Business of Creators
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Twitter's pay to post world 👀

Twitter's pay to post world 👀

...Musk unveils $1/year subscription to combat spam and bots...

Business of Creators
October 18, 2023

Business of Creators 💬

Greetings! 👋

Welcome to the newest edition of the Business of Creator newsletter! Immerse yourself in today's top stories:

💬 $1/year charge to post on Twitter
🍟 Lanch: Empowering influencers to build food brands
🧠 Günseli Yalcinkaya on doxxing, internet trends, and the future of social media
🎧 Podcast: AI bots transforming the Creator Economy
👟 Sneaker YouTuber's 6-figure empire

📲 Platform updates unpacked

Get the lowdown on the latest digital platform tweaks and additions to stay one step ahead…

📲 X Updates: X's new strategy to attract subscribers involves a collaboration with Paris Hilton for a custom icon. Reports reveal ongoing limitations on links to rival apps and news outlets. Plus, X now requires answers to entry questions for community membership.

📲 Google Updates: Explore Google's latest search feature using generative AI, allowing users to generate visuals from text prompts. Take your discovery process beyond standard search results.

📲 YouTube Updates: YouTube rolls out a suite of mobile playback, search, and creator-focused features. This includes enhanced playback controls, stable volume, song search by playing or humming, a screen lock option, and a revamped "You" tab consolidating Library and account pages. Visual cues are integrated to highlight "like and subscribe" prompts and top comments, signaling a renewed focus on playback and search improvements.

📲 Threads Updates: Threads is experimenting with branded content tags in-app. Plus, now you can edit your posts within a five-minute window after publishing.

📲 TikTok Updates: TikTok aims to enhance accessibility by introducing auto-captions on all videos starting next month. Additionally, ByteDance launches 'CapCut for Business' to aid in brand video creation.

📲 Snapchat Updates: Snapchat is now allowing websites to embed content. Plus, Snapchat hopes to grow to more than 475 million daily active users by the end of 2024.

📲 Patreon updates: Patreon acquires Moment, an online event ticketing service. This move supports Patreon's aim to be a comprehensive platform, reducing creators' reliance on external services.

📲 Twitch updates: Twitch adds stories to its mobile app.

📲 Spotify: Spotify launches hub for artists’ merch.

^{A note from our sponsor:}

Creator Report 23 Presented by Linktree

Explore the dynamic internet realm in the 2023 Creator Report by Linktree. Uncover challenges in a landscape flooded with content, as the report guides 200 million creators on cutting through the noise, forging genuine connections, and optimizing earnings. 👉 Get the report!

$1/year Twitter (pay to post world)

Twitter, now known as X, is set to introduce a $1 annual charge for new users in New Zealand and the Philippines. This move, aimed at curbing spam and bot activity, marks a significant departure from Twitter's longstanding free model.

Correct, read for free, but $1/year to write. It’s the only way to fight bots without blocking real users.
This won’t stop bots completely, but it will be 1000X harder to manipulate the platform.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)
12:24 AM • Oct 18, 2023

As industry giants like Meta and Twitter pivot to paid subscriptions, experts speculate that the era of free social media may be coming to an end. The shift is driven by challenges in the advertising market, Apple's privacy restrictions, and regulatory threats, indicating a potential new era of pay-to-play social media.

Lanch, which creates food delivery brands for influencers, gobbles up $6.9M

Berlin-based startup Lanch has secured $6.9 million in funding for its unique approach to merging influencer marketing and food delivery. The company collaborates with influencers to create ad hoc food delivery brands, cooked in "virtual kitchens" within existing restaurant spaces. Lanch's first venture, Happy Slice, in partnership with German YouTubers, sold over 30,000 pizzas in its launch weekend. While similar models in the U.S. faced criticism, Lanch differentiates itself with a tech-first approach, incorporating quality-control software to gather qualitative and quantitative data, aiming to provide insights to creators and enhance efficiency for partner restaurants.

‘The curse of the creator economy’

Whether it’s reporting on emerging social media trends, sharing video explainers on Elon Musk’s Twitter or shitposting from one of her many meme accounts, to describe Taylor Lorenz as extremely online is an understatement.

A columnist at the Washington Post reporting on technology and online culture, she’s the go-to voice on the internet, covering everything from the TikTok influencer economy to the rise of niche microcelebrities and the power of social media algorithms. Her frontline accounts of political extremism online, doxxing, and the rise and fall of the creator economy – a term that she notes only surfaced during the pandemic – have paved the way for a new wave of online commentators (myself included). Her commitment to the job is so rigorous in fact that even Musk himself is scared. (Read all interview)

How AI bots are reshaping the Creator Economy, a podcast listen 🎧

In the bustling streets of the digital metropolis, influencers are the modern-day celebrities, their voices echoing through the vast corridors of social media. But as the sun sets on traditional influencer monetization methods, a new dawn is breaking: the age of AI-driven engagement. (Listen)

Sneaker YouTuber's 6-figure empire

YouTuber Seth Fowler, with 1.1 million subscribers, turned his passion for sneakers into a thriving business empire. Starting with sneaker reviews, he expanded to a self-titled YouTube channel, generating $485,000 in revenue in 2022 through advertising and sponsorships.

Diversifying revenue streams beyond YouTube: Fowler's success extends beyond YouTube, with a sock company, Apthcry, cofounded in 2020. Generating over $1 million in revenue in 2022, the business remains debt-free and reinvests profits. Fowler diversified income sources through live-shopping on Whatnot and sponsorships, earning $192,200 in 2022. Despite challenges, he explores new interests, technologies, and collaborations to continually expand his empire.