Creator Weekly: Less disruptive YouTube ads, Twitch Creator Profiles, free Photoshop app

Welcome to another edition of Creator Weekly. I’ve been under the weather this week, so I’ll just get down to business and suggest you read on.

Top news and updates this week

• YouTube mid-roll ads will be less likely to be interruptive.

• Twitch announced plans for 2025, including monetization for everyone.

• Twitch launched a sharable Creator Profile to help streamers open to sponsorships.

• YouTube has more than 1 billion monthly podcast viewers.

• YouTube improved their Replace Song feature, including AI-powered suggestions.

• YouTube’s Creator Insider channel has their own community.

• Use AI-powered Dream Screen to create clips for YouTube Shorts (in supported countries). 

• TikTok made a major update to its desktop web layout, including improved viewing of live streams and a floating video player. 

• StreamYard upgraded its AI Clips feature and launched easier image sharing. 

• Instagram’s Reels algorithm went bad, showing some users a stream of violence, abuse and gore (Meta apologized). 

• Instagram also shared tips for growing your Reels views.

• Google Vids added looping animations and new AI-generated voices. 

• Google Drive lets you view and search video transcripts. 

• Adobe launched a free Photoshop mobile app for iPhone (coming soon for Android).

• AdSense, AdMob and Ad Manager now let US publishers be paid through PayPal Hyperwallet (which is not PayPal). That can be paid out through PayPal, Venmo or cash.

• Beehiiv has an App Marketplace with 3rd party integrations. 

• Substack lets you publish video inside the mobile app, creating posts that can be pay-walled. 

• Those Community Notes on X that Meta wants to emulate? Most are never displayed. 

• Is the LTK lifestyle shopping app the next TikTok?

• Microsoft is shutting down Skype, replacing it with free Teams. 

• Google Chat now has HubSpot integration.

• Firefox updated their privacy terms, causing consternation.

New Tips and Tutorials

Understand recent changes to YouTube Mid-Roll ads (YouTube link)..

YouTube Mid-Rolls Will Be Less Interruptive

Starting in May, YouTube will stop running mid-roll ads in slots deemed “interruptive”. The idea is that this will be better for viewers, which ultimately is better for creators. 

Mid-roll ads may run in YouTube videos that are at least 8 minutes long, and are inserted in the middle of the video, rather than at the beginning or end.

This update is for YouTube creators in the YouTube Partner Program using mid-roll ads on their longer videos.

They have already rolled out a tool to check whether the manual ad slots you added are deemed interruptive, so you can choose whether to delete or move those to more natural breaks. 

But unless you opt out, YouTube will also start automatically inserting mid-rolls on videos where you have mid-rolls enabled (it won’t turn on mid-rolls if you have them off).  That way you aren’t likely to lose any revenue when this change goes into effect. 

I have a video with all the details.

And Creator Insider has an interview with TK, director of the YouTUbe Partner Program about the change.

What’s Next for Twitch: Monetization for everyone?

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy shared what they are working on for 2025. 

• Improved collaborative streaming tools. 

• Improved mobile viewing experience.

• More ways to edit and share clips.

But the big news is that Twitch plans to open up monetization tools like subscriptions and bits to most streamers “from day one”.

• There will be an option to allow streamers to use earnings on purchases within Twitch (which is useful for streamers who don’t reach the $50 payout threshold).

• Twitch Partners can create a Creator Profile and indicate they are open to Sponsorships.  It will soon be available as a downloadable infographic, so that creators can share that information with potential sponsors anywhere. 

• Twitch will also start showing sponsorship offers on your dashboard, starting with offers from StreamElements. Eventually the Bounty Board will be moved into the Sponsorships dashboard. Partners have access to this feature now, and Affiliates will have this feature March 11. 

• A new feature to allow viewers to react to moments in a stream with Bits. 

• Custom Power-ups (special effects triggered by Bits) will be available soon.

And for communities: 

• Unity Guilds will be available in more languages.

• Expanded moderation tools. 

Also, as noted last week, Twitch also made major changes to its Community Guidelines enforcement, with expiring policy violations and escalating penalties.

Video Creator and Live Streaming Updates

YouTube announced there are more than 1 billion monthly active viewers of podcast content on the platform.

If you want to check out YouTube Communities, there’s now one for Creator Insider. Just open the channel in the YouTube mobile app, then click “Go to Community.” It has a steady stream of random pictures, people promoting their channels, selfies, and “hello” posts. It’s not appealing to me (I prefer a more moderated experience), but people seem to be posting enthusiastically.

YouTube improved their “Replace Song” feature, with AI-powered song suggestions, the option to select the same song multiple times, and easier “song erase”.

You can now use Dream Screen to create standalone AI-generated clips for your YouTube Shorts. Dream Screen is only available in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

YouTube is testing the pay to Hype option in Turkey. Viewers get three free Hypes per week, and paying lets viewers add more Hype points to a single video. The more points, the more likely a Hyped video will appear on the leaderboard.

TikTok has updated their desktop browser layout with a more immersive layout, full-screen horizontal live stream views (especially for gaming streamers), floating video player (in Chrome), and the option to organize favorite videos into custom category collections.

StreamYard upgraded their AI Clips feature to better select ”the most interesting, high-impact moments”, support more languages and create automatic vertical videos with built-in captions. This is available with the Core plan or higher.

StreamYard also launched easier image sharing during broadcasts, including JPGs, PNGs and GIFs.

Instagram shared that there has been a “double digit” increase in the amount of video watched (with the vague wording, I’m guessing closer to a 10% increase than a 50% increase), plus people are sharing and recommending Reels to friends a lot (not clear if that’s an increase). They added tips for creators who want to grow: post regularly, create stand-alone content (it’s going to be recommended to random people) and have a compelling hook in the first 3 seconds, and keep experimenting.

Adam Mosseri shared that what’s important for the Instagram Reels algorithm is how many seconds of a video is watched, not the percentage of the video watched.

Algorithms gone bad: Meta had to apologize when the Instagram Reels algorithm showed some users a stream of violence, animal abuse and other gore. Meta apologized for “their mistake”.

Google Vids has added looping animations for text, stickers and shapes.

Google Vids has added new voices for AI-generated voice-overs. These have different tones, like “Educator”, “Persuader”, and “Motivator”. 

Google Drive now lets you view and search transcripts for videos. You can follow along with the transcript as the video is playing. If your video does not yet have captions you can either upload them or manually trigger the option to generate automatic captions (that is required if you are using a personal Google Account).

Do you want to create a full-length film using Google Veo 2 AI?  That will cost you $0.50 per second.

Photo Editing

Adobe launched new Photoshop mobile (iPhone, Android soon) and web apps. The mobile app is free, but a paid Mobile and Web Plan is required to access full features and Photoshop on the web. Get notified when the Photoshop beta for Android launches.

Web Publishers and Search

Google Publisher Restrictions, which include AdSense policy, are being updated so that the policy for Online Gambling applies when the content is shown to users outside allowed countries. There’s a full list of countries at the link.

PayPal Hyperwallet is a new way to get paid through AdSense, AdMob or Ad Manager in the US. Note that this is NOT PayPal, but if you set this up, you can cash out your Hyperwallet account with PayPal, Venmo or cash pickup. Learn more (details are only available if you are signed in to a US AdSense account). 

Google Search Central shared a refresher on robots.txt files.

Beehiiv has added an App Marketplace to allow integrations with third party apps like Slack, Patreon, HubSpot, and Shopify. You can also link WordPress to create new blog posts with new posts from your Beehiiv publication. It appears like they are all run through Zapier.

Substack now lets you publish video from inside the Substack mobile app. The video posts can be paywalled, allowing monetization. They have also added Live Video automated enhancements, making the videos appear more “polished” (and live video can be viewed on desktop).

Ars Technica reports Automattic’s “nuclear war” over WordPress access sparks potential class action

Social Media

In unsurprising news Social Media Today reports Study Finds the Majority of Community Notes Are Never Displayed on X. That doesn’t bode well for Meta’s adoption of this over 3rd party fact checkers.
“The reason for the low visibility rate is that Community Notes requires agreement among users with different political views before a note is shown. Maldita’s study recommends that platforms revise or, in Meta’s case, select a lower threshold of agreement to prioritize factual accuracy.”

Lia Haberman reports the LTK Shopping App is adding social features like Profiles, a discovery Watch tab, Activity tab and Home tab (chronological feed of content from creators you follow). What’s wild: “38% of all Gen Z and Millennials in the U.S. already use the platform”. I have never even heard of it, which puts me way out of touch.

Sherwood News: LinkedIn is a weird, workaholic wasteland — and a total gold mine for Microsoft 

Communication and Collaboration

Features are available to free accounts unless otherwise noted.

Microsoft is shutting down Skype on May 5. Skype users will be able to  migrate to the free version of Teams. That excludes phone calls, which are being phased out for non-business users. It’s truly the end of an era, as Skype really stood alone for video calling when it launched more than 20 years ago.

Gemini in Google Chat will now summarize direct messages and read conversations. Previously summaries were limited to unread conversations in Home view. Available for Workspace business and enterprise accounts.

Google now offers HubSpot integration with Google Chat.

Gemini in Google Sheets can now analyze your data faster, with advanced visualizations like heatmaps. Available for Workspace business and enterprise accounts.

More Reading (and watching)

Firefox updated their Terms of Use and Privacy Notice, and it has been causing some consternation, especially around how data may be shared with third parties. They have published an explainer about while the language was updated. For example, there may be sponsored shortcuts (ads) on the New Tab, and some data is shared with the advertisers.

Platformer reports Google quietly stopped showing warning banners that alerted users to potentially unreliable search results in the weeks leading up to the 2024 US presidential election, despite no obvious improvement in the quality of those results. 

Janus Rose @ 404 Media: The Digital Packrat Manifesto

Thanks for reading! 🌼