TOGETHER WITH

It’s Friday and Grimes is jumping into the world of toys with the launch of an AI plush line that (coincidentally) includes a “friendly rocket” named Grok.

LINKING UP

Linktree just acquired one of its major competitors.

Koji will soon be no more. The link-in-bio tool—which raised nearly $40 million to build landing pages populated with “mini apps” for creators—has been acquired by Linktree. As part of that deal, the Koji brand and product will both be sunsetted on January 31, 2024.

That’s a big change from Koji’s position in January 2022.

At that point, the company had just raised $20 million to get into crypto and was catering to a user base of 150,000+ creators. Its slate of monetization- and audience-building-based mini-games included 200 offerings, including a standard tip jar, a Cameo-like commission app called Video Request, and a tool that allowed users to sell ad slots on their landing page.

Now, those users will need to move on to a different link-in-bio service.

Linktree says all creators currently using Koji will receive three months of free Linktree Pro to “ensure as smooth of a transition as possible.” It’s unclear whether that transition will be similarly painless for Koji’s employees. Financial details of the deal are not being disclosed, and it remains to be seen whether the acquired company’s executives and/or staff will join Linktree.

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

With OpusClip’s new Pro and Starter plans, it’s never been easier or more affordable to break into short-form video

What if you could create short-form clips with just one click? OpusClip’s state-of-the-art AI editing tools make it easy to turn long-form videos into viral Shorts—and now, their team is introducing a brand-new slate of Pro and Starter features.

Here’s why OpusClip’s new plans are a no-brainer for video creators of all sizes:

Starter Plan: Ready to dabble in short-form content? All you need is 9 bucks a month.
With Starter, you can clip up to 100 minutes of video content and publish dozens of clips from scratch in just a few minutes. That means you’ll be able to…

• Clip all your best moments 🎞

• Remove filler words and awkward silences 😅

• Apply custom brand templates ✨

• Autopost to YouTube, TikTok, and IG Reels 🤳

In other words: you’ll be a one-person content factory in no time.

Pro Plan: The best deal in the history of short-form video production—for a limited time 🔥
OpusClip is heavily discounting its Pro annual plan for the holiday season. For $114/year, you’ll get a whopping 3,600 minutes of upload time, complete with all of OpusClip’s latest and greatest features—including auto-export to Adobe and AI B-roll. 

Ready to take your short-form production process to the next level?

​​Get started with OpusClip →

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Management firm Kensington Grey has signed “corporate baddie” DeAndre Brown, “medical mythbuster” Joel Bervell, and Maurice Kamara of The People Gallery. (Tubefilter)
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• Fitness tracking app Strava has tapped YouTube vet Michael Martin to serve as its CEO. (Tubefilter)
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• Instagram’s latest tool allows users to create two-second video Notes that remain visible for 24 hours at a time. (Tubefilter)
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• Users watching YouTube on TV will now have to deal with fewer ad breaks (but the ones that do pop up are likely to be longer). (The Verge)

DATA • ON THE RISE 📈

From restaurants to real estate, food has always been this creator’s muse

Nadia Aida has been cooking since she was “probably way too young to be handling heating elements.” Food was an integral part of her childhood, and it only grew more important as she became an adult. By the time she’d started a family of her own, Aida was running the kitchen at her father’s restaurant.

That was no simple feat.

The hours were long and Aida says they “wore on my body.” Taking a break was meant to be a temporary solution—but by the time she was ready to come back, her father had sold his restaurant. The creator embraced that turn of events as an opportunity to explore different career paths, and quickly found herself immersed in the world of real estate.

Being a realtor wasn’t half-bad, but it wasn’t long before Aida “started missing food a little bit too much.” She knew she needed a creative outlet, so she launched an Instagram account to show off “whatever I was eating that day.”

By 2020, that page had attracted a loyal fanbase—but after four years of posting without much virality, Aida was beginning to feel “stuck.”

So, she decided to quit.

Her husband was not on board. He encouraged Aida to give the whole content creation one more try, and she (reluctantly) agreed. But instead of sticking with Instagram, the creator decided to switch over to TikTok. Long story short: Aida “fell in love with it, grew to 100k that year, and the rest is history.”

Check out our full interview here to learn more about the creator’s culinary journey and discover what she plans to cook up next.

DEEZ NUTS 🥜

MrBeast could be legally required to rebrand his most memeable product

MrBeast may not be able to hold onto the ‘Deez Nutz’ moniker for much longer. The YouTube icon’s bawdily-named peanut butter bar is facing a permanent injunction as a result of a lawsuit filed by another snack empire: Dee’s Nuts.

The fight over Deez Nutz began many months ago.

Dee’s Nuts (a Jacksonville-based company that sells “gourmet flavored peanuts") has been pushing back against the Deez Nuts brand name for a while now. Back in April, MrBeast’s food company, Feastables, responded to a cease-and-desist from Dee’s Nuts by saying that it planned to continue using the Deez Nutz branding.

That course of action might not be in the cards anymore. Although Dee’s Nuts was allegedly named after trademark holder Brian Ditore’s grandmother (aka “Mrs. Dee”), the Jacksonville-based company has taken full advantage of the moniker’s dual meaning. (Unless the decision to register “grabdeesnuts.com” as an official URL was also inspired by Grandma.)

Feastables’ marketing strategy has been equally entendre-based—and that seems to be part of the problem. Last week, a federal judge approved a permanent injunction that will prevent the company from using its “confusingly similar” product name. Dee’s Nuts is also seeking damages based on the sales MrBeast has generated through Deez Nutz—but, at least for now, the YouTuber’s peanut butter bars are still up for grabs under their original moniker.

WATCH THIS 😈

Hazbin Hotel is gearing up to raise hell on Prime Video

Vivziepop’s 8.8 million YouTube subscribers are in for a wicked treat. After growing a devoted (and devilish) online fanbase over the last five years, the creator is bringing one of her adult animation series, Hazbin Hotel, to Prime Video.

The first trailer hit YouTube on Wednesday and fans are already psyched for a series filled with R-rated shenanigans, animated gore, and—of course—a healthy amount of hellish behavior. If you’ve tuned into the online version of Hazbin Hotel (or Vivziepop’s other popular series, the Streamy Award-winning Helluva Boss), then you should also know to expect Broadway-level music and choreography.

Check out the full series teaser 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.