Creator Weekly: TikTok, Gemini for Google Workspace, Free Our Feeds

The holiday lull is over now, and it feels like we are now rushing headlong into 2025. TikTok looks like it will shut down in the US on Sunday, there’s a new organization to “save social media from billionaire capture”, Google is rolling out Gemini AI features to all Google Workspace business users (who will be paying a little bit more), plus news and updates for video creators, bloggers, social media and more.

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10 Years Ago This Week (10YATW)

I’ve decided to not include my “10 Years Ago This Week” details in the weekly newsletter, mostly because it’s too long already. Instead it will be part of Creator Weekly Live on Sunday, and I’ll post the details a few days later. If you want to hear it first, join me live!

Last week’s 10YATW: Virtual Reality is a Reality

LA Fire Relief

The devastating Los Angeles fires have affected many creators, artists and people who work in creative industries. 

• YouTube says they will “offer YouTube production facilities to impacted creators and artists as they begin to recover and rebuild their businesses.” That is in addition to $15 million given by Google to relief organizations.

• Snap co-founder Evan Spiegel wrote a love letter to Los Angeles. His dad’s house in Pacific Palisades, where Snapchat was born, burnt down in the fires. Spiegel, fellow co-founder Bobby Murphy and Snap have donated $5 million for wildfire relief.

• FireAid is an all-star benefit concert on January 30. If you can’t attend in person, it will also be streaming on Apple Music and the Apple TV App, Max, iHeartRadio, KTLA+, Netflix/Tudom, Paramount+, Prime Video and the Amazon Music Channel on Twitch, SiriusXM, SoundCloud, Veeps, and YouTube. They haven’t shared links, so I’m not sure which YouTube channel.

• The LA Fire Relief fund, has Josh Brolin making matching donations up to $500,000. The current top donor is gamer jacksepticeye, who made a $100,000 donation. They will be running a live  all-star fundraising telethon on January 24 that will air on multiple Twitch and YouTube channels.

• Indigogo has a roundup of resources for affected craft artists, actors and musicians. 

• Cartoon Brew has a roundup of fundraisers for members of the animation community.

Top news and updates

• Free our Feeds is a new organization to promote development of Bluesky-compatible platforms.

• Mastodon is becoming a European not-for-profit.

• Google Workspace business users no longer have to pay for Gemini add-ons (but base rates are going up a bit).

• TikTok is likely to shut down in the US on Sunday. Many users are now posting on Xiaohongshu (RedNote).

• All Substack publishers can now livestream.

• How NOT to use AI for SEO.

• Matt Mullenweg claims WordPress (dot) org may need to close.

• Meta has started implementing Community Notes and has new controls for political content. 

• Instagram is focusing on creativity and connecting with people.

• Instagram is rolling out a new feature to see Reels liked by your friends. 

• Meta shut down Meta Sparks, and removed all AR filters by 3rd party creators

• Bluesky makes it easier to switch between accounts. 

• Google has a deal with the Associated Press for news content for Gemini AI.

New Tips and Tutorials

My favorite audio recording app is Pixel Recorder. My short explains why.

To Do & Try

Former NASA engineer and current YouTube tech and engineering creator Mark Rober teamed up with Google to launch a satellite that will take your selfie with a Pixel phone. If you are a paid subscriber, you can get your code to get a selfie now. Or you can register to get your selfie via #TeamPixel in the Google Store (US only). 

Let’s Get Federated

Every time one of the big social media platforms makes itself less friendly, there’s a new exodus.

In 2024 that was mostly a migration from X to Bluesky and Threads, as X changed its policies around blocking and using posts for AI training. 

Now with Meta loosening its moderation, especially around some hateful content, there’s been at least talk of people leaving Instagram and Facebook and Threads, and is getting people more interested in the Fediverse.

How does “Save Social Media from Billionaire Capture” sound?

Free Our Feeds is a new organization aiming to “free social media from billionaire control”. It is focusing on developing  a social media ecosystem using Bluesky's AT Protocol. It has technical advisers from the Mozilla Foundation, Social Web Foundation. Future of Technology Institute and other organizations, and has an all star list of supporters, including Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia), journalists, actors, and more.

Right now they seem to just be raising money, but the idea is to expand beyond Bluesky. 

Free Our Feeds has similar goals to the Social Web Foundation, which focuses on the network of platforms connected via ActivityPub (like Mastodon, PixelFed, and Threads), which is supporting the Free Our Feeds campaign. 

And a goal is to also bridge between AT Protocol and ActivityPub based platforms, so everyone can talk to each other. I like that idea a lot, but it won’t be easy.

In related news: 

Daniel Supernault, creator of federated Instagram-alternative Pixelfed, has posted a Digital Platform Charter of Rights, which is "A declaration of fundamental rights and principles for ethical digital platforms, ensuring privacy, dignity, and fairness in online spaces." He invites all platforms to sign on.

Mastodon is becoming a European not-for-profit. The name, copyrights and other assets will be transferred to the new non-profit, which will own the Mastodon GmbH for-profit entity. They will continue to host mastodon.social and mastodon.online . Founder and current CEO Eugen Rochko will focus on product strategy. The US non-profit will continue fundraising, and they are asking for donations.

Flashes is a new photo-focused app based on Bluesky. It’s being reported as a “photo-sharing app”, but it’s not really that. It “simply filters Bluesky’s existing timeline for posts with photos and video posts.” You can also create image or video posts in the app. It shows the power of open protocols that lets developers create on top of it.

Google Gemini for All (Paying) Businesses

If you use Google Workspace for Business or Enterprise, Gemini AI features are now included. 

Up until now, access to Google’s AI features required a subscription add-on for each user. To pay for this, Google is raising Google Workspace prices across the board - but not as much as it would have cost with the add-on. 

Previously a Business Standard user with a Gemini Business add-on cost $32 per user per month. The updated pricing is $14, up from $12. This seems to be a two-pronged strategy to spread the costs across all users, and to get more Workspace users using the AI features.

This does not affect Google for Education Workspace accounts, Google Workspace Individual accounts or Google One with AI Premium subscriptions. .

See the updated pricing and  list of AI features for Gmail, Meet, Chat, Docs, Slides, Vids and Drive (more detailed feature information). Notebook LM+ is also included. Business Starter plans only include Gmail AI features.

Video Creator and Live Streaming Updates

As expected, the US Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban, which goes into effect on Sunday. TikTok posted a statement that says “Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19.”  And just to make things extra spicy, the Trump administration takes over on Monday, January 20th. What will happen isn’t entirely clear, as politicians seem to be backtracking on their support of the ban, but aren’t actually doing anything to change the law. 

Some TikTokers have moved to the Chinese platform REDnote (Xiaohongshu), which is supposedly a cross between Instagram and Pinterest (with a big helping of QVC). It’s truly a Chinese platform, not just owned by a Chinese company, which may not be compatible in the long term. But in the meantime, Duolingo has seen a big spike in users learning Mandarin. Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day writes about how RedNote (like most Chinese platforms) is centered around social shopping, which hasn’t really caught on in the US.

Live streaming is now available to all Substack publishers. After the stream you get a recording and AI-generated clips to share across Notes and social channels. Substack suggests "collaborative livestreams have proven to be most effective at engaging subscribers and driving growth." This seems like another feature to lock users into the Substack platform. Unlike an email newsletter, which can be transferred from platform to platform, Substack app-using fans may not follow a creator somewhere else.

At CES, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said that over ⅔ of Twitch’s revenue comes from subscriptions. Which could mean subscriptions are doing well or that other sources of revenue like ads are doing poorly.

Web Publishers and Search

How not to use AI for SEO: Becca Harrison, who runs a project to reduce the environmental impacts of filmmaking, discovered that the company providing their web support outsourced SEO to a third party that used generative AI to create blog posts for backlinks (and the posts are bad). Google’s John Mueller points out this violates Google Search’s spam policies, as does any content posted just for SEO purposes. It’s not a new scheme, but AI makes it easier for dubious SEO companies to churn out low quality content.

Another week, another round of WordPress drama. I’m just going to quote the first paragraph of this article by Roger Montti at Search Engine Journal:
“Matt Mullenweg commented that the conflict he initiated could eventually lead to the closure of WordPress.org. He claimed that the only way to end the conflict was for WP Engine to drop their lawsuit, which would have the effect of enabling Mullenweg to resume his campaign to drive WP Engine out of business.”
In the WPDrama subReddit, there is speculation that some of this is being driven by Automattic’s own investor issues.

Photos and Image Design

Live co-editing is coming to Photoshop. This lets people on different computers edit a file at the same time (very much like the live co-editing on Google Docs or Canva Teams). You can sign up to test this feature in beta.

Social Media

In the wake of Meta’s abandonment of fact checking, Flipboard posted their commitment to truth, quality journalism and healthy communities.

Meta has started implementing Community Notes on Threads. Notes are anonymous, and only gets published on a post if rated “helpful” by people with different political leanings (which means many Notes aren’t ever published).

The Wall Street Journal reports that Meta’s Community Notes will not be applied to ads, but they can show up on organic posts, including those sponsored directly by brands. 

On Meta’s Threads you can no longer indicate you don’t want to see political content. You can choose to “see less” (which almost all political content will be filtered out), standard and “see more”.

Instagram says that in 2025 they are focusing on “creativity” and “connecting with the people you care about.” They don’t want it to be a place where some people share, and others just consume. To that end there will be a focus on messaging and making consuming content more interactive and social. 

Instagram is rolling out a dedicated feed of Reels your friends have liked or added a note to. That seems like it could discourage people from liking content they think their friends might not approve of. As an engineer at X said, when they removed public likes last May, “many people feel discouraged from liking content that might be "edgy" in fear of retaliation from trolls, or to protect their public image.”  At the least I’m hoping Instagram pops up a reminder when you like a Reel that your friends may see that.

On January 14, Meta shut down Meta Sparks, removing all AR effects from 3rd party creators. The effects aren’t removed from published videos on Instagram or Facebook, but they are no longer available for creating new videos. There will continue to be AR effects developed by Meta. 

If you are interested in seeing Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s claims of government interference being picked apart, this TechDirt article by Mike Masnick is for you: Rogan Misses The Mark: How Zuck’s Misdirection On Gov’t Pressure Goes Unchallenged. 

Bluesky rolled out some small updates. It’s now easier to switch between accounts on desktop, and you can report a DM conversation without opening it.

Bluesky released their 2024 Moderation Report. Not surprisingly, with massive growth came massive reported content and spam. Their plan for 2025: “we're investing in stronger proactive detection systems to complement user reporting, as a growing network needs multiple detection methods to rapidly identify and address harmful content.”

Pinterest shared their predicted trends for 2025, including all things pickles, a look called “Moto Boho” (think leather boots and jackets with bohemian skirts), mountain travel, chaos cakes, custom avatars, bold color and patterns, nesting parties for parents to be and lots more.

More AI Updates and Tips

Google has made a deal with the Associated Press to “deliver a feed of real-time information to help further enhance the usefulness of results displayed in the Gemini app. This will be particularly helpful to our users looking for up-to-date information.”

404 Media: CEO of Sunu AI (a music generation platform) Says People Don’t Like Making Music. It sounds like he’s never talked to a songwriter or musician. 

More Watching

Taylor Lorenz interviewed Patreon CEO Jack Conte about how algorithmic feeds and the death of the follower is hurting creators. (YouTube link)

OK Go has a new music video created with 64 videos running on 64 phones. Behind the scenes.

Thanks for reading! 🌼