California Bill Targets Family Vloggers, Giving Children the Right to Erase Monetized Content at 18
California Senator Steve Padilla introduced Senate Bill 1247, mandating social‑media platforms to let adult children request removal or editing of monetized content that features them as minors. The bill gives creators three business days to acknowledge a request and ten days to comply, with civil penalties of $3,000 per day for non‑compliance. It expands on SB 764, which requires a trust fund for child influencers, and follows Utah's similar "right to delete" law. A Senate hearing is set for April 6.
Influur Is Building a Creator-Powered Campaign Layer Around the 2026 FIFA World Cup
Miami-based creator marketplace Influur announced a multi‑city, creator‑led initiative to help brands engage audiences around the 2026 FIFA World Cup across the United States, Canada and Mexico. Rather than seeking official tournament sponsorship, Influur will build an independent, creator‑powered cultural...
Glystn Just Landed Stagwell, Influential, Weber Shandwick – CEO Ethan Fassett Says the Agency Intelligence Race Is On
Glystn, the San‑Francisco AI social‑intelligence platform, has inked enterprise partnerships with three of the five largest public agency holding companies—Stagwell Marketing Cloud, Influential and Weber Shandwick. The integrations embed Glystn’s app and its Model Context Protocol directly into agency workflows, turning...
TikTok Canada Reaches Agreement With Federal Government, Securing Local Operations, Creator Programs
TikTok Canada avoided a forced shutdown after reaching a settlement with the federal government, allowing its local operations to continue. The agreement introduces legally binding undertakings, including upgraded data‑security measures and an independent monitor to audit Canadian user data access....
TikTok Spotlights Savannah Space Founder Cherie Kihato in African All-Stars Series
TikTok featured Cherie Kihato, founder of Kenya’s Savannah Space, in its African All-Stars Series. Kihato detailed a disciplined content schedule, allocating an hour each morning to create TikTok videos while running her furniture and home‑decor brand. She measures success through...
Creative Network Residence Reshapes Leadership With Dual Appointments
Residence, the global network of creative agencies, announced two senior leadership changes. Ben Langsfeld was named Chief Creative Officer, taking charge of client‑facing strategy and day‑to‑day creative execution. Co‑founder Orion Tait moved into the newly created Creative Chair role, concentrating...
Webby Awards Taps Comedian & Content Creator Josh Johnson to Host 30th Annual Ceremony
The Webby Awards will celebrate their 30th anniversary on May 11 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City, with Emmy‑nominated comedian and creator Josh Johnson as host. Johnson, known for his work on The Tonight Show and The Daily...
RACER Announces Creator Summit in Long Beach to Connect Motorsport Industry With Digital Creators
RACER, the North American motorsports media platform, will host its inaugural Creator Summit on April 16 in downtown Long Beach, California, ahead of the Acura Grand Prix weekend. The invitation‑only event will bring together digital creators, brands, racing teams and...
Stamp’s Lucy Magri-Overend on Building a Certification System That Puts Creators in Control of Their Credibility
Stamp, a London‑based startup launched in November 2024, is creating an ethical certification system that puts creators in control of their credibility. Co‑founder Lucy Magri‑Overend explains the platform evaluates creators on three pillars—regulatory compliance, audience care, and personal values—through a self‑reflection...
Clios Expand Into Creator Economy With New Awards Program Backed by YouTube, Influential
The Clios have launched Clio Creators, a new awards program in partnership with YouTube and Influential, to honor excellence in digital creator content. The initiative features two tracks—Brand, which celebrates brand‑creator collaborations, and Creator, which highlights individual creator storytelling. Submissions...
From Followers to Shelf Space: Bonkers Toys’ Lisa Berlin Wright on What Creator Licensing Actually Requires
Bonkers Toys, led by licensing chief Lisa Berlin Wright, is turning digital creators into toy franchise powerhouses. The company’s early wins with slither.io and Ryan’s World proved that viral online audiences can be translated into retail‑ready product lines. Wright stresses...
Popular, Not Famous: How Tiltify’s $100M Fundraising Year Redefines Creator Philanthropy
Tiltify reported that creators donated more than $100 million in 2025, roughly double its 2024 total, cementing creator‑led philanthropy as a major growth engine. The platform’s tools—especially creator‑designed incentives, auctions and matching challenges—accounted for 40% of the funds raised, up from...
Launchd Acquires New Zealand Talent Agency WeAreTENZING to Expand ANZ Creator Network
Launchd has acquired Auckland‑based talent agency WeAreTENZING, adding more than 100 athletes, creators and artists to its Australia‑New Zealand network. The deal expands Launchd's portfolio, which already includes creator representation, speaker management and booking technology, to over 5,000 talent across...
Open Sauce Returns to San Francisco in July 2026 With Creator Lineup and Industry Day Summit
Open Sauce, the creator‑focused technology festival, will return to the San Francisco Bay Area from July 17‑19, 2026. The three‑day event showcases more than 100 creators—including Mark Rober, Hank Green, and Michael Reeves—alongside a 500‑project expo and a dedicated Game Expo. A Creator...
Sports Media Company Snapback Sports Signs With Excel Sports Management to Drive Sponsorship Growth, Event Access
Snapback Sports, a digital sports media firm, has signed with Excel Sports Management to accelerate sponsorship revenue and gain event access. The company posted $2.2 million in 2025 revenue and aims for $3 million in 2026. Excel will handle sponsorship sales across...
LinkedIn Deploys LLM-Based Feed Ranking System to Surface Content Beyond Members’ Networks
LinkedIn has replaced its fragmented feed ranking pipeline with a single, LLM‑driven retrieval system that generates embeddings for every post. The new architecture uses GPU‑accelerated transformers and a generative recommender that treats a member’s history as a sequential narrative. By...
AnyMind Group Launches AI-Powered Tool to Help Advertisers Scale UGC Campaigns
AnyMind Group unveiled AnyDigital Max, an AI‑driven platform that helps advertisers analyze, optimize, and scale user‑generated content (UGC) campaigns across social media. The company’s internal data shows UGC ads deliver 2.4 times higher click‑through rates, 3.7 times higher view rates, and roughly...
Amaze to Launch Live Shopping Tools Enabling In-Stream Purchasing for Creators, Brands
Amaze, the creator‑powered commerce platform, announced new live‑shopping capabilities that let creators and brands sell products directly within live streams. The tools include instant in‑stream purchasing, real‑time audience interaction such as comments, polls, dynamic product highlights, and time‑limited promo codes....
Creator Economy Veterans Behind TalentX, YMU Form Independent Talent Firm Glossary Artists
Former TalentX and YMU executives launched Glossary Artists, an independent talent management firm focused on creator‑owned IP and long‑term brand development. Based in Los Angeles and Miami, the women‑led agency gives managers freedom to innovate across beauty, fashion, gaming, food...
UnderCurrent Talent: A Platform Model for Scaling Niche Creators in a Consolidating Market
UnderCurrent Talent, founded in 2020, has built a platform that pairs entrepreneurial managers with niche creators across dozens of verticals, representing over 300 creators and 30 managers. The bootstrapped firm offers full‑service support—including content strategy, business development, PR, and product...
Kale’s Isha Patel: Why Fan-Powered Marketing Works Better Than Average Influencer Campaigns
Isha Patel and Luis Molina founded Kale in 2021 to turn everyday customers into a scalable, trackable marketing channel. Leveraging insights from LinkedIn’s creator ecosystem, Kale offers a fan‑advocacy platform that rewards low‑friction content and provides real‑time analytics. The company’s...
Streaming Platform Playback Lands at Disney and ESPN After December Shutdown
Playback, a creator‑driven sports watch‑party platform launched in 2020, announced on March 17 that its team has joined Disney Entertainment and ESPN after a December shutdown. The founders had previously sought a buyer for the technology amid broadcast‑rights complexities that...
#paid Partners With Pinterest to Connect Brands With Consumers Through Creator-Led Campaigns
#paid has become an official execution partner for Pinterest’s Idea Ads, linking its creator‑brand matching technology and Handraise workflow with Pinterest’s creator ecosystem. The integration enables creators to self‑select campaigns and produce Idea Ads that blend organic inspiration with paid...
Short-Form Video Is Driving Viewers to Watch Full TV Shows, Research Finds
Research by YouGov shows short‑form video on TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts is now a primary discovery tool for full‑length TV shows and films. In a survey of 2,035 British adults, more than 75% of those who saw a...
JAM Media’s John Rice: Why Children’s Brands That Don’t Own Their Audience Will Be Left Behind
John Rice, CEO of JAM Media, warned that the traditional broadcaster‑centric model for preschool animation is becoming obsolete as platforms cut budgets and demand more audience ownership. He highlighted the need for studios to build direct relationships with children and...
YouTube Launches Podcast Vertical Lineups for Advertisers
YouTube has launched a U.S. Top Podcasts Lineup, letting advertisers buy ad inventory across curated podcast collections organized by five content verticals—Sports, News, Comedy, True Crime, and Society & Culture. The platform reports over 100 million daily podcast viewing hours and...
Oracle Discloses $2B Stake in TikTok U.S. Joint Venture
Oracle disclosed a 15% equity stake in the TikTok US Data Security Joint Venture, part of a $2.2 billion non‑marketable investment portfolio. The joint venture, valued at roughly $14 billion, includes equal stakes from Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi’s MGX, while ByteDance...
Propagate Content Acquires Creator-First Affiliate Agency Sway Social
Propagate Content, the independent studio founded by Ben Silverman and Howard T. Owens, announced the acquisition of creator‑first affiliate agency Sway Social for a mid‑to‑high seven‑figure price. Sway, launched in 2021, runs end‑to‑end affiliate and social commerce programs for over...
Vue Creator Management: An Agency Treating Affiliate Strategy as a Full-Time Job
Vue Creator Management, a Toledo‑based agency founded in 2025 by Cailyn Medley, offers a hybrid service that combines affiliate strategy consulting with full‑time execution. The firm helps creators optimize revenue on platforms such as ShopMy, LTK and Amazon, handling link...
Singapore Podcast Ads Draw Higher Engagement, Lower Saturation Than Other Digital Media, Report Finds
Acast’s Podcast Pulse Singapore Edition, based on a survey of 250 consumers, shows podcast ads enjoy the lightest ad load and highest engagement compared with video, social and TV formats. Only 20% of listeners need more than five exposures before...
Narcity Media Launches Self-Serve Instagram Story Distribution Tool for Brands
Narcity Media introduced Boost, a self‑serve tool on its Locals.tv platform that lets brands pay local creators to share Instagram Stories. The service taps a network of over 2,000 creators across Canadian cities, allowing campaigns to be launched in minutes...
Shake Content’s Dani Markovits: Founders Who Ignore LinkedIn Are Ceding Their Best Acquisition Channel
Shake Content’s new chief commercial officer, former LinkedIn creator‑team leader Dani Markovits, warns that B2B founders who ignore LinkedIn are forfeiting their most effective acquisition channel. He argues that founder‑led posts generate higher trust and reach than corporate pages, especially...
From ‘Plant Daddy’ to Plant Retailer: How Kossi Tchenawou Turned Social Media Influence Into a Community-Driven Business
Kossi Tchenawou, a former RE/MAX franchise consultant, turned his TikTok hobby of houseplants into a 400,000‑plus follower creator brand known as “Plant Daddy.” Leveraging a three‑E framework—education, engagement, entertainment—he launched OnlyPlants, a Denver storefront that opened in just 14 days...
Gold Studios: Founder Eddie Gold on Blending Entertainment, Creators, and Brands
Gold Studios, founded by former ad‑agency exec Eddie Gold in 2020, now supports over 400 comedy and sports creators across London and New York. The company operates five divisions—Talent, Live, Originals, a creative agency, and the newly added Arena—blending talent...
Influencer Kay Dudley Launches Plant-Based Protein Bar Brand HEYNU
Influencer Kay Dudley, half of the Kay & Tay duo, has launched HEYNU, a plant‑based nutrition brand debuting with the HEYBAR protein bar. The bar delivers 14 g protein, 6 g fiber, 5 g sugar, and is gluten‑free and free of nine major...
Loti AI, Underscore Talent Partner to Defend Creator Likeness in the Age of Deepfakes
Loti AI, a Seattle‑based likeness‑protection startup, announced a partnership with Underscore Talent to shield the agency’s creator roster from deepfake impersonation. Loti’s Watchtower platform scans the internet, uses face and voice recognition, and reports a 95 % takedown success rate within...
Residence CFO Wade Milne on Building a Creative Network and Why Social Is the Industry’s Fastest-Growing Sector
Residence, a global network of independent creative firms, has acquired social‑first agency OK COOL to deepen its social capabilities. CFO Wade Milne says the social sector is the only growth area in marketing services, reflecting the broader shift toward a creator‑driven,...
Streamers Valkyrae, Squeex Announce NYU Game Center Scholarship During Surprise Guest Lecture
Popular streamers Valkyrae and Squeex announced the Squeex Scholarship at NYU’s Game Center during a guest lecture filmed for Valkyrae’s “Touching Grass” series. The scholarship provides professional‑development funding for travel, conferences, internships, and mentorship, linking students with industry professionals. Squeex’s...
Vanity Fair Bets on Newsletter Boom With New Subscriber-Only Roster
Vanity Fair has introduced four subscriber‑only newsletters covering technology, politics, fashion and art, each led by a dedicated writer. The titles—“A Billion to One,” “Party Animals,” “Fit Check,” and “True Colors”—are hosted on Vanity Fair’s own platform, bypassing third‑party services....
Courtney Michelle on Turning Relatable Chaos Into a Comedy Career Online
Actress Courtney Michelle pivoted from drama to online comedy, building a thriving creator business on TikTok and Instagram. Guided by a manager’s suggestion, she leveraged character‑driven sketches that mirror everyday awkward moments, attracting a loyal, empathetic audience. Her revenue now...
The 10 Fastest-Growing Australian Instagram Accounts of February 2026
In February 2026 Korean‑Australian actress Yerin Ha topped the growth chart, adding 692.6 K followers to reach just over 1 million. Creative director Christian Watson, physiotherapist Heidi Barlow, radio host Liam Stapleton and UFC champion Alexander Volkanovski also posted sizable gains, each surpassing...
X Launches Creator Subscriptions 2.0 With Exclusive Threads, Paid Partnership Labels
X has introduced Creator Subscriptions 2.0, adding Exclusive Threads that let creators lock parts of a conversation behind a paywall. The update streamlines the subscription setup to two steps and places subscriber‑only content directly in the creator’s main feed. A new...
Gaming Marketing Consultancy Open World Acquires Influencer Platform Drope.me to Scale Creator Campaigns
Open World, the marketing consultancy division of Loaded Holdings, has acquired influencer platform Drope.me to add automation and performance‑tracking tools to its gaming creator campaigns. The acquisition enables Open World to scale activations from dozens to thousands of creators simultaneously....
Zink Talent: Samantha Zink’s Strategy for Developing Long-Term Creator-Brand Partnerships
Zink Talent, founded in 2018 by former fashion PR executive Samantha Zink, now manages about 70 creators across beauty, skincare, fashion and lifestyle. The agency has shifted its roster criteria from raw follower counts to engagement, consistency and business discipline,...
Creator Agency NewGen Signs Streamer xQc for Social Publishing Deal
London‑based creator agency NewGen has signed Twitch star xQc to a social publishing services agreement, brokered with Evolved Agency. The partnership will repurpose xQc’s live streams and YouTube videos for distribution on additional platforms, aiming to broaden his audience and...
TikTok Shop Scales Workforce Amid Push to Cement Discovery Commerce Model in Global Markets
TikTok Shop is aggressively expanding its creator commerce workforce across North America, Europe, and Asia‑Pacific, posting dozens of full‑time and internship roles in cities such as Los Angeles, New York, London, Düsseldorf, Ho Chi Minh City, Tokyo and Jakarta. The hiring push...
Fixated Acquires Creator Monetization Platform Elevate to Expand Subscription, Community Infrastructure
Fixated, a creator management firm, has acquired Elevate, a subscription‑focused monetization platform, to broaden its community and revenue infrastructure. The deal follows a $50 million Eldridge Industries investment earmarked for M&A, marking Fixated’s second acquisition this year after buying gaming‑centric Ellify....
Jade Fiona on Why Self-Belief Is the Secret to Winning in Fashion and Creator Economy
Los Angeles‑based creator Jade Fiona leveraged authentic mid‑size outfit‑of‑the‑day videos to amass over 1.4 million followers across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Her 2022 viral "mid‑size OOTDs" sparked rapid growth, leading to runway appearances, brand gifting, and a sold‑out capsule collection with...
Creator Payment Platform Blitz Wants to Eliminate Net-90 From the Creator Economy
Blitz, founded in April 2024 by Alex Roa, offers a creator‑payment platform that eliminates traditional net‑90 cycles by delivering payouts in three hours or less. The New York‑based startup integrates with enterprise ERP systems to automate invoice formatting, approval routing, and...
QYOU Media Launches Performance Media Unit to Scale Creator Campaigns Across Paid Channels
QYOU Media has launched QYOU Amplify, a performance‑media unit that combines creator strategy, paid media buying, advanced targeting and real‑time analytics to scale influencer campaigns. The new unit aims to identify high‑performing content early and reallocate spend instantly, treating creator...