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Hey Y’all. Was anyone else pumped to hear about Coinbase’s new NFT marketplace earlier this week? The product has already racked up over 1.6 million people on its waitlist, more than 3x the peak number of users that current market leader OpenSea has. If you’re not already into NFTs, now might be a good time to start! 

 - Max Lowenthal

In Today’s Issue 💬

→ The details on Cash App Studios - Square’s new creator program

→ Why Twitter is paying users $2500 to use Spaces

→ How FourFront is creating a fictional world on TikTok

Cash App Launches a New Program for Artists

Earlier this week, mobile payments company CashApp announced Cash App Studios, an initiative focused on funding emerging creators’ breakout projects. According to Rolling Stone, artists who work through the platform will retain 100% ownership of their work, and won't be obligated to pay back any cash they receive from the partnership. In return, CashApp will build a constantly changing roster of creators whom they can build into brand ambassadors. 

The program’s early creators are already impressive, including Grammy-winner Victoria Monét, who worked on hits like Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next” and pop singer Jacquie Lee, who was featured on The Voice. CashApp also plans to expand its reach beyond music, bankrolling top creatives from the worlds of fashion, film, and production.

Over the last few years, CashApp has integrated itself in multiple places across the creator ecosystem, including partnerships with 100 Thieves and Spotify, in an attempt to build its brand as the official payment platform of creators. And with its parent company Square acquiring Tidal, the high-fidelity music service from Jay-Z, earlier this year, CashApp is well-positioned to keep its creator efforts going. 

Our Take

Creator grants have seen a massive rise over the last year, but we’re yet to see any success stories at the creator or platform level. Money without mentorship can potentially do more harm than good. We’ll be keeping an eye out in 2022 to see what comes of all this patronage.

Twitter is Launching a Spaces Accelerator Program

On Tuesday, Twitter announced a new three-month accelerator program targeted at creators using the platform’s live audio product, Spaces. If selected, creators in the program will receive multiple benefits, including a $2500/month stipend, ad credits, custom swag, and the opportunity to engage with company leaders to shape the future of the product. 

While live audio has slowed down since its meteoric rise back in the early days of the pandemic, a few pockets of the internet have been using the feature in full force. Crypto companies and creators like Foundation and Farokh.eth use the platform to host office hours and interview guests in the growing space, with hundreds of fans regularly tuning in.

Our Take

If Twitter wants to avoid live audio being a fad, they’ll need to define what a hit show on Spaces looks like and figure out a way to help creators monetize their content to a meaningful degree. While the Spaces accelerator is a step in the right direction, it remains to be seen if $2,500 is enough to get the right creators involved. 

FourFront Raises $1.5 Million To Build Fictional Worlds On TikTok

Earlier this week, media start-up FourFront announced it had raised $1.5 million in venture capital funding to build a new type of storytelling on TikTok - fiction. The company is aiming to popularize serialized scripted content filmed using paid actors in a vlog-style format. Much like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the company has a cast of nine characters who occupy their interconnected “universe” of content, with the company’s most popular character boasting nearly 500,000 followers on the platform. Because the characters FourFront is building aren’t real, the creators they employ have the benefit of trying 10-20 things a day and iterating based on what lands with fans.

Our Take

While it would normally take Hollywood millions of dollars and years of development to create a truly great IP, serialized fiction online offers a similar experience at twice the speed and a fraction of the cost. Plus, by using social media to build their stories, fans can have an impact on the characters they like and actively take part in shaping them through comments and reactions.

🔥 In Other News

• Coinbase is launching an NFT marketplace 

• MKBHD is collabing with Moment on a new Apple Watch band

• 100 Thieves acquired Higround, a lifestyle brand

• MrBeast is going to recreate Squid Game 

• Addison Rae was temporarily banned from TikTok

🎤 Quote of The Week

“The single most important thing that you can do for creators is that you’re sharing the revenue that’s coming in, day in and day out. A fund can be there, and a fund can disappear. When you say 'well someone really committing because they have a fund' versus somebody like us who spent $30 billion dollars with creators over the past 3 years. In totality, I would like to welcome all of the other platforms to share as much of the revenue as we do."

- Robert Kyncl, Chief Business Officer of YouTube, speaking with Colin and Samir on their most recent podcast