TOGETHER WITH

It’s Friday and your Shazams are finally being put to good use. Apple has announced a new “Viral Chart” Apple Music playlist composed of tracks heard by Shazam users in the wild.

Today’s News

MONEY MOVES

Meta’s new ad product is designed to get brands closer to trending Reels

The pitch: Meta‘s 2025 NewFronts presentation introduced a flurry of new ad products designed to help brands leverage trends on Reels, a format the tech giant says is now shared over 4.5 billion times per day.

The ad offering: One of those products, Reels trending ads, will give brands the ability to run placements “immediately after the most popular, engaging creator-created Reels across our platforms.” Like YouTube Select, the new offering will allow brands to choose whether to pair ads with a generalized slice of top-performing content or limit ad spots to bundled lineups in categories like beauty and sports.

The test features: Instagram partners will also be able to access a Trends tab in the Creator Marketplace. That feature, which is currently in the testing phase, will harness AI to identify the topics that are trending on Instagram Reels. Another product Meta will soon test is a Creator Marketplace Discovery API that will make it easier to build tools that help brands identify ideal influencer partners.

The context: Those kinds of advertising tools have been a hot topic at this year’s NewFronts, with TikTok announcing additions to its TikTok Pulse product and LinkedIn revealing plans to connect advertisers to top-performing creators. Now, in addition to promoting advertising options on Reels, Meta is throwing Threads into the mix. Meta is expanding ad tests on that platform, which now reaches 350 million monthly active users.

🔆 PRESENTED BY MIDIA RESEARCH 🔆

Fellow creators need your input—and you could make up to $250 just by offering your POV

The creator economy is worth $250B—but there’s still no industry standard to keep creators informed about the basics, like how much they should earn from brand deals or which tools work best. For creators with established communities, the solution is as simple as consulting their peers. But many newer creators don’t have that kind of resource.

So, MIDiA Research is building them one—and to make that lifeline a reality, the analytics company needs your input.

By completing this 10-minute survey, you’ll contribute to a report on the tools creators are using today—one that will be a resource for all creators. (Plus, you’ll be entered to win $250 from a $1K prize pool.)

We at Tubefilter see this as an opportunity for creators to come together and establish an industry-standard guide on video production tools. If you’ve ever been jazzed to discover a certain camera or editing software, this is your chance to help fellow creators level up, too.

_{The details: The survey is open through May 22, after which two randomly-selected winners will receive $250 apiece and four will win $50 each (with prizes distributed via bank transfer using PayPal). Participants must be 16+ years old and should submit only one entry per person.} 

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• OpenAI has tapped Instacart CEO and former Facebook exec Fidji Simo to serve as its CEO of Applications. (OpenAI)
  
  

• Meta has reportedly hired Google DeepMind vet Robert Fergus to head up its Fundamental AI Research lab. (TechCrunch)
  

  
  

• Adam Mosseri’s latest testimony at Meta’s antitrust trial revealed that turning Threads into a standalone platform—rather than an in-app Instagram feature—proved to be a “very contentious decision internally.” (The Verge)
  

  
  

• Fizz—a social media app for college students—has filed a copyright infringement suit against Instacart over the name of its new party snacks delivery app (also called Fizz). (TechCrunch)

KEEPING IT REEL

Google’s NewFronts pitch explained how YouTube helps brands find “the perfect match”

The presentation: Ahead of YouTube‘s Brandcast presentation, Google’s NewFronts pitch gave attendees an early taste of YouTube-related updates in three categories:

1. Features that help brands find appropriate creators for their goals

2. Tools that facilitate partnerships based on those finds

3. Analytics that allow for precise campaign measurements

The updates: An expansion of Insights Finder falls into the first of those categories. According to Google VP of Global Product Solutions Kate Alessi, the updated tool will help brands both uncover the content categories that are most closely linked to their campaigns and “easily find the most relevant YouTube creators.” To harness the user trust commanded by those creators, YouTube is introducing Creator Lead-Ins—aka short videos from creators that will run before related ads.

A creator matchmaking tool will help brands make the most of both offerings—and that’s where the second category of Google’s NewFronts announcements comes into play. In addition to an updated BrandConnect platform, YouTube is enhancing the Creator Partnerships tool within the Google Ads hub. 

Finally, on the measurement side of things, Alessi says YouTube is bringing in “significantly better reporting.” Incoming solutions will let advertisers create audience segments based on creator content that has been linked to their ads. That data, in theory, will give brands a clearer understanding of the viewers who engage with sponsored content.

The context: At the end of the day, YouTube’s biggest sell is its massive community of influential creators. A fact sheet shared during Google’s NewFronts presentation noted that ROI on YouTube is 23% higher than on social channels. Short-form video ads from other platforms that are uploaded to YouTube also see a 21% increase in long-term brand growth. That marketing power will surely be a major topic of conversation when Brandcast returns to New York’s Lincoln Center on May 14.

PRESS PLAY

Spotify’s podcast “plays” are a new metric for a booming industry

The announcement: Spotify is introducing a new metric that will offer creators “a deeper understanding of how content resonates with audiences.” That measurement system—called “plays”—will count impressions when a user “actively listened to or watched any episode” of a podcast. Play counts will be public and rounded to the nearest thousand, so listeners and viewers will be also be able to see what’s hot on Spotify at the current moment.

That data is likely to increase discoverability—and that could prove to be a financial boon for podcast creators. Spotify has touted the success of its revamped Partner Program, which paid out more than $100 million during Q1 2025 alone. If data from plays helps podcasters identify and lean into their best-performing pieces of content, their Partner Program earnings could go up as a result.

The context: As the podcast industry continues to grow, Spotify is taking more and more pages out of YouTube’s book.

Earlier this year, Spotify announced that it would start giving out gold and silver plaques—similar to YouTube’s play buttons—to creators who achieve round-number viewership milestones on its platform. A shift toward YouTube-style counting will continue that trend while establishing standardized metrics by which to evaluate the relative success of top-performing podcasts.

A recent announcement from the Golden Globes demonstrates the importance of consistent accounting in the maturing podcast industry. The annual awards show recently revealed that it will introduce a Best Podcast category in 2026—and since only the “top 25 podcasts” will be eligible for nomination, it will be more crucial than ever for platforms to measure podcast performance correctly.

WATCH THIS 📺

Banana rain, jellyfish cities, and glow-in-the dark pins? Welcome to Kurzgesagt.

The channel: Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell has posted video essays on plenty of wacky subjects over the years. From lost alien civilizations to ants that “use their babies as glue guns,” the edutainment channel doesn’t shy away from digging into taboo (and downright weird) topics.

Still, we never thought we’d see a video titled “What If It Rains Bananas For a Single Day?” on Kurzgesagt - or any YouTube channel.

The fan Q&A: But of the 2.3 million viewers who watched one of the science and philosophy channel’s latest videos, one fan thought enough about banana rain to write a letter asking Kurzgesagt to talk about it. So, they did—and they threw in another zany fan request for good measure, too.

Check out the resulting Q&A video here.

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