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TOGETHER WITH
It's Thursday and according to a new study, ChatGPT may have already surpassed humans when it comes to earning the trust of Twitter users.
TRENDY BEATS
Is TikTok gearing up for a face-off against retail giants like Amazon?
TikTok is reportedly bringing its very own virtual store to the USA. Per Yahoo! News, the Bytedance-owned platform is setting up a retail operation from which it will sell, package, and ship merchandise—including toys and kitchen gadgets—from its own inventory. (TikTok Shop, by contrast, offers creator-designed and brand-affiliated products supplied by third parties.)
TikTok’s new store is a big development—but it’s not a huge surprise.
According to The Financial Times, the platform’s in-app digital storefront is already available to some TikTok users in the U.K. The inventory for that virtual hub—which is currently called Trendy Beat—consists of video-tested products shipped from China. Signs of TikTok’s plan to bring Trendy Beat to the U.S. began popping up last year, when the platform posted jobs related to Amazon-style fulfillment centers.
In addition to TikTok’s recently-inked partnerships with warehouses and logistics firms, those postings suggest that the app intends to compete with existing retail giants like Amazon and Shein. For now, though, TikTok is keeping quiet on its U.S. ambitions. The platform’s statement to The Financial Times confirmed only that it is “always exploring new ways to enhance our community’s experience” and is “in the early stages of experimenting with new shopping features.”
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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰
TikTok is expanding Live Subscriptions in order to allow creators to restrict specific videos so that only their subscribers can watch. (Tubefilter)
According to The New York Times, TikTok has admitted to funding a lawsuit that was filed by creators in order to challenge Montana’s statewide ban of the app. (Ars Technica)
Max reportedly aims to add live CNN content to its streaming catalog within “the coming year.” (Gizmodo)
Data from Similarweb suggests that protests by Reddit moderators contributed to a 20% drop in “average daily visits on Reddit’s ad portal” between June 13-23. (TechCrunch)
DATA • STREAMERS ON THE RISE 📈
From storytelling to smackdowns, this streamer appreciates everything video games have to offer
Curiousjoi remembers the exact moment that she fell in love with gaming. She’d walked past the TV to see her brothers playing Final Fantasy—and although she was too young to read the words on-screen, she was immediately fascinated by the game’s storytelling.
Now, Joi spends hours every week streaming Final Fantasy and similar titles (along with her favorite fighting games, of course). Despite her long-lived love of gaming, however, the streamer didn’t originally focus on games when she started creating content. At least, she didn’t focus exclusively on games. Joi first began making videos on YouTube, where she talked about everything from Marvel and DC to her favorite anime.
When creating videos on all those topics became too much, Joi switched to Twitch. But it wasn’t until she decided to boil her content down to one specific niche—JRPGs and fighting games—that “everything started changing.”
“I wanted to, of course, grow, and all this stuff like that, but I just said I’m just going to focus on providing the best broadcast I possibly can and then everything just started changing from there.”
That change of pace (and her incredible talent for cohesive branding) was exactly what Joi needed to regain her passion for streaming and grow her community on Twitch. She’s now become a pro at maintaining a consistent social media presence by “making sure every little piece of art or image or anything like that is in sync with all platforms.”
At the end of the day, though, it’s Joi’s “strong love of storytelling” that motivates her to continue streaming. Because when it comes down to it, she says, "I just genuinely love video games.”
REPORTING FOR DUTY
A new report alleges Google is responsible for the loss of “billions of digital ad dollars”
Google is under fire for its handling of third-party video ad placements. A recent Adalytics report cited by The Wall Street Journal claims that Google Video Partners placements on sites other than YouTube violated the tech giant’s own standards about 80% of the time.
The placements in question were allegedly presented to media buyers as “proprietary TrueView skippable in-stream video ads” run on “high-quality publisher websites and mobile apps”—but according to Adalytics, many of those placements ended up being “small, muted, out-stream, auto-playing or interstitial video ad units running on independent websites and mobile apps.”
“This misalignment,” the report says, “may have cost media buyers up to billions of digital ad dollars.”
“This report finds that advertisers including Fortune 500 brands, the US federal government, and many small businesses may have been misled for years about Google’s proprietary TrueView skippable in-stream video ads.”
That determination comes from an expansive data set. Adalytics claims to have analyzed campaigns from 1,100 brands, which collectively generated billions of impressions between 2020 and 2023. Affected buyers have already begun issuing responses to those results—and their reactions are quite strong:
“I feel cheated. What I requested to buy was not what I got. This should entitle me to a refund for invalid traffic.”
Google disagrees with the analysis.
The tech giant responded to Adalytics’ report via a blog post that accused the analytics platform of making “extremely inaccurate claims about the Google Video Partner (GVP) network.”
\The post, which is attributed to Google Director of Global Video Solutions Marvin Renaud, claims that the “overwhelming majority” of TrueView spend occurs on YouTube, with Google Video Partners offering an “effective complement.” Google also made sure to point out that advertisers have control over the sites where their inventory is placed.
WATCH THIS 📺
What’s life like for YouTube’s most subscribed creator?
Over the last two years, MrBeast says, “everything’s changed.” That period is also the amount of time that’s passed since his last YouTube interview with fellow creators Colin & Samir. Back then, MrBeast—whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson—had around 65 million subscribers. Now, he’s the single most subscribed-to creator on YouTube with a fanbase of over 163 million.
So, what does “marriage, Netflix, YouTube business, and the future” look like for the man behind über-successful brands like Feastables and a thriving YouTube empire? You’ll have to tune into his latest interview with Colin & Samir to find out.
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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.