Topic
Streaming & Video
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Vertical video wasn't built for the couch. Instagram's betting anyway
Meta's new Watch While ads sell Reels as living-room viewing. The format's phone-shaped design is the problem it can't market its way past.
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OnlyFans' millionaire count masks a top-heavy creator economy
The platform has minted 5,076 million-dollar earners in a decade, but the same numbers show how thin the fortune is spread across 2.5 million creators.
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Kick's founders bet fan loyalty beats reach with Club
The Stake and Kick founders launched Club, a paid superfan platform. The real test is whether creators trust the same people who built a gambling site.
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YouTube's inflated view counts could backfire in the sponsor room
YouTube's new first-frame view counting hands creators bigger numbers, but advertisers who remember Facebook's $40M settlement may not trust them.
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TikTok's music contest is really a pitch for its LIVE economy
Music On Stage returns as TikTok's answer to YouTube's Eurovision deal, but the real product on show is SoundOn and LIVE's payout tools.
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X's originality pivot puts the retweet economy on the clock
X is scrapping revenue sharing for a program that only pays for original posts. The awkward part: it built its culture on the repost.
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Kick's ad debut trades its founding pitch for creator payouts
Kick built its user base on being ad-free. Now it needs those interruptions to pay creators, and its Gen Z sales pitch has to survive contact with reality.
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YouTube is quietly nudging small creators off ad revenue
New 2027 thresholds double the bar for YouTube ad payouts, pushing smaller channels toward fan funding and brand-deal bonuses instead.
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Why AI shoppers convert better but almost nobody uses them yet
AI referral traffic is tiny for retailers like Etsy, but it buys more per visit. That gap tells you where the money is, and where the risk hides.
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Disney's TikTok deal turns fan edits into free ad inventory
Disney is handing creators legal use of Marvel and Star Wars footage. The real payoff is a two-way pipeline feeding clips back into Disney+.
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Streamlabs bets IRL streamers will pay to stop dropping frames
Network Boost bundles bonded connectivity into a subscription, undercutting the hardware IRL streamers used to buy for the same job.
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Snapchat's AI video ban has a loophole shaped like its own tools
Snapchat blocks pay for fully AI-generated Spotlight videos while nudging creators toward its own AI features. The word 'fully' is doing the heavy lifting.
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Razer just bought its way into the streamer's dashboard
Razer's StreamElements rescue saves a tool 2.6 million creators rely on, and hands the hardware brand a direct line into their revenue stack.
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Xiaohongshu's World Cup bet only works if men stay after the final
Xiaohongshu drew a wave of male sports fans with 104 matches. Keeping them once the tournament ended is the harder, unfinished job.
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TikTok bets Americans will pay $200 a year for vertical soaps
TikTok's LimeShorts app tests whether U.S. viewers will subscribe to cliffhanger microdramas the way Chinese audiences already do.
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Patreon's cuts signal how AI now reshapes creator platforms
A 20% staff reduction at Patreon tells independent creators their income platform is being rebuilt around leaner, AI-assisted operations.
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Meta's wrongful bans just became an oversight-board problem
The Oversight Board is signaling Meta's account-ban system fails ordinary users at scale. Creators who rely on those accounts should take note.
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Spotify wants your music video habit, not just YouTube's
Spotify is turning its video library into a discovery engine with artist uploads, personalized shelves and a video chart aimed squarely at YouTube.
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Ads, not subscribers, are now streaming's growth engine
Subscriber spending has hit a ceiling, so streaming's next revenue comes from advertising. Here's what that shift means for viewers and content owners.
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FIFA's 2026 platform bet turned social clips into rights leverage
By naming YouTube and TikTok preferred platforms, FIFA changed how it reaches fans and what future broadcast deals are worth.
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Big finance now treats creators as a business segment, not a niche
Mastercard's creator-focused debit card signals that the influencer economy is now infrastructure worth building banking products around.
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Why niche sports networks now bet their future on apps
Tennis Channel's direct-to-consumer push shows how single-sport networks escape cable's decline by owning the subscriber relationship.
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Fox buying Roku turns a network into a platform owner
Fox's $22B Roku deal would give a content company control of the TV screen itself — a bet that could reshape how streamers reach viewers.