It's Thursday and Google’s new AR ads make it easy to decide if orange lipstick is your thing—before you commit to the look.

ALL MIXED UP

TikTok’s “first-ever global music experience” will feature chart-topping celebs like Cardi B

TikTok is teaming up with the entertainment industry’s biggest stars to bring viewers a brand-new “global music experience.” That concert—aka In The Mix—will kick off at Arizona’s Sloan Park on December 10, with Cardi B, Niall Horan, Anitta, and Charlie Puth headlining the big event.

Those Top 40 celebs won’t be the only musical talent in attendance. In The Mix will also feature artists whose songs have served as the soundtracks for viral short-form trends. That category includes TikTok Elevate alums like Isabel Larosa and Kaliii.

Although In The Mix is expected to draw thousands, fans not located in Arizona will still have a chance to see their FYPs play out on the main stage. The event will be streamed via TikTok Live—a format that director Hamish Hamilton and production company Done+Dusted have kept in mind while designing the big show. For more info on ticket sales and performers, check out our full coverage here.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• TikTok Creative Agency Partnerships Lead Jordan Randall hosts Made for TikTok: Talking Creative, an interview web series filled with tips and insights. (Tubefilter)
  ​

• According to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Threads now claims “just under” 100 million monthly active users. (Engadget)
  ​

• Several X users have reported seeing a new toggle that appears to enable audio and video calling. (The Verge)
  ​

• Apple TV+ has announced another price hike, effectively doubling subscription costs “in just over 12 months.” (Engadget)

DATA • CREATORS ON THE RISE 📈

For these 3 childhood friends, 1 internet-breaking dance video is all it took

Nick McDonald, Nate James, and Kadeem Hemmings have been friends forever—and friends don’t let friends get bored. That unspoken rule led to plenty of hangouts in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic had limited the group’s entertainment options to two main activities: video games and dancing.

During one of those casual dance parties, the three friends (aka the Basement Gang) decided to hit record.

The actual posting of that jam session was more of a one-man decision. On a whim, Hemmings decided to try editing the group’s dancing clip into a short-form video. The moves themselves were “nothing crazy,” so he figured he might as well upload the vid to TikTok and “see what happens.”

As it turns out, a lot happened.

McDonald and James woke up the next morning to over a million views, a flood of new followers, and more than a few messages from Hemmings. They met up later that week to record another video, and posted it without expecting much of a response. Instead, McDonald says, it was “the same outcome. We got another million views.”

Three years later, those views are still flooding in. McDonald, James, and Hemmings are now full-time content creators with 7 million followers on TikTok, 530,000 on YouTube, and over 800,000 on Instagram. The three stars have worked with brands like Footlocker and the NBA, and have even bigger dreams for the future—so don’t be surprised if you switch on the TV one day to see the Basement Gang on your screen.

WIN THE THIRD QUARTER

Alphabet scored a net income of $19.69 billion last quarter. Here’s what that means for YouTube:

Alphabet’s third-quarter results have arrived. During its quarterly shareholders call, the YouTube parent company reported $76.69 million in quarterly revenue (an 11% year-over-year increase) and a net income of $19.69 billion. Both results exceeded expectations, but it wasn’t all good news: Google Cloud earnings fell short of analyst projections, leading to a 6% Wall Street dip during after-hours trading.

Now, let’s move onto YouTube:

As usual, Alphabet didn’t reveal everything about YouTube’s third-quarter performance—but the details it did share look pretty darn good. The video platform pulled in a reported $7.95 billion of quarterly ad revenue, beating projections and exceeding the platform’s Q3 2022 ad revenue by 12.5%.

What role did NFL Sunday Ticket play in that stellar third quarter?

Since Alphabet doesn’t include YouTube’s subscription revenue in its earning reports, it’s hard to pin down the exact impact of the platform’s nearly one-year-old acquisition—but according to Alphabet’s leading execs, a little optimism is more than warranted. Alphabet President and Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat noted that the company expects to “generate an attractive return over the life” of YouTube’s Sunday Ticket deal, while Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai reported “positive feedback from our partners at the NFL.”

Investors aren’t the only ones happy with YouTube’s handling of the package. Given how subscribers have raved about the platform’s coverage, it’s no surprise that Alphabet expects strong returns from Sunday Ticket (even if Google does end up paying $2.5 billion per year to stay in the driver’s seat).

WATCH THIS 📺

A new VTuber game show just hit Twitch (and it’s definitely a hole-in-one)

On October 24, Twitch star-slash-VTuber Filian invited six other virtual streamers to an IRL game show set, where they competed to squish their motion-captured bodies through weirdly shaped holes. The result: VTuber Hole in the Wall.

The innovative game show was produced by Strangeloop Studios and featured some of Twitch’s top VTubers, including ShyLily, Camila, Projekt Melody, Trickywi, LaynaLazar, and Filian herself.

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here.​

Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen. Drew Baldwin helped edit, too. It's a team effort.