James Hale

• 2024 was Kickstarter’s biggest year yet. Here are the creators who raised $706 million.
• Is paying for private security just another cost of being a female streamer?

  Streamer Pokimane just recently told Colin and Samir that she spends over five figures a month on security, including paying for services that protect her from doxxing, deepfakes and stalking.

  
• It’s YouTube’s turn to crack down on the gamba meta

  The platform announced this week that it's no longer allowing content creators to direct users to "unapproved" gambling websites, and it's also age-restricting all videos that depict and/or promote online gambling sites, so no one under the age of 18 will be able to watch them.

  
• Ballen Studios is building a business that turns creators into career storytellers. Its next star? Nexpo.

  The debut episode of Late Nights with Nexpo dropped as a special video edition on Nexpo's channel, but future episodes will live (for now) as audio-only presentations on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music. In this episode (embedded above), Nexpo chronicles a 1993 hiking incident where seven people left home to adventure in the Khamar-Daban mountain range, and only one returned alive.

  
• Hey, can you turn down that ad?
• Top 5 Branded Videos of the Week: Netflix, TikTok, Google, and…Magnus Carlsen?
• YouTube’s next anti-ad blocker move? Introduce cheaper Premium
• Twitch is limiting streamers to 100 hours of Highlights. They’re not happy.
• Top 5 Branded Videos of the Week: Pyramids, paddles, and Facebook Marketplace
• YouTube shuts down “true crime” channel that was all AI lies
• Your favorite creator? There’s an app for that (and the company making it just got $150 million).
• Yahoo News’ next big source? Creators, who are getting ad revenue in exchange for articles