Good morning. We weren’t joking in December when we said to expect more events from us. If you’ll be in Austin for SXSW, join us on the morning of Saturday, March 8, for a Texas-sized Coffee With Creators to hear from Colin and Samir (plus special guests) and meet some cool new people. RSVP here.

— Hannah Doyle

Chef Nick DiGiovanni wants to be the biggest food creator on YouTube. At 23.5 million subscribers, he is 8 million subs away from the top spot (currently held by ASMR food creator Zach Choi).

So today, he’s starting a seven-day subathon on YouTube Shorts. Every day for the next week, he’ll share an incentive or giveaway for fans who subscribe. First up: For every subscriber DiGiovanni gets today, he’ll donate one meal to someone in need via the Farmlink Project.

 “We noticed [IShow]Speed and Kai [Cenat] were able to create tons of momentum and excitement doing something like this on Twitch, and we noticed that to our knowledge, no one had ever done something like this on YouTube before,” DiGiovanni’s Head of Content Zach Blank told us.

Big picture: Discoverability can be tough on YouTube, but some creators have found success driving subscriber growth with Shorts. That’s what DiGiovanni and team are banking on—with a Twitch-like twist. “Our thesis is that we’re looking for mass discovery and mass reach, and YouTube Shorts is the best way to achieve that,” Blank said.

Yesterday, we stopped by the On Air Fest podcast conference in Brooklyn, NY. Podcast creators and media leaders chatted about venture capital, AI, and what to expect for 2025.

Here are some of our top learnings from the event →

On the reality of signing with a network: “I actually think in the past couple years, things have changed so much. It’s way easier to produce your own stuff, and you really don’t need those places for distribution,” independent journalist and creator Taylor Lorenz said. “In fact, it can be a liability because if you tie yourself to a brand, you have exposure with them [...] and they can end up hurting your brand.”

Impact > size. Carly Baker, media partnerships lead at HubSpot Media Network, said “size is not a qualifier” when identifying creators with whom to partner on content. Impact is no longer measured by audience size alone—it’s about depth, not breadth.

Curation is an art, not a science. Subway Takes creator Kareem Rahma shared how the short-form show books guests who resonate with its audience: “It’s really based on a vibe. In the same way a newsroom would choose who to cover or who to feature, it’s not a science. There’s not an algorithm. It’s an editorial choice,” Rahma said.

Keeping a catalog of videos on Twitch is about to become a lot harder. This week, the platform announced that it’s implementing a 100-hour storage limit for Highlights (clips from past broadcasts) and Uploads starting in April.

Why? Twitch says Highlights haven’t been effective in streamer discovery, and storage is costly. 

Streamers seem to be disappointed in the change:

Big picture: Cost-cutting has been a theme for several platforms in recent weeks—for example, Meta is now deleting Facebook Live videos after 30 days. 

^{*This is sponsored content.}

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