TOGETHER WITH

It’s Friday and if you’re short on time, YouTube’s new ‘jump ahead’ feature is the tool for you. The catch: you can’t skip to the good part without paying for Premium.

MAKING HISTORY

Rhett and Link’s Good Mythical Morning now has a place of honor at the Smithsonian

The exhibit: Rhett and Link’s recent D.C. trip was one for the history books. The Good Mythical Morning hosts took a breather from their nationwide tour to stop by the Smithsonian, where they contributed several props to the institute’s “Entertainment Nation” exhibit.

• Those items—which include blindfolds from GMM taste tests and a microphone used to record many of the show’s 2,6000+ episodes—will be displayed alongside legendary media artifacts like Dorothy’s ruby slippers and the original Kermit the Frog puppet. In total, the Smithsonian’s exhibit features pieces spanning 150 years of American content.

The big picture: Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal aren’t the first creators to secure a place of honor at the Smithsonian—and they probably won’t be the last. The role of creators in American media has already grown by leaps and bounds since the institute first added props from Felicia Day’s The Guild to its permanent collection in 2017.

• The takeaway: despite Neal’s quip about aging, GMM’s entrance into the Smithsonian doesn’t mean the hosts’ impact on media is a relic of the past. Instead, as McLaughlin noted, “it means the Smithsonian knows what time it is.”

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

Artlist’s new AI Voiceover Generator is a game-changer for brands and video creators

Creating impactful videos is a must for brands and creators looking to reach their desired audiences. So, how can you make content that stands out in the rapidly-changing digital age?

It all comes down to Artlist: the world’s #1 destination for high-quality music, SFX, footage, templates, plugins, and now, AI voiceovers.

Artlist is the first creative asset platform to offer an in-product AI voiceover generator feature.

Artlist’s new AI voice generation feature is designed especially for video creators and comes with an exclusive voice catalog. This fully eliminates the need for external voiceover services — meaning you’ll save valuable time and resources every time you use it. 

Artlist’s AI voiceover generator feature furthers its mission to empower brands and creators with everything they need to create videos—including a stress-free global business license that provides 100% coverage for everything from soundtracks to templates. 

That reliability is why over 26 million users, including industry leaders like Google and top creators like Peter McKinnon, trust Artlist as a complete solution for video creation. 

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• TikTok’s July itinerary includes the debut of Deals For You Days, a promotion that will offer discounts through the platform’s social shopping hub. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• Bluesky aims to help users expand their communities with shareable “starter packs” centered around custom feeds and follow recommendations. (Engadget)
  ​

• Bytedance’s Instagram-style app has garnered roughly 13,000 global IOS downloads since its June 18 launch. We know TikTok’s parent company has plenty of resources to go around—so why is its latest platform
  still relatively unknown? (TechCrunch)
  ​

• The NFL has been ordered to pay $4.6 billion in damages to customers who purchased its Sunday Ticket package on DirecTV between 2011 and 2022. (The Verge)

LOST AND FOUND

Jukin Media’s co-founders are back in business with a new brand and $4 million in funding

The launch: Jukin Media co-founders and former execs Jonathan Skogmo, Mike Skogmo, and Anton Reut are getting the band back together. Three years after selling their UGC-focused company to Reader’s Digest owner Trusted Media Brands, the entrepreneurs have launched a new travel media brand with a $4 million seed round.

• That venture—called LOST iN—already has some major investors on its side. The brand’s funding round was led by MaC Venture Capital, with additional contributions and advising from BDMI, Pitbull Ventures, Hawke Media founder Erik Huberman, Skybound founder David Alpert, Kevin Gould of Kombo Ventures, Richard Wolpert, Matthew Rutler, pocket.watch founder Chris Williams, Fullscreen founder George Strompolos, and other angel investors.

Next steps: Skogmo, Skogmo, and Reut are hitting the ground running. LOST iN has already acquired the ten-year-old travel guidebook publisher of the same name, and is actively looking forward to more acquisitions.

• In the meantime, LOST iN plans to partner with travel-focused digital creators to make original content across various platforms. The brand says its ultimate goal is to “captivate today’s premium economy traveler”: the type of “young working professionals” who seek a “comfortable, yet authentic travel experience.”
  
  

• Skogmo, Skogmo, and Ruet may be hedging bets on recent McKinsey data —which forecasts an average travel increase of 5.8% per year through 2032—but that doesn’t mean they’re leaving anything to chance. The three execs will facilitate LOST iN’s core mission by taking on prominent positions at the company, with Jonathan serving as CEO, Mike as CMO and Reut as COO.

  WATCH THIS 📺

Will AI “dehumanize the magical connection” between creators and fans?

The interview: Kallaway and Mark Zuckerberg have a lot to say about the ethics of AI creator chatbots. In a recent interview, the creator economy expert and his guest of honor—aka Meta’s main man—sat down to discuss everything from neural interface wristbands to the eventual demise of mobile phones.

• Kallaway didn’t exactly play softball when delving into the intricacies of those products, but his main critique surfaced when AI creators entered the chat. The YouTuber’s main question: how can Meta realistically design AI versions of influencers “without dehumanizing the creator-fan connection”?
  
  

• The TLDR; version of Zuckerberg’s answer: the Meta CEO says he envisions AI creator chatbots as “an art form” finetuned by influencers and handed down to fans with 100% transparency.

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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.e