Good morning. Today marks one of our favorite annual holidays: Spotify Wrapped Day. Since 2015, the music platform has compiled users’ top artists, albums, and songs from the past year, allowing us to either share our exquisite music taste on socials or force ourselves to question if we played “Barbie World” maybe a littttllle too much. It truly knows more about us than we do—now it’s time for YouTube to debut their version.
TikTok Aims for Long-Form Videos
Creators may find more success with longer TikTok videos / Illustration by Moy Zhong
Creators can make more money and get more followers on TikTok by uploading longer content to the platform, according to an exclusive report from The Information.
FYI: The app has allowed for 10-minute videos for over a year. It recently tested a 15-minute time limit, the same default limit as YouTube (creators must verify their account to upload videos longer than that).
Here’s what TikTok reportedly told creators at a private event last month:
The growth rate for long-form creators on the app is 5x that of short-form creators.
Users are spending half their time watching videos that are over one minute.
Worth noting: TikTok is ending its Creator Fund next month in favor of its Creativity Program, which requires participating videos to be longer than 60 seconds in order to receive payouts.
Between the lines: Longer videos create more opportunities for advertising, which some in the creator space think could mean that TikTok videos may include midroll ads in the future. Coupled with its expansion into livestreams and shopping, TikTok appears to be making an effort to shed its reputation for short-form content.
Though, crucially: For TikTok to compete with YouTube, it will have to figure out how to expand beyond mobile devices, something YouTube has done successfully with TV.
Big picture: More platforms, from TikTok and YouTube to Twitch and Kick, are incentivizing long-form content, and users seem to be down for it: They’re showing a bigger appetite for longer videos on mobile and TV.
Emma Chamberlain’s Next Act
Podcaster, vlogger, entrepreneur, and fashion icon Emma Chamberlain tells Colin and Samir that she’s looking to add acting to her repertoire / Colin and Samir
Multi-hyphenate podcast creator, coffee entrepreneur, and fashion icon Emma Chamberlain is now considering another career path: acting.
“I’m open to the idea [of acting] because I think that it would be cathartic to not be myself,” Chamberlain said on The Colin and Samir Show this week. “I think it’d be really fun to be someone else.”
Setting the scene: Chamberlain has gone through a big professional transition in the last year, moving away from being a “chronic oversharer” on YouTube and toward expressing her opinions on monologue podcast episodes.
Last November, she signed an exclusive podcast deal with Spotify for two video episodes per week and reduced her YouTube video output from 56 uploads in 2021 to just three this year.
Now she’s testing the acting waters. Chamberlain recently filmed a commercial with DTC eyeglass company Warby Parker for an upcoming collaboration.
“I acted in this commercial and it was so fun and I liked being a little bit of a character,” Chamberlain said.
She emphasized that if she took an acting role, it would have to be unrelated to her past work. “I would never want to get hired for a job because I already have a career elsewhere [...] I’d want to make sure that I’m genuinely right for this role and there’s no other variable,” Chamberlain said.
Where does that leave Chamberlain with YouTube? She said she still likes the production process but wants to remain open to other opportunities.
“I love every step of video creation—being in it, pacing, directing. That hasn’t changed but I need to figure out what’s the next thing,” Chamberlain said. “My intuition is telling me that if you continue to make YouTube videos right now you’re going to miss something else that’s in this [show business] world that’s different.”
Sponsored by Shopify
Shopify Breaks Records…And You Can Too
They did it again…
This Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Shopify merchants drove a record-breaking $9.3 billion in sales—a 24% increase from last year.
Now it’s your turn. Are you set to convert your followers into customers this holiday season? Shopify’s got your back.
Build your brand without a big team and budget. From logo design to slogan making, Shopify offers a suite of powerful, free tools to launch your business from scratch.
If you aren't ready to launch your own brand, find and partner with independent brands you love with Shopify Collabs. As long as you have 1,000 followers, you can start selling and earning instantly.
“As full-time creators, we just get to focus on making videos and let Shopify handle the rest,” said our very own Samir Chaudry.
Ready to turn your ideas into real revenue this holiday season? Jumpstart your journey with a free trial of Shopify here.
X’s Mass Advertiser Exit Could Cost it $75 Million
X is predicted to face costly losses after advertisers stopped advertising on the platform / Illustration by Moy Zhong
Major companies including Apple, Disney, and Airbnb have paused their ad spend on X (formerly Twitter)—and the exodus might cost the platform up to $75 million in revenue by year’s end, according to The New York Times.
Context: Several companies attributed the pause to worries that their ads might appear next to (or, through the platform’s creator fund, directly finance) bigoted or hateful content. This followed an explosive report from media watchdog Media Matters that found that ads from top brands were showing up on X next to antisemitic and conspiratorial posts.
FYI: X is suing Media Matters for defamation.
Big picture: The advertiser pullback comes during what’s typically X’s highest-revenue quarter. According to The Information, the platform grossed roughly $1 billion during the final three months of 2022.
📽 From The Studio
In Monday’s newsletter, we polled readers: “Is owning your likeness in an increasingly AI-enabled world important to you as a creator?”
And 95.4% have answered “Yes, definitely” so far. Many of you shared really insightful responses, too. A few that stood out:
“[Owning your likeness] makes it so you can capitalize on something that could have easily been stolen from you.”
“I'm not going to be young forever. Like residuals provide for actors, who spend their prime earning years doing something that they can't do when they are older, owning the rights to my own likeness is important for my earning possibilities in the future.”
“It takes a lot of time to build your online presence and your likeness…is the instrument used to communicate who you are and what you do. It is extremely important to have ownership and know how it is being used.”
“Although I personally don't feel inclined to incorporate an AI version of myself in my online business/videos, I would feel more secure knowing that I own that online persona…the onset of new tech pushing us away from what makes us human is only going to make us want content that feels like it has a stronger human connection.”
Got more to add? We’d love to keep the conversation on this topic going—hit reply and let us know what you think!
🔥 Press Worthy
YouTube creators including HopeScope and My Pawfect Family share their dream collabs.
DeuxMoi is going Hollywood with a TV adaption of the notorious celebrity gossip Instagram account in the works at Max.
Spotter Labs, the AI-powered wing at Spotter, is giving creators the chance to demo their new tools. Want in? Sign up for the waitlist here.*
xQc loses his main YouTube channel over copyright claims.
Weibo, other social platforms in China adopt a rule that requires popular users to reveal their legal names—leading some creators to quit entirely.
Come meet other creators and Publish community members at our NYC event next week. RSVP here.
*This is sponsored advertising content.
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