Today's Creator Economy Pulse
Hollywood bets on YouTube creators to replicate low‑budget horror hits
Studios are scrambling to copy the surprise box‑office success of low‑budget horror titles such as *Obsession*, *Backrooms* and *Iron Lung*. Executives are courting YouTube personalities like Curry Barker, Kane Parsons and Markiplier to capture the under‑35 audience that craves original scares.
Flexion Launches Exprexion to Help Expand Mobile Game Monetisation Beyond Apple and Google
Flexion has introduced Exprexion, an integrated suite that combines alternative app‑store distribution, creator‑led marketing, and direct‑to‑consumer sales tools for mobile game developers. The platform supports secondary stores such as Amazon, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi and ONEstore, aiming to reduce reliance on Apple and Google’s ecosystems. Flexion claims Exprexion Markets can generate more than 10 % incremental revenue while Direct sales can reclaim up to 30 % of platform fees. The service seeks to lower acquisition costs and give studios greater control over player data.
Polo AI Beats All Competitors at $0.11 /Video
You're overpaying for Seedance 2.0 generation. 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨 𝐀𝐈 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐭 $𝟎.𝟏𝟏/𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨 — the market's lowest price. That's a better rate than Seedance, OpenArt, Topview, Higgsfield, and Freepik. Create more. Test more. Spend less. The best tools win on quality. The best...
I Tested the 8 Best AI Image Generators for 2026
The article reviews eight top AI image generators for 2026—Canva, Adobe Firefly, Gemini, AKOOL, Recraft, 1min.AI, Freepik, and TESS AI—based on G2 ratings, prompt accuracy, image quality, and workflow fit. Each tool’s monthly pricing is listed, ranging from $3.99 to...
10 Podcast Monetization Strategies for 2026
Podcasters are moving from single‑tactic ad sales to a multi‑layer monetization stack that blends sponsorships, programmatic buys, dynamic ad insertion, subscriptions, and strategic guest placements. Host‑read sponsorships command premium rates by leveraging the host’s credibility, while programmatic platforms provide scale...
Packaging on YT Matters; Team Delivers Strong Results
A reminder that packaging on YT is a BIG deal. Team did a great job here. To be clear, I’m still a fan of @openclaw and think that @steipete and co will figure it out. https://t.co/NXnC4jql1Z
Adobe Unveils AI‑Powered Productivity Agent to Streamline Creative Workflows
Adobe announced an AI‑driven productivity agent that works across its suite, automating repetitive steps like data extraction, formatting and sharing. The agent is positioned to free users for higher‑order thinking, reshaping daily work habits in the personal growth arena.
Sofía Vergara Launches Luxury ‘Outdoor Living Room’ Concept for 2026
Sofía Vergara unveiled a luxury outdoor‑living‑room concept on Instagram, featuring a white sofa, limestone coffee table and pendant lighting. The design, billed as a “minimalist comfort” space, is already sparking interest among interior designers and high‑end furniture retailers.
These Earbuds Can Outperform Any Creator Kit
Content creators filming on smartphones are turning budget earbuds into primary monitoring and microphone tools. The article evaluates latency, mic fidelity, and battery life, naming the Anker Soundcore Liberty 5 as the overall safe pick at $99.99. It also highlights niche...
Unity Software Posts 17% Revenue Rise in Q1 2026, Highlights Engine Growth
Unity (NYSE: U) announced first‑quarter 2026 revenue of $508 million, a 17% year‑over‑year increase, driven by 35% growth in strategic revenue. The results underscore accelerating adoption of its game‑engine tools and ad‑network offerings despite a widened net loss.
AI Search Strategy Perfectly Powers Influencer Marketing
Tim gets it, too. AI search strategy (or AEO, or GEO...whatever you want to call it) is a perfect match for influencer/creator marketing work. Take those two programs and combine them into one. https://t.co/JKkeX942Hs
Twitch Has New Penalties for Streamers Caught Viewbotting, CEO Says
Twitch announced a new enforcement mechanism aimed at streamers caught viewbotting, capping their concurrent view count (CCV) for a set period. The cap will be calibrated using each creator’s historical non‑bot traffic and will lengthen with repeated offenses. CEO Dan Clancy...
Threads Adds New Posting Options and Animated Mini Stickers
Meta’s Threads introduced two new tools aimed at boosting user posting frequency. The platform now automatically splits any pasted text longer than 500 characters into a series of linked updates, eliminating the need for manual trimming. In parallel, Threads is...
OnlyFans Outscores Entire Premier League Revenue
We often talk about the growth of the Premier League and football in general, with it being trumpeted as one of the UK's biggest brands. But is that true? The biggest PL revenue club (Liverpool) generated £703m in 2025,...
Viewbot Crackdown Unlikely to Hurt Creators, Says Streamer
was streaming when the viewbotting update was announced - but have seen a lot of pessimism and concern that this will harm creators (by using viewbots as a weapon). But I don't see that being likely. This is how I...
The Summer of 1999: How Instacart & Linqia Unlocked Full-Funnel Results via Nostalgic Creator-Led Storytelling
Instacart teamed with performance‑marketing platform Linqia to launch a summer‑1999 nostalgic creator‑led campaign that blended retro storytelling with shoppable video. The initiative leveraged a network of micro‑influencers to produce authentic, era‑specific content that was distributed across TikTok, Instagram Reels, and...
Substack Gains Google Scholar Citations, Boosting Academic Credit
Good news for academics—substack is now piloting a project to allow for citations to Google Scholar. This means if you write a great piece on substack and someone cites it in an academic journal, then you will get a DOI and...
Made By All Unveils Made By Us Studios, Names Tanya Cohen Co‑CEO to Power Creator‑Economy Films
Made By All announced the launch of Made By Us Studios, a Hollywood‑grade studio built for the creator economy, and named veteran dealmaker Tanya Cohen as Co‑CEO. The venture positions creators as owners of IP and aims to capture the...
Maxon Makes Autograph Team Licenses Free for Commercial Use
Maxon announced that its Autograph team licenses are now free for commercial use, removing seat‑count, time, and output restrictions. The change follows a recent free release for individual users and expands the tool’s reach to studios, agencies, educators, and brands...
Twitch’s Community Focus Creates Moat, TikTok Stays Swipe‑driven
Daniel Clancy thinks nobody met their partner by leaving a TikTok comment. "I really like your comment. Want to get together sometime?" was something nobody ever said on TikTok. Ever. The Twitch CEO delivered that line with a straight face...
Staying Solo Keeps Creative Control and Authentic Content
One thing I see is the moment YouTubers built big teams and stop doing things themselves things go wrong fast It's better to just DIY and solo it and keep control of your narrative, I like how PewDiePie always did that I...
Flood at the Gate: AI Slop, Streaming Fraud, and the Collapse of the “39-Step” Mechanical Royalty at the CRB
AI‑generated music now dominates streaming uploads, with Deezer reporting 44 % of new tracks created by generative models and 85 % of their streams flagged as fraudulent. This flood threatens the royalty pool that funds human songwriters, as bots and synthetic engagement...
VTuber Ironmouse Ends Sponsorship with Perfect World’s ‘Neverness to Everness’ Over AI Use
Twitch star Ironmouse announced she is terminating her sponsorship of Perfect World’s open‑world gacha title Neverness to Everness after the developer Hotta Studio allegedly misled her about the game’s use of generative AI. The move has prompted other creators to...
What Publishers Can Learn From Penguin Random House’s $1 Million In-House Media Experiment
Penguin Random House invested $1 million in an in‑house media unit inside its Crown Publishing imprint, launching the food‑focused brand Taste. With just one full‑time employee, Taste’s newsletter and podcast are projected to exceed $1 million in revenue by 2027. The experiment...
PBS Teams With Indie Film Producer ITVS for Independent Lens Creator Lab, Inaugural Lineup Revealed (EXCLUSIVE)
PBS and independent film co‑producer ITVS have unveiled the inaugural Independent Lens Creator Lab, a six‑month accelerator that offers up to $36,000 in production funding per participant. The program will guide six creators as they produce up to 12 vertical‑format...
Day 16: The 7 Emails Keep You Out of the Promotions Folder
Tyler Cook, a deliverability specialist at Hypermedia Marketing, rebuilt a 300,000‑subscriber welcome flow into a seven‑email sequence. By starting with a short, non‑founder email that elicits a reply, he forces Gmail and Yahoo to auto‑whitelist the sender. Subsequent emails add...
The Creator Economy Keeps Adding Tools – The Influencer Marketing Factory Keeps Finding the Same Gap
The Influencer Marketing Factory (IMF) has evolved from a $1,500 startup into a full‑service creator‑economy agency handling organic, paid amplification, and TikTok Shop for brands like Google and Hyundai. Over the past three years, about 90% of its clients now...
Matthew Hartley Launches Harmonic Wave, a New Platform for AI-Powered Media Experiences
Matthew Hartley, a Sarasota‑based creator and developer, launched Harmonic Wave, an AI‑powered platform that reimagines media delivery as structured, story‑driven journeys. Unlike traditional streaming, the service lets creators dictate the sequence of music, video, images, and text, while AI agents...
SocialChain Taps Havas Play UK Veteran Sophie Berman to Lead Influencer Division
SocialChain has appointed Sophie Berman, former Head of Talent and Influencer at Havas Play UK, to lead its CreatorChain influencer division. Berman will oversee strategy, talent partnerships, and scalable campaign tools while reporting to CEO Jacinta Faul. CreatorChain, which counts...
Hybrid Monetization Drives 59% Ad Revenue Surge
AppLovin Q1 2026 earnings: 59% ad revenue growth, the hybrid monetization opportunity for games "In prepared remarks, AppLovin’s CEO highlighted a trend of mobile games adopting a hybrid monetization model (ads and in-app purchases), given the opportunity to monetize through advertising...
The Team, Formerly Wasserman, Acquires Golf Creator Agency Representing Grant Horvat, Bryan Bros
The Team, the rebranded former Wasserman, has acquired Provisions Golf, a boutique creator agency that represents pro golfer Grant Horvat and the Bryan Bros duo. The deal brings Horvat’s 1.7 million‑subscriber YouTube channel and the Bryan Bros’ 850,000 followers under The...
Digital Management Company Made By All Launches Hollywood Studio Venture With Tanya Cohen at the Helm
Los Angeles‑based digital management firm Made By All has launched Made By Us Studios, a premium content studio that merges Hollywood production with the creator economy. The studio appoints Tanya Cohen as Co‑CEO alongside founder Leanne Perice and President of...
Platforms Poised to Capture $16.1B in Influencer Boosts by 2028
Brands are set to spend $16.1 billion on paid amplification of creator posts by 2028, edging out the $15.71 billion they currently allocate to creator‑produced sponsored content. The shift reflects a growing preference for platform‑driven boosting, especially on TikTok and Instagram, and...
Big Social Followings Will Drive Future Film Investments
I think the next generation of actors and filmmakers will have grown up in a culture that rewards a large follower base. Not everyone who slings sleep aids on TikTok will star in the next Marvel movie, but I think...
Esports Hits 3.3 Billion Hours Watched in 2025, Driven by Counter‑Strike Surge
Esports Charts reports that global esports consumption reached 3.3 billion hours in 2025, up 1.5% from the prior year. The record is anchored by a 33% jump in Counter‑Strike viewership, expanding mobile esports share and the rise of co‑streaming.
Despite a Thriving Market, U.K. Report Finds Comics Creators Are Struggling
UK comics sales reached a record high in 2025, according to NielsenIQ BookScan, but a new U.K. Comics Creators Research Report reveals creators are facing mounting financial and health pressures. The survey of 689 creators shows 89% of those earning...
Spotify Wants to Become the Home for AI-Generated Personal Audio
Spotify has launched a beta command‑line interface that lets developers use AI code models to generate personal podcasts and upload them directly to their own Spotify library. The tool works with OpenAI Codex, Anthropic Claude Code, and OpenClaw, requiring a...
Lock a Single Face Across All AI Video Clips
This is kind of insane. I just found the fix for every AI video creator's biggest headache. Bach lets you upload one photo, AI locks that face across every clip. Same face, same skin, same eyes and no drift, no reshoot, no fixing...
Boomer Bonanza: Celeb Podcasts Fetch Seven‑Figure Deals
the podcast industry is in its Boomer Bonanza phase. the hottest bidding war right now is for a yet-to-launch show from ina garten (7-figure offers per year) while oprah just signed a mega deal with amazon for her show
How Anyone Can Make $1,000,000 in 24 Months: How to Start Live Shopping in 2026
In this episode of the Gary Vee Audio Experience, Gary Vaynerchuk urges listeners to tap into the booming live social shopping market—now a half‑trillion‑dollar industry in China and rapidly growing in the U.S. via platforms like TikTok Shop and Whatnot....
AI‑Curated Viral Pipelines Are the Future of Social Media
Love it or hate it, this is where social media is heading. Why force originality when you can curate viral trends, run them through Claude agents, strip the AI smell, and auto-publish? Robin just open-sourced this pipeline (Claude Code, Postiz, Apify). Fascinating to...
B2B Visibility Now Driven by Creators and SMEs
Aaaaand another one: @Substack's Comms lead surfacing that more teams are talking creator partnerships over on LinkedIn today. The future of B2B visibility is creators and third-party SMEs 👏 https://t.co/ayEauSHIgX
Most Travel Influencers Failing to Disclose Paid-For Posts
An Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) investigation of 531 Instagram and TikTok posts found that only 20% of travel influencer ads were properly disclosed, with 69% offering no indication they were paid content. The probe, prompted by the ASA’s 2024 Influencer...
Match Demand: Answer, Teach, Review to Gain Views
The real reason you're not getting views? Low demand. 👀 It doesn't matter how good your video is if nobody's searching for it. Stick to three formats: answer questions, teach skills, review products. Serve the demand. 🎯 https://t.co/QpjDZ9U1Ps
Band Battles Surge of AI‑generated Bootleg Remixes
The deluge of AI-generated music on streaming platforms continues. Took a look at one band's efforts to curb bootleg AI remixes of its work: https://t.co/ems6ELKMwU
Can Creators Drive the Next Wave of Media Subscriptions?
Legacy newsrooms are turning to social creators to broaden reach and spark subscriptions. The City partnered with TikTok‑and‑Instagram comedian Gerrie Lim, lifting average video views by 115% and exposing 83% of viewers to a new audience. Reuters Institute data shows...
The Science of Attention: Creating Short-Form Videos People Won't Skip
In this episode, Michael Stelzner talks with Hilary Billings, a psychology‑trained content strategist and founder of Attentioneers, about the science behind short‑form video that captures attention. Hilary shares how she moved from a failed PhD pursuit to viral video success...
When Creators and Affiliates Stop Being Different Budget Lines
Todd Ulise, chief revenue officer of Nomix Group, says the creator‑affiliate split is a people problem, not a technology issue. He urges brands to align on a single definition of value and adopt unified measurement that treats creators as performance‑based...
RISJ Report: Video Is Expanding the Podcasting Audience, Not Replacing It
The Reuters Institute report finds video is expanding, not replacing, the podcast audience. Twenty‑six percent of U.S. adults now both watch and listen to podcasts each week, double the share that only listens. Newsrooms are adapting by adding video to...
Your Video Editor Just Became Optional.
Claude’s new VIDEO-USE tool lets users edit entire videos through simple text prompts, eliminating the need for traditional timelines or drag‑and‑drop interfaces. The open‑source solution runs inside Claude Code, using audio transcripts and visual snapshots to generate cuts, color grading,...
Thailand Targets 6 Million Chinese Visitors via ‘Authentic’ Content on RedNote, WeChat
Thailand is targeting more than 6 million Chinese visitors in 2024, up from 4.5 million in 2025, by leveraging the RedNote travel app and WeChat. After a 30 percent drop in Chinese arrivals last year due to safety scares and economic concerns, the...