TOGETHER WITH

It's Thursday and if MrBeast’s experience is anything to go by, you might want to stop flashing those pearly whites in your YouTube thumbnails.

POSITIVE KENERGY

Pocket.watch says ‘Hi, Barbie’ with an exclusive Mattel partnership

Pocket.watch is getting in on the Barbie buzz. The kids’ media company has signed on as the exclusive vendor for ad inventory on more than 90 of Mattel’s brand channels, including YouTube hubs associated with beloved properties like Barbie, Hot Wheels, and American Girl.

Pocket.watch’s brand-safe reputation goes a long way.

Mattel’s alliance with pocket.watch likely has a lot to do with the latter company’s sterling reputation for brand safety. In addition to its impressive track record of running COPPA-compliant campaigns, pocket.watch has established strong partnerships with top family operations like Ryan’s World and Kids Diana Show (the latter of which frequently features Barbies and other pieces of Mattel IP in its videos).

Now, pocket.watch will bring advertisers to Mattel’s channels through its three-year-old media agency, clock.work:

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

@DavidsBeenHere leveraged funding from Breeze to multiply his revenue and travel the world. What could you do with Breeze by your side?

Last year, David Hoffmann’s food travel channel—@DavidsBeenHere—took a big step. The creator knew he wanted to embark on more adventures, enhance his video quality, and up his editing game. But putting all that together while waiting on unpredictable AdSense payments wasn’t easy.

So, he turned to ​Breeze​ for a simple, tax-free cash advance.

With hands-off funding from Breeze, David was able to pre-plan and schedule trips, drive more views, and increase his watch time across the board.

• In fact, David’s channel views have more than doubled in the past year.
  
  

• The result: his viewership has grown from 3 million monthly views to nearly 7 million.
  
  

• That growth has had a major impact on his income. Overall, David has increased his average monthly revenue by over 4x!

Best of all: since Breeze only charges a fixed fee, David has been able to not only keep full ownership and control of his video catalog and posting schedule, but also pocketed all the upside of his channel’s growth. He’s not the only one; Breeze has ​committed $100 million to creator careers​, with deals ranging from $50,000 to millions.

Ready to find out what you could do with Breeze funding?

​Learn more about Breeze →

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Streaming star Tyler Blevins (aka Ninja) is making the jump to podcasting with the September 12 launch of an audio program called AFK. (Tubefilter)
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• Starting in November, YouTubers will no longer be able choose “whether to show pre-roll, post-roll, skippable, or non-skippable ads” on their monetized videos. (The Verge)
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• As TikTok dives into messaging, WhatsApp is upping its game by adding support for HD video and photo sharing. (The Verge)
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• YouTube is officially testing out in-app games called “Playables.” (Engadget)

DATA • STREAMERS ON THE RISE 📈

This GTA gamer has returned to Twitch as a “reinvigorated” version of his former self

Two years ago, dasMEHDI decided that he was done with Twitch. The gamer had been streaming on the platform for several years by then and had run into the same problem over and over again: people would come into his chat partway through a “ruthless” Grand Theft Auto roleplaying stream and not understand that dasMEHDI was…well, playing a role. The resulting comments were overwhelming and, at the time, Twitch didn’t have the moderation tools to help.

So, dasMEHDI made his escape to Facebook.

That change of pace gave him the opportunity to “get back into what it meant to play a role, to create an experience.” The streamer took full advantage of his time on Facebook—and now, he’s back on Twitch as “a man with many ideas” and a “much different outlook.” His loyal fanbase is back, too: in fact, dasMEHDI’s first post-hiatus Twitch stream attracted way more viewers than he ever expected.

That engagement is still on the rise. Since returning to his original streaming locale, dasMEHDI’s gone from having 500-1,000 viewers per Facebook stream to between 3,000 and 12,000 on Twitch. Those numbers—alongside Twitch’s updated moderation tools and discovery statistics—have left the creator feeling “reinvigorated.”

Check out our full interview with him here to see what’s next for “dasMEHDI 2.0.”

GET THE MESSAGE?

TikTok’s latest hiring spree is sending a message

TikTok might not consider itself a social media app, but a recent flurry of job postings tells a different story. The platform’s career page now includes several listings related to “TikTok Social,” which encourage workers to apply for positions on the platform’s “Social Interaction team” or the “messaging team on TikTok”. According to those posts, new hires will help take TikTok’s messaging experience out of its “infancy” by developing an expanded chat service:

So far, TikTok isn’t spilling the beans about its Social ambitions.

Launching a stand-alone messaging platform wouldn’t be anything new for TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, but that doesn’t mean the platform is ready to show its hand. According to Axios, a spokesperson for TikTok said that “being an entertainment channel has always been and remains the core of TikTok’s business model even as we experiment with new features to enhance the user experience.”

WATCH THIS 📺

Fortnite’s latest icon is none other than TikTok superstar Khaby Lame

Fortnite fans will soon be able to stage adrenaline-packed heists while disguised as TikTok’s most followed creator. Silent funnyman Khaby Lame has announced the arrival of an unlockable avatar inspired by his likeness, which Fortnite players can access through Epic Games’ Battle Pass system.

Ready to get your Lame on? Check out the trailer for the comedian’s Fortnite skin 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.