Welcome back. LimeWire, a platform once infamous for music piracy in the early 2000s, has rebranded as a creator content studio. This week it announced the acquisition of BlueWillow (a Midjourney competitor that specializes in AI image creation) which may give us a new reason to visit the site. Hey, if early 2000s trends like cargo pants can make a comeback, why can’t LimeWire?

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

YouTube Doubles Down on AI

YouTube announced several generative AI tools and a new app for creators at its annual Made On YouTube event yesterday.

The top features, rolling out this year and early 2024:

• Dream Screen, a feature that will use text prompts to create AI-generated videos and photos—creators can then put them in the background of Shorts.

• Automatic dubbing that will quickly help creators dub videos in different languages.

• AI-powered insights within YouTube Studio that can generate topic ideas and outlines for potential videos.

• Music recommendations that will suggest audio to use based on a text description of a creator’s video.

• YouTube Create, a new app (similar to TikTok's Capcut) that will allow Shorts creators to edit videos directly from their phones. It’s currently available on Android and plans to release on iOS next year.

According to YouTube, AI suggestions will be personalized to the creator and informed by what’s already trending with audiences.

Zoom out: YouTube’s new features get them ahead of industry competition within the AI space, while a focus on Shorts lowers the barrier to entry for creators to share content.

These tools could dramatically impact how creators produce and share their videos, making AI all the more ubiquitous. Some platforms are still reckoning with the disclosure of AI content, like TikTok, which recently put labels in place that notify viewers when a video uses AI-generated content.

FYI: Colin and Samir attended the Made On YouTube event and are hosting a live Q&A with the company’s creator liaison, Rene Ritchie, in the Discord today—attend the event here.

Comedy Creator Debuts Netflix Special at No. 1

Comedy creator DeWayne “Kountry Wayne” Colley debuted his first-ever stand-up special, A Woman’s Prayer, on Netflix this Tuesday—and it opened as the platform’s No. 1 TV show in the U.S., Colley wrote on Instagram.

Who is Kountry Wayne? The comedian first broke out on Facebook and Vine in 2014 for his viral, situational sketches.

As Colley grew his online presence to over 13 million followers, he made guest appearances in movies and shows like MTV’s Wild ‘N Out and became “one of the most in-demand touring comedians in the country,” Deadline wrote.

Zoom out: Individuals like Colley provide a roadmap for building a highly-successful business in the comedy niche—he’s shared in interviews that he makes over $300,000 a month from his online skits.

However, doing a Netflix special still holds a lot of value past the money or numbers, as fellow comedy creator Andrew Schulz explained to Colin and Samir. “I understood that the cosign from Netflix could change the perception of everything we do,” Schulz said in 2022.

Sponsored by The Leap

Create Once and Earn Forever with This

A digital product is one way many creators expand revenue beyond ads and brand deals. Imagine building something once that you can sell forever.

But turning an idea into a ready-to-sell product is usually easier said than done. Which is why The Leap created a new tool to simplify the process.

The Leap helps you build, promote, and sell digital products with less time and effort. Here’s how:

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Press Readers: The Leap is in private beta, but they’re offering an exclusive invite to you to try it before anyone else.

Get started on creating your first digital product here.

Multi-Currency Ecommerce for Creators, Compared

Creator shop and membership platform Fourthwall rolled out multi-currency support on Thursday, allowing creators’ international fans to shop products in their local currency.

Context: Multi-currency has become an increasingly important addition to ecommerce platforms as creators continue to grow global audiences.

How Fourthwall’s new features stack up against its competitors 👇

🔥 Press Worthy

• ChatGPT teases DALL•E 3 integration to let users generate images via written prompts.

• Rock climbing creator Magnus Midtbø announces an educational bouldering course.

• TikTok rolls out a new tool to help creators label their AI-generated content.

• Yes Theory’s head of operations Pedro Paiva shares how he helped revamp the company’s internal systems.

• Alix Earle releases the first episode of her podcast, Hot Mess.

📚️ Thank You For Pressing Publish

The content we’re looking forward to reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.

• Read: How did Glossier go from “transcending the beauty niche” to slowly fading into obscurity? In a Q&A with The Cut, journalist Marisa Meltzer opens up about her new book that chronicles the D2C darling’s rise and fall.

• Watch: Sweeping shots, a collection of poems, and a story about heartbreak. Simon “Wholesome Simon” Kim shares a cinematic vlog from his summer trip to Europe.

• Listen: Amelia Dimoldenberg shares the story of Chicken Shop Date with Colin and Samir, outlining how she came to rival shows like Hot Ones with half the production support.

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