Good morning. Did you see that BuzzFeed is shutting down its award-winning news division after 12 years of operating? Founding editor Ben Smith told The New York Times that he believes “it’s the end of the marriage between social media and news.”

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

Instagram Expands Its Link-in-Bio Feature

Instagram will now allow users to add up to five links to their bios, enabling creators to direct their followers to external content like other online profiles, shops, or subscriptions.

Zoom out: The new feature appears to directly compete with many link-in-bio platforms including Linktree, Koji, Bento, and Beacons. 

• Since 2020, at least seven link-in-bio platforms have collectively raised north of $200 million in venture capital funding, according to Insider. 

• Today, at least 30 companies offer link-in-bio tools. Linktree was the sector’s first unicorn, earning a $1.3 billion valuation last March.

What makes Instagram’s tool different? It appears to be designed to keep users in the app for as long as possible.

• The links open inside the Instagram app, meaning users must return to the app to view another link. 

• The link home page isn’t customizable, and users have to tap “see more” to view more than one link.

Because of that, existing link-in-bio tools claim they don’t view this as an existential threat. One former Twitter employee turned Linktree VP tweeted, “Our true secret sauce is the analytics we provide creators and content partners [...] when to post, what's performing well, etc. but with the ability to look across your entire suite of online platforms.”

Music Curator Masked Mortal Launches Mortal City Records

Yesterday, anonymous music creator Masked Mortal launched an independent record label called Mortal City Records. The label also released its first music with new signee Bachyard Ghost.

What Mortal City does: The plan is to offer its four signed artists social media coaching alongside funding, project management, and creative services, Masked Mortal’s manager Cassandra Couwenberg told us.

Context: Masked Mortal has become a music “tastemaker” over the last several years. 

• Up-and-coming artists pay a one-time fee to submit their music on Mortal’s website.

• The tracks Mortal likes get his stamp of approval on TikTok (where Mortal has 4+ million followers) and on Spotify (where Mortal has 260K followers).

Big picture: TikTok has become a key tool for distribution in the music industry. And with that, creators have started launching their own music labels (see also: Ari Elkins) in a bid to turn their music taste into scalable businesses.

How is Mortal City setting itself apart? It’s targeting short-term, artist-friendly deals and building a Discord community for signees, Couwenberg said.

“This is a really cool lane for people to get a hands-on team around them—and some funding—without signing their lives away,” Couwenberg told us.

Snap Monetization Expands to More Creators

This week at the fifth annual Snap Partner Summit, the platform announced notable changes for creators in the coming year. The details → 

Stories monetization will expand to creators with at least 50,000 followers and 25 million monthly views. Those creators need to post 10 Stories a month to be eligible. 

• Snapchat’s previously invite-only revenue-sharing program has delivered big payouts to some participating creators, with some making upwards of $30,000 in 72 hours on their Stories.

Snap is increasing the payout pool for top creators of Spotlight Challenges, its TikTok-like short form video feature. 

• Spotlight now has 350 million monthly active users, making up nearly half of Snap’s user base.

David Dobrik and Jojo Siwa said on a panel that Snap is the primary platform they post on. 

FYI: Creators can now make money on Snap in five different ways—creating AR filters, ad revenue share on Spotlight, sponsored brand posts found through its creator marketplace, virtual gifts in Story replies, and commerce via a Shopify integration.

🔥 Press Worthy

• JackSepticEye and CrankGamePlays start a podcast together.

• Descript releases 100 ChatGPT prompts for creators.

• Nas Daily launches a business accelerator program.

• TikTok music creators are now eligible for UK award show MOBO Awards.

• Sports creators Hailey and Hanna Cavinder join Jake Paul’s Betr.

• MrBeast opens up about the pressures of scaling a creator media business.

📚 Thank You For Pressing Publish

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

• They did it for the clicks. Aaron Timms from The New Republic writes about how digital media pursued viral traffic at all costs—and unleashed chaos in the process.

• Comedy YouTuber Luis demonstrates the concept of show don’t tell by reviewing croissants amid Paris protests.

• Wendover Productions unpacks the economics of ski resorts and their surrounding towns.

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