It’s Monday and Kalshi has a bone to pick with Netflix. The betting platform has sent a cease-and-desist letter that demands the removal of the new trailer for Instadocs: The Prediction Games.

SHORTS STUFF

The Shorts update: YouTube Shorts is getting a major upgrade. In an X post published July 24, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced that “custom thumbnails for Shorts are rolling out to all @YouTube Partner Program creators.”

Last year, YouTube encouraged long-form creators to produce top-tier thumbnails with the expansion of its A-B testing feature. Now, the platform is bringing that infrastructure to Shorts.

According to a longer post, creators will also be able to choose one of three “suggested thumbnail frames” to use for their video, bringing Shorts in line with the long-form version of YouTube.

The long-form feature: Mohan’s admission that Shorts thumbnails rank among YouTube’s “most requested features” isn’t surprising. Thumbnail design has become a crucial element for both long and short-form creators, with years of research and individual creator experiments delving into the science of thumbnails.

With so much attention paid to thumbnails—and Shorts accumulating more and more watch time on TV screens—it was only a matter of time before YouTube expanded the options available to Shorts creators.

Outside of the Shorts world, a new integration will turn YouTube’s AI-powered Ask Studio into a thumbnail generator for long-form videos. That feature is likely to ruffle some feathers (remember MrBeast’s experience with AI thumbnails?), but YouTube is betting that a good chunk of creators will embrace the integration as a time-saving shortcut.

TIKTOK EFFECT

The app: In recent years, the rapid rise of TikTok Shop has led Facebook to recontextualize its own ecommerce hub, Facebook Marketplace. A cross-country tour promoted Marketplace last year, and Facebook followed up that effort by delivering some creator-curated collections ahead of the holiday season.

Now, Meta is taking the TikTokification of Marketplace to the next level. A new app called Seller will make the decade-old ecommerce hub feel more like TikTok Shop by providing a central destination where vendors can manage messages, listings, and inventory. And since this is Meta we’re talking about, you shouldn’t be surprised to hear that some AI-powered creation tools have been incorporated into Seller.

The experiment: An upcoming experiment on the main Facebook app represents an even more drastic shift toward TikTok-style entertainment. When that test begins later this year, some users will see an Immersive Video feed that automatically plays full-screen content when the Facebook app is opened.

A blog post from Meta stresses that users will still be able to access the “Classic Feed,” and members of the experimental group will have the ability to opt out at any time. The test will begin in “video-heavy countries” before later expanding to the U.S.

Facebook isn’t just drawing inspiration from TikTok as it tests out new features. The platform is also launching a program called Facebook Verified, which resembles the verification system associated with apps like X.

LISTEN UP 🎙️

The episode: On the latest installment of Creator Upload, hosts Joshua Cohen and Lauren Schnipper joined forces with former VidCon CEO Jim Louderback to dissect the rising success of niche creator conventions, the fracture of teen fandom, and the ins and outs of Open Sauce 2026.

Also on the discussion list are YouTube and Netflix’s record-breaking Q2 earnings, France’s brand-new social media ban for kids under 15, and YouTube’s official rollout of "Shows.”

Check out the full episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to dig into all the details.

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