TOGETHER WITH

It's Tuesday and a major tech move is raising some eyebrows. According to Gizmodo, Microsoft’s departing product chief Panos Panay was hired by Amazon “mere hours” after ending his 19-year tenure.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Snap is celebrating Latin Heritage Month with a Spotlight Challenge hosted by Natalie Alzate

A new Spotlight Challenge is giving Snapchat users a chance to snag their own piece of a $10,000 prize. The prompt:

In honor of Latin Heritage Month, creators are encouraged to tag and post about their favorite Hispanic-owned businesses via Spotlight, Snapchat’s vertical video format.

Natalie Alzate—aka the YouTube star behind Natalie’s Outlet and the podcast #Viral—will serve as host of the #HispanicOwnedBusiness Spotlight.

Alzate isn’t the only creator playing a prominent role in Snap’s Latin Heritage Month celebrations. The social app is also taking time to recognize top Hispanic creators like Bryant Eslava, Salice Rose, Beasteater, Devon Rodriguez, Brent Rivera, and upcoming Dancing with the Stars contestant Lele Pons.

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

How do top creators and brands create short-form videos in seconds? It all comes down to Opus Clip.

There’s a reason why 1 million creators and brands have signed up for Opus Clip since June 2023. As the world’s #1 AI video clipping tool, Opus Clip saves users up to 90% of the time required to make short-form content.

Why do top creators like Sean Kelly, Grant Cardone, and Scott Galloway use Opus Clip?

With heavy-hitting advisors like Jon Youshaei (who’s already racked up more than 1 million views with posts made through Opus Clip) and an AI-specialized engineering team, Opus Clip is the most advanced way to repurpose long-form content into viral short-form videos.

Here’s how it works:

Opus Clip leverages an advanced Open AI viral curation model to rearrange your long-form video into impactful short-form clips guaranteed to make an impact on platforms like TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts. The process is quick and customizable—in fact, Opus Clip offers layouts designed for everything from first-person TikToks to podcasts with up to 4 speakers on screen at a time.

The team at Opus Clip is on a mission to democratize content creation. Sign up with just your email to receive a 90 minute free trial today—and produce viral clips in just 1 click!

Get started with Opus Clip → 

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• TikTok’s Creativity Program is now available for creators in Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, and the United Kingdom. (Tubefilter)
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• Netflix and ISP SK Broadband’s legal battle over Squid Game has come to an end as the two companies unite to offer a new streaming bundle. (The Verge)
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• TikTok has begun rolling out an employee attendance monitoring tool that it says is designed to clarify workers’ “RTO expectations and in-office schedules.” (Gizmodo)
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• According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), streaming revenue made up “84% of music revenue in the United States” during the first half of 2023. (The Verge)

DATA • GLOBAL TOP 50 📈

This little creator is making big waves on YouTube Shorts

Anaya Kandhal is only three years old, but she’s already making a splash on YouTube Shorts. The India-based kiddo has collected nearly 11 million subscribers thanks to her mischievous personality and adorable acting chops (and, of course, her parents’ dynamite editing skills).

The Kandhals have a knack for hitting on Shorts’ biggest trends, from unboxing videos to family-friendly pranks and skits. Their wholesome content has become an international sensation—and one particular prop seems to transcend all languages and cultures: water balloons.

Balloons are a common sight on Anaya’s channel.

From celebrating Holi to pranking her father, Anaya always seems to have a water balloon on hand. In fact, the tot’s most-watched videos include more than 15 balloon-themed clips—all of which have scored at least 20 million views each. The most popular of those Shorts has earned 125 million views since March (and that’s not even Anaya’s top video!).

Those splashy clips gave Anaya’s channel a huge boost over the last week.

• The Shorts star’s YouTube hub picked up 272 million weekly views during the second full week of September.

• That seven-day total was good for a 10% week-over-week traffic bump.

• The result: Anaya’s channel made the leap to #27 in the Global Top 50.

LET’S SETTLE THIS

FTX settlements are finally coming in—and that affects some creators

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried still has a few weeks to go before his own court date, but the crypto exchange’s creator sponsors are already facing the music. Per Bloomberg, at least three settlements have been reached in a class action case that targets influencers who shilled for FTX.

The original complaint was filed back in March, five months after FTX collapsed and filed for bankruptcy. It names a number of celebrities and influencers, including Kevin Paffrath, Tom Nash, Trevor Lawrence, Graham Stephan, Andrei Jikh, Jaspreet Singh, Brian Jung, Jeremy Lefebvre, Ben Armstrong, and Erika Kullberg.

According to Bloomberg, three of those defendants have now settled with the plaintiffs.

The exact terms of Paffrath, Nash, and Lawrence’s agreements haven’t been disclosed. The defense argued that investor losses can be tied to “FTX’s misappropriation and mismanagement,” but the plaintiffs behind March’s complaint uphold that creator and celebrity endorsements helped FTX “position itself as the ‘safe’ option among cryptocurrency exchanges.”

Paffrath disagreed with that logic when the complaint first went live, arguing instead that “crypto is speculative and short of regulation, and if someone chooses to engage in crypto, that is on them.” It remains to be seen whether FTX’s founder will be able to sway a judge with similar arguments come October 3.

WATCH THIS 📺

Karat’s new angel investing program plays creator/company matchmaker

Last year, Karat Financial dipped its toes into the world of creator investments with a Shark Tank-style series called Supernova. (If you haven’t heard of the show, you can check out the montage above or watch an episode here.)

Now, Karat has something new in mind for the Robin Hoods of the creator economy: an angel investing program that introduces creators to companies that want their money. Karat itself warns that angel investing is “really risky”—but if you’re interested in taking the leap, you can check out the new program here.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen. Drew Baldwin helped edit, too. It's a team effort.