On LinkedIn, some top creators are adding new connections — and reaping financial rewards in the process. The professional platform is realigning its BrandLink program, which will play matchmaker between advertisers and an initial group of 30 creators in the business category.

BrandLink first launched last June, when it was called The Wire Program. The ad product’s new complexion sounds similar to the Google program now known as YouTube Select: Like Select, BrandLink cordons off ad space next to videos from popular publishers and creators.

LinkedIn has cultivated a homegrown community of creators who offer unique perspectives on the professional world. The initial BrandLink cohort fits into that niche; it consists of creators who comment on business-to-business topics, including Diary of a CEO podcaster Steven Bartlett (pictured above) and longtime digital marketing operative Gary Vaynerchuk.

“We are entering one of the most interesting evolutions of influencer marketing—the extreme rise of the B2B influencer,” Vaynerchuk said in a statement. “The organic social dialogue on LinkedIn has been nothing short of revolutionary. With the rise of video on LinkedIn, I’m excited to be included in BrandLink.”

Exposure will be one of several rewards for the creators who participate in BrandLink. Bloomberg describes the program as the first time LinkedIn has shared ad revenue with creators. Exact details about the split haven’t been made public, but publishers got close to a 50% cut back when BrandLink initially launched.

LinkedIn has steadily increased its investment in video content since rolling out a native player in 2017. The 2021 introduction of Creator Mode and the 2022 launch of YouTube-style notifications opened up more options for creators who upload videos to their LinkedIn profiles.

The next phase of LinkedIn’s video operations will go beyond ad revenue sharing. Business Insider noted that the professional platform is also developing a slate of five original shows, each of which will be led by a business-minded creator. Topics covered by the originals will range from female entrepreneurship to artificial intelligence, and LinkedIn has other shows in the works beyond its initial slate.

With its premium content, LinkedIn hopes to show advertisers that it can deliver gains that actualize BrandLink’s potential. Over the program’s first few months, participating ad partners saw their video completion rate more than double while their view rate went up by 23%. Will creator content be able to deliver similar results? We’re about to find out.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, LinkedIn, News by Sam Gutelle
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Every four years, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) commissions a report to study the current state of the digital economy. The previous installment in that series measured employment and revenue data from 2020, and a lot has changed since then. As factors like the COVID-19 pandemic change the nature of work, Americans are shifting to internet-adjacent jobs in astonishing numbers.

The results included in the IAB’s latest Measuring the Digital Economy report show that the commercial internet of 2024 was far bigger than the equivalent ecosystem from four years prior. The number of internet-dependent jobs in the U.S. is up to 28.4 million, an increase of nearly 11 million positions since 2020. That spike has turned the digital economy into a significant subset of the U.S.’ total output; per the report, internet-dependent jobs now account for 18% of the total U.S. gross domestic product.

Much of that growth has flown through the creator economy. According to the IAB report, that segment now accounts for 1.5 million full-time equivalent jobs, which is an exponential increase over the 200,000 creator jobs listed in the 2020 report. Creator-centric employment is growing five times faster than the traditional media workforce, and there are now internet-dependent jobs in all 435 U.S. Congressional districts.

The advent of ecommerce has been a crucial factor informing that growth. Platforms like TikTok Live — which is projected to reach $77 billion in sales by 2027 — have helped individuals market and sell products directly from their homes.

“The rise of e-commerce, accelerated by the pandemic, has intersected with retailers seeking to diversify into high-margin opportunities and advertisers aiming to leverage advanced metrics like closed-loop reporting and incrementality to better target, attract, and personalize messaging for previously unreachable audiences,” reads the report. “This convergence has given rise to what is being called ‘commerce media.'”

Commerce media now accounts for 13% of total ad spend, per the IAB. As agencies move their budgets around, more earnings are going into influencers’ pockets. The report cites deals like Amazon’s Spotter investment and Publicis’ $500 million Influential acquisition as drivers of the booming creator economy.

Emerging technologies are also catalyzing the digital economy. Generative AI firms hauled in $3.6 billion of U.S. revenue in 2024, while blockchain and cryptocurrency management accounted for approximately $6 billion of U.S. revenue over the same timeframe. Podcasting also became a billion-dollar business in the U.S. in 2024.

The trends observed over successive Measuring the Digital Economy reports suggest that these numbers will continue to go up exponentially. Back in 2008, the IAB reported that digital sector employment accounted for about three million jobs. Over the next 16 years, that number increased more than nine times over. There’s only so much U.S. GDP to go around, but there’s nothing to stop internet-based commerce from eating up a bigger piece of that pie moving forward. I guess we’ll have to wait until 2028 to find out.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, Interactive Advertising Bureau, News by Sam Gutelle
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In February 2025, YouTube turned 20. The video site has gone through a lot over the past two decades, including an acquisition, an earnings glow-up, and multiple generations of star creators. In our 20 Years of YouTube series, we’ll examine the uploads, trends, and influencers that have defined the world’s favorite video site — one year at a time. Click here for a full archive of the series.

In retrospect, the truth about lonelygirl15 was evident from the start.

Context clues indicated that the titular character, Bree, lived in the vicinity of Los Angeles, even though she claimed to reside in the sticks. Her bedroom seemed a little too put-together for a 16-year-old girl. The facts of her life, which included religious cults and strange blood ceremonies, seemed too salacious to be real.

By the end of 2006, the brain trust behind lonelygirl15 had shown itself. The vlogger the internet knew as Bree was actually portrayed by Jessica Lee Rose, an American-New Zealand actress. Her character had been created by former doctor Miles Beckett and screenwriter Mesh Flinders. They brought on Greg Goodfried to handle the business side of lonelygirl15, and Greg’s wife Amanda came on board to manage Bree’s social media communications.

Perhaps, in another era, the truth about lonelygirl15 would have led to outrage about the show’s sweeping fabrications. In the nascent YouTube era, however, lonelygirl15’s big reveal only made it more popular. Bree’s vlogging home became the most-subscribed channel on YouTube, and viewership spiked after fans learned the truth about the videos. Spinoffs arrived, and by 2010, some lonelygirl15 uploads accumulated more than 50 million views.

The vlog’s relationship to the truth is arguably its most influential aspect. Before viewers learned that Bree = Jessica, lonelygirl15 fit into the tapestry of first-wave creator content. Its influences included early YouTube pioneers like Lonely Island and Smosh. Beckett, Goodfried, and co. upped the ante by demonstrating the potential of indie web content and the creative juice that could be squeezed out of the vlog format.

But ever since the big reveal, lonelygirl15’s status as a hoax has drawn more attention than its influential position in the vlog ecosystem. In 2025, Bree is remembered as a harbinger of all the fake internet stuff that came after her. It’s now far more common for individuals to adopt constructed on-screen personalities, and ersatz content has become so widespread that some digital philosophers now espouse the “dead internet theory.” Has YouTube culture become nothing more than a bunch of Brees looking into their cameras, all of them showing off their meticulously crafted worlds?

Lonelygirl15 tells us that the salacious stories we find online can have a fuzzy relationship with reality, but it also reminds us that internet communities are far more accepting of that fakery than the generations that came before them. Bree’s fans didn’t change their feelings about her when they found out she was actually Jessica Lee Rose. They liked her because of her affable nature, her relatable struggles, and her quirky cast of sidekicks.

That’s why the majority of lonelygirl15 fans didn’t mind the introduction of ads within the vlogs. They accepted branded partnerships as a necessity for keeping their favorite character on camera. The rise of lonelygirl15 demonstrated that web 2.0 would not be defined by the standardized disclosures and formulaic production cycles of traditional entertainment. It would be defined by great characters who fans stuck with through thick and thin — even after they learned that the relatable girl they loved was not who she seemed on the surface.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, lonelygirl15, News, YouTube by Sam Gutelle
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Dream is back with another face reveal.

Well, sort of.

A few years ago, he was one of the most popular and prolific gaming creators on the internet. The founder and central figure of eponymous Minecraft server Dream SMP, he gathered a group of fellow gamers and brought them together for collaborative adventures that inspired a massive fanbase and helped Minecraft maintain its foothold as a top game on both YouTube and Twitch.

Dream was also known for something else: his reluctance to reveal his face. He was arguably the biggest “faceless” content creator to date–but broke that in October 2022, when he unmasked for the first time. A few months later, after shutting down Dream SMP due to dwindling interest from both viewers and participating content creators, he walked back the face reveal, saying he “regretted the attention and hate” that had come from it.

Since then, he’s been pretty quiet, only emerging here and there for the occasional YouTube upload and beef with former friend/SMP member Tommyinnit.

Until now.

Earlier this month, he tweeted he was working on a “rebrand” of his image to start a “new chapter” of his career as a content creator. And this week, in a 38-minute YouTube livestream called “Dream 2.0,” he unveiled exactly what that rebrand is.

He’s becoming a VTuber.

In old-school Apple announcement style, he criticized his longtime mascot, The Blob, for being “not expressive,” “not versatile,” and having “zero depth.”

“It doesn’t move,” he added. “It’s just…a Blob.”

The idea? Make The Blob into a fully rigged VTuber model that moves when Dream moves and talks when Dream talks.

“There are some key components I thought we could add to address the problems: motion, the Dream brand, and 3D,” Dream said. “So what did we come up with? It’s Dream 2.0, we added height, width, and depth. You can actually see the side profile. So now… I’m a VTuber.”

Compared to the uber-detailed avatars of VTubers with top agencies like Hololive and VShojo, Dream’s model is basic, but it does have smooth, accurate animation, and marks a new era for him–an era that puts him among the ranks of creators who are also known for not revealing their faces. In VTubing, it’s culturally unacceptable for fans to ask creators to reveal their IRL visages. Maintaining the illusion where their models are their true digital representations is a key aspect for VTubers, and fans are keen to help keep that aspect intact.

Perhaps by committing to VTubing, Dream is hoping to stave off any future demands that he re-reveal his IRL face.

He’s also joining one of the fastest-growing categories in digital content creation. YouTube just released a new Culture & Trends report showing that that in 2020, more than half of people said they weren’t even willing to consider watching VTubers. Fast-forward to 2024, where 57% of 14 to 44-year-olds said they’d watched content from a VTuber in the last 12 months. Big change!

Dream capped off his VTuber reveal with a reduxed look for all his social channels, and said he plans to stream and upload more often. inb4 he joins the next big VTuber boy band?

Filed under: Homepage Feature by James Hale
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Snap‘s earnings report for the first quarter of 2025 was a mixed bag. The parent company of Snapchat exceeded revenue targets and achieved a record number of daily active users (DAUs), but its trepidation regarding the upcoming quarter caused its stock price to drop upon the conclusion of the call.

In terms of topline numbers, Snap’s Q1 2025 went well. Quarterly revenue reached $1.36 billion, improving 14% year-over-year. DAUs hit a round-number milestone at 460 million by adding 38 million new users since last year’s Q1. Both those numbers slightly outdid analyst expectations; perhaps Snap is making good on its pledge to turn the post-holiday season into “Q5.”

“We surpassed an important milestone in Q1, with our community growing to over 900 million monthly active users,” said Snap CEO Evan Spiegel in a statement. “Quarterly revenue increased 14% year-over-year, driven by the progress we have made with our direct-response advertising solutions, continued momentum in driving performance for small and medium sized businesses, and the growth of our Snapchat+ subscription business.”

Snap’s numbers are promising, but its outlook for Q2 is not so rosy. Per CNBC, the tech company’s shares dropped 13% in after-hours trading after its execs declined to offer guidance for the coming quarter. “Macroeconomic conditions” were cited as a primary reason for the foggy forecast.

Another piece of news concerned the simplified version of Snapchat that made headlines last September. That’s when Snap execs announced a planned redesign that would put Spotlight (Snap’s answer to TikTok) front and center. The Q1 2025 earnings report revealed that Snap is scrapping its plan to widely roll out that new look. Why? Apparently, experienced Snapchat users preferred the “familiarity” of the classic look over the streamlined, TikTok-ified layout.

That reversal is emblematic of Snapchat’s wide-ranging strategic shifts over the past few years. Spotlight revenue has been reinvented multiple times, the augmented reality division has gone from a source of layoffs to a focus of future development, and a My AI service that was ridiculed upon launch is now a favored feature that has grown by 55% year-over-year, according to the Q1 2025 earnings report.

The simplified take on Snapchat was one of the big headlines from the app’s Partner Summit last year. Now, it has been reduced to a footnote. As Snap execs have indicated, turbulent economic “headwinds” could be ahead. Amidst that environment, it’s a good time for Snap to pick a lane.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News, Snapchat by Sam Gutelle
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Social media content has shaken up the travel industry, and one of the biggest companies in that sector is responding with a tried-and-true strategy: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Expedia Group, the holding company that operates booking sites like Hotels.com and Vrbo alongside its namesake platform, has announced a partnership with Beautiful Destinations. That’s the name of a creative agency that’s best known for serving up high-res travel photography and videography on a popular Instagram account.

Beautiful Destinations builds its highly engaging social posts by sourcing travel shots from a large stable of contributors. The deal with Expedia Group will integrate Beautiful Destinations’ content library into E Studio, Expedia’s in-house creative unit. E Studio will use its new archive to better serve its advertising partners. The resulting posts will offer the polish of Beautiful Destinations content combined with a shoppable experience powered by Expedia’s technology.

“This unlocks a wealth of opportunity for our advertising partners and addresses an industry-wide need to deliver high-quality travel content at scale while driving real business impact”, said E Studio VP Angelique Miller in a statement. “It is another great example of how our travel media network empowers our partners to reach travelers, wherever they are on their path to purchase.”

Expedia Group is a big name in booking — its Q4 2024 results included $3.2 billion of quarterly revenue. Despite those gains, Expedia has risked falling behind as the travel industry shifts beneath it. For example, one marketing tactic Expedia employs is to position itself as a font of travel tips and expertise. But after 61% of respondents in an Expedia survey said that social media was their top source for travel inspiration, do legacy brands still command the authority they once did? Expedia’s recent layoffs would suggest the answer is no. As part of its announcement for the Beautiful Destinations deal, Expedia admitted that some companies in its space are “struggling to address” the need for “short-form, engaging videos.”

The solution to that problem involves a strategy that’s becoming more popular in the marketing world: Using creator content as creative assets in brand campaigns. With help from the Beautiful Destinations contributor network, Expedia can keep up with the demands of globetrotting consumers while bringing more attention to the booking services it has integrated into its in-house social media accounts.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Thanks to the advent of name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals, aspiring college athletes are weighing schools based on their social media capabilities. Recruiting battles that once centered around factors like facilities and prestige are now moving to platforms like TikTok and YouTube.

To keep up with a landscape that has reinvented itself over the past five years, colleges and universities are turning to industry experts for help. One notable effort is occurring at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where year-old firm Article 41 is teaching student-athletes how to harness their NIL potential and land five-to-six-figure brand deals.

Article 41’s work at UNC was the subject of a recent profile in the New York Times. The article notes that Article 41 Co-Founder Vickie Segar inspired student-athletes to use social media megastars like Alix Earle as inspiration. Earle, Segar explained, can be paid as much as $450,000 for a single sponsored Instagram post.

Earle wasn’t a student-athlete in college, but other top earners on social media — such as gymnast Livvy Dunne — have walked that path. With help from firms like Viral Nation and Whistle Sports, the number of college sports stars making thousands from social media-based NIL deals has increased dramatically. UNC basketball star Alyssa Ustby charges as much as $15,000 for her sponsored posts, per NYT. According to the NCAA’s Data Dashboard, the average “disclosure value” of an NIL deal is up to $2,321, with nearly a quarter of all deals going for at least $1,000.

We’ve known for years that NIL athletes have serious earnings potential when it comes to branded content. What recent coverage makes clear is that schools can reap enormous benefits from that system, too. Segar told NYT that universities “want every athlete at the school to make as much money as possible because it will get better athletes.”

The most recent March Madness tournament provided an example of this phenomenon. NIL deals arguably helped Paramount sell out its March Madness ad inventory faster than usual. When the games began, all the one-seeds ended up in the Final Four. That was a sign that college basketball is getting more top-heavy — perhaps because highest-tier talent is migrating to the schools that offer the biggest moneymaking potential.

Safeguards are being put into place to ensure student-athletes can continue to thrive alongside the schools they are enriching. A revenue sharing agreement will cut players into collegiate earnings from athletics, and proposed roster limits could prevent top schools from hoarding NIL talent.

The more money student-athletes bring in, the more they risk exploitation from the schools they attend. Luckily, firms like Article 41 are getting ahead of those issues and setting up players so they can continue cashing in after they graduate.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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This past January, RHEI–the Vancouver-based tech company formerly known as BBTV—launched RHEI Data Pro, a data monetization platform that lets creators and media companies choose to license their content catalogs to companies building LLMs. At the time, RHEI said its platform could help creators earn up to $100,000 for every 1,000 hours of content they produce and license.

Pre-launch, RHEI Data Pro sealed $35 million worth of deals with “trillion-dollar technology businesses,” according to CEO Shahrzad Rafati. Now, four months later, it’s added an additional $20 million in deals, and says 80% of creators and media businesses licensing their content through RHEI Data Pro have seen initial payouts that exceed 75% of their average monthly revenue from platforms like YouTube. Some of these payouts are in the six and seven figures.

RHEI says Data Pro currently has “more than 6 petabytes of multilingual and multi-vertical audio-visual content, positioning it among the largest databases of its kind globally.”

It’s clear why those “trillion-dollar technology businesses” are willing to sign tens of millions of dollars’ worth of deals to access that database: With increased scrutiny over where they get the data they use to train LLMs–and whether that data is obtained with creators’ consent–they’re seeking aboveboard troves of UGC to develop their models beyond initial internet scrapes. (Again, RHEI hasn’t confirmed which businesses have partnered with Data Pro, but only a handful in the world are considered trillion-dollar, among them Amazon, Microsoft, YouTube’s parent Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Tesla.)

One creator using RHEI Data Pro is Otavio Agria, the creator behind the Brancoala family of channels with 13 million subscribers and ~84 million monthly views.

“What stood out to me most was the ability to turn my video library into a new source of revenue, with clear rights and transparency in how it’s being used by AI, something that’s becoming increasingly important for anyone working with digital content,” Agria said. “I already used AI in my daily life, both professionally and personally, so it made a lot of sense to support a platform that promotes ethical and mindful use of this technology while valuing content creators.”

In a statement, Rafati said she sees RHEI Data Pro’s early creator payouts as “a powerful testament to the speed and scale of our model.”

“We’ve been building AI solutions for the creator economy and media companies, and while it’s exciting to see the revenue that we’re able to drive for them through our latest solution with RHEI Data Pro, we’re even more excited about how our technologies continue to help drive content output, audience creation, and monetization at a scale that has never been achievable before,” she added. “We’re at the forefront of this Augmented Creativity Era, and with every partnership, we’re simultaneously putting creators and media companies at the center of innovation and shaping a more prosperous future for AI development.”

RHEI is a Tubefilter partner.

Filed under: Homepage Feature by Tubefilter Staff
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Roblox is enlisting two creators to teach its community about the finer points of in-game item creation. A “UGC interview” with Robloxers Reverse_Polarity and Madison_Hatter2 serves as a guide for aspiring creators who wish to develop and sell user-generated goods on the sandbox platform.

The videos in question can be found on a YouTube channel called Roblox Learn, which is full of tutorials that apply to the titular game. An accompanying Roblox blog post explains that the collabs with Reverse_Polarity and Madison_Hatter2 are designed to help out asset designers who are just getting started. “This series of videos is geared towards anyone who’s never built anything in Roblox or for creators looking for extra guidance on how to succeed on the platform,” reads the post.

Beyond their joint interview, the two featured creators also star in adjacent videos that delve into specific aspects of UGC creation in the Roblox ecosystem. Reverse_Polarity leads an explainer on modeling, while Madison_Hatter2 takes on the topic of texturing.

The series aims to increase the proliferation of user-generated items — a commodity that potentially benefits both Roblox and its creator community. In-game items rank among the top earners for Roblox creators, who collectively raked in nearly $1 billion during the 2024 calendar year. For Roblox, more items means more commerce and more growth, which can in turn accelerate efforts in areas like advertising and branded content.

The decision to involve popular creators in the series — Reverse_Polarity has more than 100,000 Roblox followers on his own — is also intriguing. Roblox has frustrated users by being opaque about the factors that go into its game recommendation decisions. Though the platform has vowed to improve in that regard, creator-led content offers discoverability in a different form. Roblox may not have a creator leaderboard like Fortnite does, but it still boasts a stable of high-profile community members. Through the Roblox Learn channel, those creators can share their findings with the masses.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News, Roblox by Sam Gutelle
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It’s been a few years since the Great Ninja Exodus that pitted Twitch, YouTube, Microsoft‘s now-defunct Mixer, and more against one another in a heated battle to sign as many gaming-focused livestreaming stars as possible. In the wake of that dealmaking dash, most streamers ended up back on Twitch, and the Amazon-owned platform is still top of mind for most people when you ask, What is the biggest livestreaming platform on the internet?

But according to analytics firm Streams Charts, Twitch isn’t the biggest.

It’s not the second biggest, either.

Streams Charts just released its latest Global Livestreaming Landscape report, revealing that livestream platforms collectively generated ~29.7 billion hours of watch time in Q1 2025. And, for the first time, that number includes data from TikTok Live–data showing that TikTok, despite being one of the most recent entrants to the streaming space, is apparently the #2 most-watched live platform on the ‘net, beaten only by YouTube.

In Q1, TikTok Live generated 8.027 billion hours of watch time, or around 27% of the livestreaming industry’s total. YouTube, at #1, came in with a whopping 50.3% of the total, or 14.983 billion watch hours.

Twitch came in third place, with 4.847 billion watch hours, aka 16.3% of the total. Fourth was competitor Kick with a much smaller 2.9% of the total, followed by niche streamers like SOOP and NimoTV. Right-wing Rumble is near the bottom, with 0.5% of the total.

Streams Charts attributes YouTube’s extreme lead to the genre diversity of its live content. YouTube Gaming specifically was responsible for just 7% of YouTube’s 50.3% share, while over on Twitch, gaming content was responsible for 12.6% of its 16.3%.

The real focus here, though, is TikTok. You’ve probably seen chatter about TikTok Live pop up here and there. It gets memed on a lot, and has been the genesis of trends like NPC streamers (some of whom got big enough to snap up guest host slots on Kai Cenat‘s last subathon). But it’s also become an ecommerce powerhouse–and a business TikTok itself is interested in nurturing.

During a recent mixer for creators at its New York City headquarters, TikTok said over 400,000 creators go live on its platform every day, to 30 million viewers. It also said those 400,000 streamers are collectively generating $10 million in revenue per day, with 80.4% of that amount generated by streamers who have fewer than 50,000 followers.

Streams Charts’ data shows why TikTok is so bent on promo’ing its live sector: In addition to having a commanding place in the market and making boatloads of money for both creators and platform, TikTok Live’s watch hours jumped 30% from Q4 2024 to Q1 2025. It was one of only four platforms to show watch time growth in Q1, alongside YouTube, Kick, and Trovo.

There’s another thing to note here: While TikTok Live is mostly IRL/lifestyle streams (main categories: Outdoors and Chats) and ecommerce, its gaming sector is beginning to flourish. Gaming and esports streams ticked up in this quarter, with streamers broadcasting mobile games like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Garena Free Fire.

If TikTok Live continues to grow, its focus on mobile games could set it apart from YouTube and Twitch and stoke it to an even bigger market share. Creators play mobile games on YouTube and Twitch as well, but on those platforms, mobile titles aren’t nearly as popular as PC and console games–meaning this is a niche where TikTok Live could dominate.

Nazar Babenko, Streams Charts’ Product Manager, said TikTok is “steadily closing the gap with YouTube Gaming in terms of gaming content volume.”

He also had a little free advice for Twitch, telling Dexerto that if Amazon’s subsidiary wants to catch up and retake spot #2, it should “innovate in creator tools and monetization options to prevent talent migration.” He advised “expand[ing] localization in emerging markets, especially Southeast Asia and Latin America, where mobile-first viewing is surging.”

We think there’s another underrated lesson in this data, too. The fact that most of TikTok Live’s revenue is generated by small streamers gives it a potential leg up over Twitch, which has notoriously struggled with discoverability and figuring out how to help new streamers attract audiences. Many Twitch streamers already post content on TikTok as the primary way of growing their audiences. If it continues shaping up to be a real streaming contender, it’s possible creators might choose it as a home not just for their supplementary content, but for all their content.

Filed under: Data, Homepage Feature, Streams Charts, TikTok, Twitch, YouTube by James Hale
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SAG-AFTRA has taken a big step forward that will make it more inclusive of digital content creators. During a recent meeting, the union’s board unanimously approved a recommendation to establish a committee for digital influencers and their ilk.

The new committee will consist of individuals who are “actively engaged in digital creator work,” who will be available to make use of professional support that addresses their “unique needs.” With the move, SAG-AFTRA is looking to move into the digital space “beyond branded content,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“The Board also received a recommendation regarding the establishment of an influencer and digital creator committee,” reads a release published on the SAG-AFTRA website. “The Board approved the recommendation unanimously moving to provide crucial protections, support, and representation for the influencer community by establishing the National Influencer and Digital Creator Committee, which will be chaired by creator Patrick Janelle.”

Janelle is a photographer with close to 500,000 followers on Instagram. On LinkedIn, he wrote that he was “honored” to serve as the chair of the new committee.

Since its formation out of a 2012 merger between two major Hollywood trade organizations, SAG-AFTRA has kept an eye on the burgeoning world of creator content. In 2018, the union’s National Director championed protections for creators, citing the existence of an “unfair and unbalanced” industry. Three years later, SAG-AFTRA’s “influencer agreement” established new guidelines for creator-led branded content deals.

The latest approval will take SAG-AFTRA one step closer to full-fledged representation for creators, but there are still burning questions about what that collective bargaining would look like. In the past, there have been numerous attempts to establish creator-led trade organizations, but most of those efforts have struggled to gain traction. There’s no question that creators could benefit from a unit that advocates on their behalves, but the needs different creator groups may be too diverse to ever be grouped under a single umbrella.

SAG-AFTRA is arguably best equipped to take on that challenge. Many of the stipulations in its latest contract — including increased rates for branded YouTube content and added protections against AI deepfakes — address issues that also plague digital-native creators.

At the same time, the recent SAG-AFTRA reminded creators that they operate in a gray area between the Hollywood establishment and independent work. The previous SAG work stoppage, in 2007, arguably catalyzed the first golden age of YouTube content. The next time around, many creators chose to follow SAG-AFTRA’s strike guidelines by engaging in practices that put “labor over likes.”

SAG-AFTRA is hoping to see that collaborative spirit extend to its influencer committee. It’s up to Janelle and his lieutenants to recruit a diverse coalition of creators who can be represented by the new bargaining body.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News, SAG-AFTRA by Sam Gutelle
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VidCon has changed owners since its last visit to the Anaheim Convention Center, but the creator-fan gathering is keeping its traditional title sponsor intact. For the tenth time, YouTube will serve as the topline partner for VidCon’s Southern California soiree.

YouTube’s programming at the 2025 iteration of VidCon Anaheim will include a creator game show, a live “Roblox Hunt,” and an outdoor experience adjacent to the Anaheim Convention Center. A keynote from YouTube Head of Culture and Trends Kevin Alocca and VP of Creator Products Amjad Hanif will celebrate 20 years of twists and turns on the Google-affiliated platform.

“This year marks our 20th birthday, YouTube is home to the most creative, authentic, and entertaining videos produced by our wonderful creator communities all around the world,” said YouTube VP of Marketing Kate Stanford in a statement. “What better place to recognize our creators than at VidCon Anaheim and we’re thrilled to be back as title sponsor.”

YouTube first served as VidCon’s title sponsor in 2013, three years after Hank and John Green co-founded the annual get-together. The Google-owned platform maintained an uninterrupted streak of title sponsorships until the 2020s; when the convention resumed its festivities after two years of COVID-caused shutdowns, upstart app TikTok replaced YouTube as the title sponsor.

At the time, that change felt like an accurate reflection of what VidCon had become. For many TikTokers who broke out during the pandemic, the 2022 Anaheim event offered an opportunity to meet fans in person for the first time. YouTube regained title sponsor status in 2023 and has held it ever since.

Two years later, the creator community is in the midst of a year-long celebration to honor the 20th anniversary of YouTube’s founding. The VidCon lineup will offer a mix of creator meet-ups that will span multiple eras of online video content. The list of featured creators ranges from long-time YouTubers (Smosh, Hank Green, LaurDIY) to breakout short-form stars (Justin Flom, Kika Kim, Leo Gonzalez).

In addition to the shifting lineup of featured creators, another big change at VidCon 2025 is the presence of a new owner. Last September, Paramount Global completed a sale of the 15-year-old creator con, with U.K.-based media and events company Informa becoming the brand’s new parent company. Informa, which already operates events like Comicon Toronto, will have a chance to show off its expertise at the Orange County creator mainstay.

VidCon 2025 will run from June 19-21. As per usual, programming will be split across three tracks, one each for creators, members of their respective communities, and professionals affiliated with the online video industry. To peruse the available multi-day passes, which start at $160, head over to the VidCon website.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News, VidCon by Sam Gutelle
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