TikTok's ticking time bomb
Scroll to the end for the full scoop this week for creators, entrepreneurs, and social-first marketers.
There are two very different realities happening in the world of online creators right now, something recently broken down in the latest edition of Garbage Day.
One creator-run media company, Dropout (the 2018 subscription arm of College Humor), has built such a passionate fan base around their nerdy comedy shows that they can sell out huge arenas for live performances. A similar creator company, Watcher, has amassed viral popularity and millions of free views on YouTube — but its audience revolted when Watcher tried to charge for extra content.
If you were to judge the health of the creator economy through the Dropout lens, well, it's never been bigger. But if you were to view it through Watcher, the only sane conclusion would be that it was well and truly over. Taken together, however, you actually get the clearest picture yet of both what the creator economy actually is and, most importantly, how fans and customers currently understand it.
— Ryan Broderick, Garbage Day
The major difference seems to be that Dropout cultivated a tight-knit, paying community who love their specific quirky vibe, while Watcher's viewers were more casual fans who enjoyed the free videos — but didn't feel compelled to pay. It's an example of how the creator-audience relationship has shifted, especially in recent years. Watcher’s content could have monetized more easily in the earlier “micro-generations” of viral content. Now, curating activated fan bases > lukewarm mass appeal every time.
I’ve got a lot more sauce to dish up tonight so let’s dive in.
In this edition:
🍎 Apple is taking stock of potential AI partners
🥺 AI avatars just got emotional
🦋 Adobe's Firefly 3 takes flight with major upgrades
🤓 OpenAI levels up with new enterprise-grade features
🤫 A stealthy new coding AI just dropped with a whopping $252M war chest
⏰ TikTok's ticking time bomb
🥸 TikTok's new AI-moji feature lets you become a cartoon
📈 Snapchat's Q1: users and revenue soar
💰 Meta paying top dollar to lure creators to Threads
🧵 Threads updates: auto-archive, word filters, and more
🤑 LinkedIn is low-key thriving with record engagement
Stay saucey 🍯
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AI & Creator Tools
🍏 Apple getting cozy with OpenAI. According to a new Bloomberg report, the tech giant is in deep talks to bring ChatGPT and other generative AI staples straight to your iPhone. Apple is also reportedly exploring AI partnerships with Google, suggesting its fully committing to the AI bit.
The good news for iPhone users: AI capabilities like text generation, summarization, and task automation could make the iPhone an actually useful AI-integrated powerhouse – doing what Siri has failed to do for years.
🥺 AI avatars get emotional. AI startup Synthesia has launched "Expressive AI Avatars" that can automatically convey emotions through facial expressions and body language based on the semantics of spoken text. It features improved lip-syncing, natural voices, and the ability to generate entirely new and unique performances. Here’s a quick look:
🦋 Firefly 3 lands with a splash. Adobe has some major upgrades to its generative AI platform in its latest Firefly 3 release. Key Updates:
Significantly improved photorealistic image quality and detail
Enhanced text-to-image generation with richer prompt understanding
New features for using reference images to guide generation
Expanded integration across Adobe Creative Cloud apps
Continued focus on responsible AI practices and transparency
🤓 OpenAI gets new corporate features. OpenAI introduced new enterprise-grade updates for its API customers, including enhanced security, cost management tools, and expanded administrative controls. The features are designed to give enterprise-level customers more robust security, customization options, and cost-effective scaling for their use of OpenAI's models, like GPT-4 Turbo.
🤫 Copilot competitor launches in stealth. Augment, a coding platform backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, has quietly launched with $252 million in funding. As a new AI-powered platform aiming to compete with GitHub's Copilot, Augment’s significant fundraising suggests it’s well-resourced to challenge established players in the AI coding market.
Social News & Trends
⏰ TikTok isn't going down without a fight
While the Chinese government said it would literally rather see TikTok get shut down than abide by the U.S. government's forced sale edict, the company is rumoured to be exploring options for being acquired by a U.S. provider (though China denies it).
This all comes after last week’s bill that gives TikTok nine months to separate from its Chinese ownership. Company officials have accused the U.S. of acting without cause in forcing the app's sale, and have vowed to oppose the full sell-off of the app — which will have an impact TikTok's powerful recommendation algorithm.
So whether a sale happens or not, we can be sure that ByteDance plans to protect that algo at all costs.
🥸 TikTok AI emojis. TikTok is testing a new feature appropriately called "AI-moji" that lets you create a cartoonish avatar by scanning your face, which can then be used as stickers and reactions in the app. Here’s what it looks like and how to access it:
📈 Snapchat Q1 results. Snap reported increases in both users and revenue in Q1 2024. Snapchat now has 422 million daily active users, up 8 million from the previous quarter. Revenue grew 21% year-over-year to $1.2 billion, pushed by ad targeting improvements and better performance for small and medium-sized businesses. Also, Snapchat+ subscriptions also grew to 9 million paying members — so that’s not nothing.
💰 Meta *really* wants creators on Threads. Meta is offering up to $5,000 bonuses to prominent creators in its other apps to post content on Threads, its Twitter competitor, in an effort to boost engagement on the platform.
🧵 Other Threads news:
Threads is testing an auto-archive feature to let users automatically hide old posts after a set time.
The platform has officially passed 150 million monthly active users.
New features: You can now hide words to filter out unwanted content, mute notifications for your own posts, and have more control over who can quote your Threads.
🤑 LinkedIn is reportedly… thriving? LinkedIn has been reporting "record levels of engagement" on its platform since 2018, and this year is no different with the company consistently touting this metric in its latest quarterly update.
Sauce Snippets
Stray news, memes, and trends from the internet ✨
ChatGPT’s AI ‘memory’ can remember the preferences of paying customers
Google’s third-party cookie saga: theories, hot takes and controversies unveiled
What it feels like to scroll on a recipe website (immersive impression)
Taylor Swift’s new song resonates with working women — ‘I cry a lot but I am so productive, it’s an art’
YouTube might roll out ads while videos are paused, which means following a tutorial is about to be the most excruciating experience of our lives
How TikTok grew from a fun app for teens into a potential national security threat