictably fans revolted.? Shortly afterwards they relented – new content would debut on their paid service and would arrive on YouTube 30 days later.? While I am sympathetic to the Watcher team, this was an unwise move.? And a 30-day delay won’t fix it.? Remember Vessel?? They initially windowed top YouTubers for 30 days, but a similar fan revolt led them to change that to just 3 days.? But the damage was already done – as it may well be for Watcher.? You just don’t cut your community off at the knees. We clearly need more case studies detailing best practices to convert your best fans to paid - while keeping your casual fans happy too.? I hope they can mend fences while driving enough revenue to survive, but it won’t be easy.? Lesson:? Understand your fanbase and figure out which “super-fans” can be enticed to pay, and how to convert casual fans into paying customers, before slamming the door.? Quick plug for Super.Fans, who could have helped. (Disclosure, I am on their advisory board). Passionfruit explores why this is part of a trend and how it’s all YouTube’s fault.

Does This Look Infected to You? Dear Meta, what if you stopped wasting money on things like, er, the Metaverse and just decided to share revenue with creators instead.? Maybe you wouldn’t have lost $200B in marketcap last week.? Oh, and here’s a free tip – a Threads raffle is NOT how you pay creators.? So Mark, stop trying to thirst-up, and instead focus on building a healthy ecosystem where everyone profits.? It’s not that hard.? Look up 101 a bit, just past SFO, over on Cherry Ave in San Bruno.? If they can do it, you can too.

• Related: Stratechery on why “Open” is important to Meta and indirectly suggests a path towards better creator payouts.? Meta is about time spent and attention.? Creators can meaningfully dent that – but only if they act together.

QUIBIS: ???

YOUTUBE

• RIP awful YouTube player redesign (I stumbled across it in the wild.? Blech).
• YouTube sells $8.1B in ads in Q1 (up 21% YoY), says Shorts is doing much better.

META

• Meta opens up its VR/Quest OS – now called “Meta Horizon OS” - for others to build headsets, devices and more.? They also open up their store as well.? Could this be a repeat of the Windows vs. Mac battles?
• Instagram rolls out new ways to make subscription revenue – and says 2M users pay to subscribe to creators.? Still just a tiny fraction of total users, but it’s something.
• Pinterest now lets you claim your Instagram account, which gives you attribution, reporting and auto-posting across the two platforms.
• Meta’s RayBan Smart Glasses get an update.
• Perhaps embedding AI in its apps wasn’t the best idea afterall.

OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY

• New streaming companies in Korea make huge gains as Twitch pulls out.
• LinkedIn teases “record engagement” once again, without explaining what it actually means.
• Emma Chamberlain with some Taylor-swift level attention techniques, including a new TikTok account, espresso martinis with KJ and more (HT ThoughtLeaders).
• Snap on the rise, but still losing money.? Also Snap won Coachella with its innovative lenses and content challenges.?
• Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime Hydration under fire for containing “forever chemicals” and excessive caffeine.? Unrelated - Brother Jake gets roasted for his hair.
• Mark Rober launches Hack Pack – a robot-in-a-box subscription service for adults.
• Net Neutrality is back, which is a good thing.

CREATOR TECH – AI, WEB3, VR, MORE

• Drake’s new music includes AI voice clones of Snoop Dogg and 2Pac.? The Dogg is not Amused.
• “What’s AI really good for”, asks Benedict Evans .
• Caption.AI launches an AI ad generator with 13 synthetic creators.? I made one with “Ava” for “Inside the Creator Economy”.? However, I couldn’t download it without paying and it was sort of creepy.
• Bored Apes lost in the mist, with layoffs and a restructuring underway, says CEO.
• Tests claim to show Udio and Suno are using copyrighted music to create new AI songs.

RESEARCH

• Insightful stuff from Sprout Social’s 2024 influencer marketing report. One fascinating result: half of younger buyers are OK with AI creators.? Download here and read my (sponsored) post on LinkedIn here for the top-line.
• Luma Partners’ Q1 market report provides a detailed look at M&A across media, adtech and martech. Deal volume up but VC fundraising down.
• Great global data on which countries spend the most (and least) time in front of a screen, along with social usage, TikTok viewing and more.? South Africa, Brazil and the Philippines top the charts (except for KSA krushing gaming and the USA’s extreme TV addiction).

JIM’S EVENT-A-PALOOZA CONTINUES AS I CURATE 3 EVENTS IN 9 WEEKS (someone buy me a coffee!)

• CREATOR LABS is in the books – an amazing show-within-NAB that I wrapped up last week.? So fun – our post-show meetup had over 80 creator economy leaders hanging out and plotting the future over cocktails and snacks.

• CREATOR WORLD!? I’m headed to Singapore this week to help host Creator World with Jasper Donat . Excited to welcome Anthony Brown , Ricky Ray Butler , Dylan Harari , Mohamad Fattal , Esther Nguyen , Sherry Wong and many more top execs to our stage.? I’ll be doing an informal meetup Wednesday after the show (around 6:30) at Senor Taco at Clarke Quay, where the free Music Matters Live music festival kicks off at 8p!? Come join me at Creator World – here’s an awesome discount.

• OPEN SAUCE: No rest for me! ? I’m also curating and programming the industry day at Open Sauce in San Francisco June 14th.? Open Sauce is an amazing “VidCon meet Maker Faire” style event, with over 150 top STEM creators and much more.? Want to speak at Open Sauce?? Drop me a line!

• And then it’s off to VIDCON two weeks later!

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Have a great week out there ICErs and hopefully we’ll cross paths at an event soon!? If you’re in SE Asia, drop me a line - I’m hitting up Penang, Singapore, Yogyakarta, Surabaya and west Bali over the next two weeks.