TOGETHER WITH

It’s Wednesday and Amazon wants to give OpenAI (and Google, Anthropic, DeepSeek, and every other major tech org) a run for its money. The ecommerce giant’s latest alleged project: its very own AI reasoning model.

Today’s News

LIVE IT UP

TikTok Live is projected to reach $77 billion in sales by 2027

The projection: An unsealed legal complaint has shed light on TikTok’s vision for the future. In October, a group of state attorneys general and federal attorneys filed a lawsuit that accused the app of harming underage users with addictive structures. TikTok’s attempt to have that lawsuit dismissed was struck down by a judge earlier this week—but that’s not the big news.

A fascinating statistic included in the unsealed complaint reveals how much TikTok Live has grown—and how far it could rise:

$77 billion is a big jump from TikTok Live’s quarterly peak of $1.7 billion in 2023, but TikTok’s projection is informed by the overwhelming success of its Chinese counterpart, Douyin. In 2023, the app’s ecommerce sales shot up to $274 billion over the first ten months of the year. 

The impact: With numbers like that, it’s no surprise that other shopping hubs want a piece of the action. Major players like YouTube have reorganized their monetization structures to draw in streamers, while rising platforms like Whatnot have secured significant funding rounds. Another notable milestone for the live shopping ecosystem is the launch of ecommerce conference SoCom.

The latest sign of live shopping’s growing influence is Verb Technology’s acquisition of LyveCom, a company founded by Shopify expert Maxwell Drut and Kombo Ventures founder/CEO Kevin Gould. LyveCom allows retailers to upload their own clips, aggregate video content from TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, and host and distribute livestreams. The company recently spearheaded a Halloween livestream for energy brand GFuel’s collaboration with horror icon Chucky, an event that drove over $200,000 in sales and secured a customer conversion rate of 42.4%. 

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

OpusClip just launched the #1 AI video reframe tool—and to celebrate, it’s hosting a giveaway with 3 big prizes

OpusClip just dropped ReframeAnything, the most advanced AI reframe model that can resize any video for any platform in just 1 click. So, what makes ReframeAnything a game-changer?

🎥 ReframeAnything is the only AI reframe model that works for any video—from podcasts and vlogs to game highlights and product demos

🎯 Smart motion tracking keeps speakers, key actions, and products centered, even during fast-paced action

🌀 ReframeAnything automatically adjusts layouts for interviews, demos, and more with a single click

🌟 It’s built for everyone—no editing skills needed

Upvote on Product Hunt & Win a $1,000 YouTube Master Course!

To celebrate ReframeAnything’s launch on Product Hunt, OpusClip is giving away amazing prizes to supporters who upvote and comment on March 5. Those rewards include…

• $1,000 YouTube Growth Master Course from top YouTube experts

• Exclusive OpusClip Merch

• Free 3-month OpusClip Pro Packs

Entering the giveaway is easy: simply upvote and comment on ReframeAnything’s Product Hunt launch page and then submit a screenshot of your upvote/comment here.

Winners will be announced right after launch day—don’t miss out!

Enter the giveaway → 

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• The Reserve Bank of India is growing on YouTube. During Financial Literacy Week, the RBI’s channel housed 30-second musical spots that have since scored millions of views each. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• YouTube announced yesterday that it will soon begin placing age-restrictions on some gambling content, including videos that feature “depictions or promotions of online casino sites or apps." (YouTube Help)
  
  

• OpenAI has launched NextGenAI, a consortium that will dedicate “$50M in research grants, compute funding, and API access to support students, educators, and researchers.” (OpenAI)
  
  

• Meta, TikTok, and Snap have spoken out against a new Australian law banning all children under the age of 16 from major social media platforms—except YouTube. (Engadget)

CALM AND COLLECTED

Hey, can you turn down that ad?

The call: Thanks to the CALM Act of 2012, commercials in the U.S. aren’t allowed to be louder than regular TV programming.

Unfortunately, ‘not allowed to be’ and ‘aren’t’ are two different things. According to the Federal Communications Commission, the number of complaints about loud advertisements “took a troubling jump” in 2024. In response, the FCC is now seeking public comment about the volume of commercials and has asked consumers to provide suggestions for “what actions the Commission, industry, or standard developers could take to further minimize consumer harm.”

We’re guessing a good chunk of those suggestions will relate to streaming services.

The context: Now, to be clear, the CALM Act currently only applies to traditional TV networks and pay TV providers like cable and satellite—not streaming services like Netflix and YouTube. (And yes, Nielsen counts YouTube as a streaming service. In fact, it’s the biggest in the world by watch volume).

But as PCMag points out, complaints filed in 2024 included those about loud TV ads run by streaming services. Because of that, it’s probable that future additions to the CALM Act will regulate streamers, which now comprise a significant part of TV watch time (not to mention a serious chunk of the $300 billion U.S. businesses will spend on digital ads this year).

Ads on streaming services are getting more and more frequent, with hubs like Netflix adding paid tiers and Amazon‘s Prime Video adding non-negotiable, unskippable ads. Meanwhile, YouTube-on-TV (not to be confused with pay-to-watch OTT offering YouTube TV) has been consistently getting more and longer ads, leading to ire from some viewers.

And if all those ads are also getting louder? Yikes.

GLOBAL TOP 100 • FEBRUARY 2025

Top 100 Most-Subscribed YouTube Channels: The Saudi creators delivering global stories

The context: About a decade ago, Saudi Arabia was a budding social media hotbed. The Middle Eastern kingdom boasted the most plugged-in YouTube viewers in the world, who collectively delivered a massive amount of watch time to a rising group of local creators. Over the last year, however, Saudi creators rarely cracked our rankings of the top 100 most-subscribed YouTube channels.

That changed last month. Two Saudi Arabian locals cracked the list of the 100 most-subscribed channels of February 2025, with Joe HaTTaB claiming a place at #87. The documentarian collected a million new subscribers over the course of a single month, in large part by capturing the lives of imprisoned gang members in El Salvador. A single long-form video from that series has now earned more than 39 million views.

Collecting stories from all corners of the globe is nothing new for Joe HaTTaB—or the other Saudi representative in February’s Global Top 100. Rather than releasing original long-form documentary work, however, lli bin Wasel has tapped into one of the most effective (and controversial) methods of gaining viewership on YouTube Shorts.

The short-form star’s most popular clips aggregate fascinating stories from around the world—ones originally posted by other creators and social media users. That method of reposting viral clips has paid off for bin Wasel. This time last year, he was a nonfactor in our YouTube charts; as of February, the creator stands at 96th place in our monthly ranking of most-subscribed channels.

WATCH THIS 🎙️

Creators are gearing up for the Sidemen Charity Match

The experiment: The Sidemen’s annual Charity Match is almost here. This coming weekend, two teams of influencers will go head-to-head to raise funds for Bright Side, BBC Children in Need, and M7 Education. An in-person crowd of 90,000 spectators is set to watch that soccer match from the stands of Wembley Stadium—and Zerkaa isn’t about to slack off in front of so many onlookers.

In a video posted yesterday, the Twitch star (aka Joshua Bradley) linked up with fellow streamer VizuaLizah and Instagram creator Mark Daniel for some last-minute practice. Tune in here to see how players prep for one of the biggest influencer events of the year.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.