YouTube, Instagram, SoundCloud, and other online platforms are changing the way people create and consume media. The Verge’s Creators section covers the people using these platforms, what they’re making, and how those platforms are changing (for better and worse) in response to the vloggers, influencers, podcasters, photographers, musicians, educators, designers, and more who are using them.
The Verge’s Creators section also looks at the way creators are able to turn their projects into careers — from Patreons and merch sales, to ads and Kickstarters — and the ways they’re forced to adapt to changing circumstances as platforms crack down on bad actors and respond to pressure from users and advertisers. New platforms are constantly emerging, and existing ones are ever-changing — what creators have to do to succeed is always going to look different from one year to the next.
In our second annual trend forecast, The Verge staff weighs in on Labubus, tariffs, The Hague, and AI slop.
Nieman Lab reports that the new policy comes after leadership at LexisNexis (which owns the outlet) claimed some of Law360’s coverage had liberal leanings. The AI tool scans stories and flags portions it deems biased that should be rewritten to be more “impartial.” A petition signed by over 90 percent of unionized staff at Law360 demands that use of the tool be made voluntary.
Labubus — those kind of scary little dolls with teeth that people are obsessed with — are hard to come by these days. It’s no surprise that the knock off industry is filling the gap; what is funny is that the fake dolls (“Lafufus”) are popular, too. For some Labubu owners, the authenticity of their doll doesn’t even matter. It’s part of the fandom experience all the same.
But it’s not for the faint of heart.
YouTube is a hit on TVs, and Meta and TikTok are looking to get in on that battleground, The Information reports. What will launch first: Instagram for TV or Instagram for iPad?
[theinformation.com]
My Picun F8 Pros are not as good as the AirPods Max. But they’re much cheaper — and constantly on sale.
The incredibly weird saga of the ordered, then reversed, then passed, then upheld, then ignored, then ignored even harder attempt to ban one of America’s most popular social networks continues — as it will continue until US-China tensions cool down, everyone forgets it ever happened, or the heat death of the universe.
Streaming platforms might be having a hard time bringing on new subscribers, but according to Nielsen’s most recent Gauge report, services like YouTube, Pluto TV, Roku, and Tubi overtook traditional broadcast TV and cable in terms of viewership for the first time last month.
The video platform is launching a new “open call” feature that allows creators to effectively audition for brand partnerships. Companies can publish campaign briefs to the YouTube Partner Program hub where creators then submit video content for the brands to review and approve, which may prevent smaller creators from being overlooked.
Instead of making the “o” in Shutterstock look like a viewfinder, now it has “ripples” coming off the top and bottom to signal the “impact” of the brand, the company announced today. You can see the new logo compared to the old one below.
It’s a major turn in the high-profile dispute between Baldoni and Blake Lively that spiraled into an entire genre of social media content. Baldoni had sued Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, for $400 million after Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment. A judge also dismissed Baldoni’s defamation suit against The New York Times, filed after its coverage of Lively’s claims.
In the coming weeks, Instagram will show creators weekly and monthly reports with stats about post views and their follower count. It’s also launching shareable “celebrations” notifications that appear when creators reach certain milestones, such as hitting 10,000 followers.
The company that owns the biggest sewing pattern brands — Simplicity, Butterick, McCalls, and Vogue — has been sold to a liquidator, per the Craft Industry Alliance. That’s troubling news for those of us that sew and prefer physical patterns, but there’s also a concerning knock-on effect: the company owns the last large-scale tissue printers in the country.
A few years ago I wrote about the painstaking efforts to preserve sewing patterns and fashion history. I suspect that work is now even more urgent.
Angelo Sotira’s display, called Layer, is designed to house a kind of “generative AI art,” which TechCrunch explains involves artists writing their “own software to create digital AI artworks that change over time.” The display comes with a dedicated GPU capable of rendering “infinite variations” of generative art in full resolution.
The head of the AI video platform on Hollywood, copyright, and the future of filmmaking.
CEO Chris Best drops that fact onstage at The Information’s “Future of Influence” event in Los Angeles. He also says Substack was “accidentally cash flow positive” in the first quarter of this year, but isn’t planning to be profitable soon. “We’re focused on growth,” he says. “It turns out that when you do that, it makes the business grow really well, too.”
The platform is globally releasing a self-service “Pre-Release” feature for Artist accounts that allows musicians to easily promote forthcoming album releases. Fans can automatically save unreleased albums to their Spotify or Apple Music libraries so that they don’t miss the album drop and can listen to them instantly upon release.
After launching Photoshop for iPhone in February, a beta Android app is now available to download via Google Play. Much like its iOS counterpart, Photoshop for Android includes many features from the desktop version, including layers, masks, brushes, and Firefly generative AI tools, but with a UI optimized for mobile devices.
Adobe says all features are free to use while the app is in beta, and that more are “coming soon.”
ICYMI, the livestream of a bald eagle nest in California’s Big Bear Valley is mesmerizing. Eagle-eyed viewers are anxiously waiting for the two twelve-week-old eaglets to fledge the nest, where they’ve been carefully raised by parents Jackie and Shadow since hatching in March.
The nest is perched about 145 feet above Big Bear Lake, so it’s a hair-raising prospect. But just yesterday, Sunny caught some serious air. Will this weekend bring the big day?
