James Hale

• Was Sora trained on Marques Brownlee’s videos?
• 9.5 million new streamers hit “Go live” on Twitch this year

  According to Twitch, 9.51 million new streamers broadcasted on its platform for the first time in 2024. To put that in context, Twitch on average sees 7.3 million individual streamers go live per month, per Twitch Tracker. And though, clearly, not all those first-time streamers have continued on to be regular broadcasters, it's pretty impressive that Twitch's potential pool of creators grew that much in just a year.

  
• TikTok wants to turn millions of Americans into paid shopping influencers

  TikTok Shop now offers affiliate marketing payouts to users with as few as 1,000 followers--and, as a result, everyday people across the U.S. are earning tens of thousands of dollars in commissions by posting videos that advertise products sold on TikTok's burgeoning ecommerce hub.

  
• Top 5 Branded Videos of the Week: Ronaldo, Ryan Trahan, robots

  While tallying up data for our latest Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report, we realized that this is the biggest week we've seen so far. There were 2,536 sponsored videos published on YouTube during the week of Nov. 25-Dec. 1--more than in any other week we tracked previously. This surge is thanks to the upcoming winter holidays: it's the single biggest time of the year for ad spend, and with creator-led marketing continuing to grow, we're not surprised many brands are choosing to invest their ad dollars in sponsored content.

  
• “You have a community of creatives”: Twitch faces backlash over new AI-generated emote
• Spotify says its platform is the place for established video creators to tap a new audience
• Nielsen and TikTok say they’ve struck a first-of-its-kind deal for ad metrics. Is it really that groundbreaking?
• Twitch CEO confirms political streamers are losing revenue as brands like AT&T, JPMorgan Chase, and Dunkin’ pull ads
• Facebook is now (kinda) paying regular people to use Facebook
• 80% of sponsored posts on Instagram last month weren’t disclosed as ads
• A creator earned $2 million during one single Black Friday livestream on TikTok
• Gamers spend more time watching content than playing games. What can developers do?