It’s Monday and Nickelodeon is going where the cool kids are: YouTube. Should CoComelon be worried about the internet debut of Kid Cowboy?

Today’s News

COURT OF LAW

Capital One Shopping just got hit with a class action suit over alleged Honey-like practices

The lawsuit: Tubefilter recently spoke to LegalEagle about a class action lawsuit he’d filed against Honey, which accused the coupon-finding browser extension of snatching creators’ commissions by swapping in their own affiliate links at the last second.

At the time, the lawyer-slash-YouTuber mentioned a handful of other browser extensions that appeared to operate similarly—including Capital One Shopping. Now, that company is facing a class action lawsuit of its own. Filed January 23 by attorneys Daniel Schwartz and Douglas J. McNamara, the suit alleges that Capital One Shopping (which is owned by credit card company Capital One) “uses its approximately 10 million unwitting subscribers to perpetrate a huge scam against Creators”:

The two principal plaintiffs in the case—YouTubers Edgar Oganesyan (whose TechSource channel has 3.8 million subscribers) and Matthew Ely (who runs Toasty Bros with 750K subscribers)—both allege their revenue from affiliate earnings has declined “despite increased viewership and engagement.”

The potential payout: Like the case against Honey, this one seeks financial compensation for all creators who may have been affected—not just Oganesyan and Ely. That means creators should be prepared to throw their names in for possible payouts.

The suits against Honey and Capital One Shopping may not be the last of their kind, either: other extensions LegalEagle cited as potential targets for creator-protecting class action suits include Karma and Pie, the latter of which was founded last year by Honey co-founder Ryan Hudson.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Influencer marketing matchmaker ShopMy has set itself up for future expansion with a $77.5 million Series B funding round. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• According to Instagram head Adam Mosseri, Meta is “starting a small test for ads on Threads with a handful of brands in the US and Japan.” (Adam Mosseri via Threads)
  
  

• President Trump has denied a possible sale of TikTok to Oracle, but confirmed that he will come to a decision regarding the government’s choice for a U.S. buyer “probably over the next 30 days.” (Reuters)
  
  

• Netflix Co-Chief Executive Officer Gregory Peters says subscribers can look forward to the future launch of streamable party and couch co-op games. (Engadget)

HAVE YOU HEARD? 👀

Have you heard? Addison Rae hit the cover of Rolling Stone and Lizzo kickstarted her Twitch career

The column: Each week, we handpick a selection of stories to give you a snapshot of trends, updates, business moves, and more from around the creator industry. This week, there’s a Twitch charity drive, a disgraced pop star-turned-streamer, and a new Rolling Stone cover girl.

In YouTube news: Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper’s Unwell Network is bringing its operations to YouTube with a short-form series led by Kierra Lewis—and it’s not the only media company dropping content on YouTube. A whole host of Warner Bros movies are now available for free on the platform, including gems like the mockumentary Waiting for Guffman and Richard Linklater’s subUrbia.

In TikTok news: TikTok royalty Addison Rae has made her debut as a cover girl for Rolling Stone, which recently chronicled her journey from short-form star to Grammy nominee.

Adam Juegos is making moves in the shifting creator industry, too. The veteran YouTuber is leading an initiative that would put 51% of TikTok shares in the hands of creators. It’s not the first “people’s bid” we’ve seen—but if ByteDance does sell, we’re guessing billionaires will be the ones to take control.

In Twitch news: Shroud—a Twitch streamer known for playing tactical shooters like  Counter-Strike—has raised over $115,000 for St. Judes with his month-long Fragathon. The cause is a personal one for the creator, whose father passed away from lung cancer about two years ago.

Getting involved in similar fundraising activities could be a smart move for Lizzo, who has decided to launch a Twitch channel in the midst of rehabbing her public image. Some viewers might still be too put off by recent accusations to tune into the lizzobetwitchin account, but Kai Cenat is already a fan.

WATCH AND LEARN

TikTok is still dominates other platforms when it comes to short-form watch time

The question: On January 19, TikTok’s brief shutdown sent floods of new users to other platforms. That phenomenon shows that viewers will likely turn to competitors like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels in the case of a permanent ban—but do those platform actually have what it takes to keep “TikTok refugees” glued to the screen?

The stats: According to Sensor Tower, TikTok’s rivals are still far behind when it comes to the amount of time they keep users scrolling through short-form content. The analytics firm’s State of Mobile report—which covered data from the past 12 months—found that when users have the TikTok app open, they spend 55% of their time watching short-form videos. By comparison, Instagram users devote 37% of their time to watching Reels and YouTube viewers spend just 26% of their time watching Shorts.

Other platforms have even lower totals: Facebook users spend 21.5% of their time on short-form video, X weighs in at 10.1%, and Snapchat—which recently announced a revamped monetization program aimed at short-form video creators—sees viewers spend just 9.6% of their time watching short-form content. Instead, users on those platforms spend the majority of their time on the main feed (Instagram, Facebook, X), on social messaging (Snapchat), or on longer-form video YouTube.

The takeaway: TikTok’s watch time advantage could come down to the fact that its core offering has always been short-form content, or it could be tied to the design of its algorithm and the increasing tendency for Gen Z to endlessly scroll. Whatever the case, we’ll be interested to see if the platform’s short-form video view time dips as it continues to draw viewers’ attention to its ecommerce hub, TikTok Shop.

LISTEN UP 🎙️

This week on the podcast…

The episode: The latest installment of Creator Upload features a special guest host: Kaya Yurief. As the Team Leader for the Creator Economy beat at The Information, Yurief originally scooped the news that TikTok would be shutting down ahead of its supposed ban.

Now that the app’s been granted a 75-day lifeline, its future looks very different—and Yurief is keeping a close eye on what that might mean for the creator economy. Tune in on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to hear her full conversation with regular Creator Upload host Josh Cohen.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.