It's Thursday and HBO Max is back, baby. After two years of just “Max,” we can finally go back to saying…well, the name we’ve all still been saying for the last two years.

Today’s News

SHARING IS CARING

YouTube wants creators to share data with brands

The feature: Nearly a decade after acquiring matchmaking hub FameBit (now BrandConnect), YouTube still trails rivals like Instagram when it comes to influencer marketing.

Now, however, the video site is starting to change that narrative. A widely distributed email from YouTube has invited owners of active channels to try out a new tool that shares channel and audience data with brands, advertisers, and other potential sponsors.

The platform described the feature as a way to “share channel and audience data to potentially be discovered by advertisers and brands for more earning opportunities like higher revenue ads, brand deals, and shopping affiliate offers.” By default, that data will not be shared, and creators who choose to toggle on the tool can undo their decision at any time.

The context: The introduction of this new data-sharing feature is the latest in a series of recent updates designed to bring YouTube’s influencer marketing resources in line with the products offered by Instagram.

At this year’s SXSW festival, for instance, YouTube unveiled a new-and-improved BrandConnect that consolidates and streamlines creator partnerships. That move was well-timed: during the same week in March, eMarketer published a report that estimated over half of U.S. brands will partner with a YouTube channel to market a product in 2025.

More changes arrived at YouTube’s annual Brandcast presentation, where the company’s marketing execs revealed a fresh suite of matchmaking tools centered around the Insights Finder hub. At the next stop on the festival circuit—June’s Cannes Lions festival—YouTube updated BrandConnect with a feature called Open Call, which lets brands solicit sponsored content from creators who can meet specific briefs.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Tanzania doesn’t show up often in our Global Top 50, but this week, the country is represented at #2 thanks to the digital-savvy dancers behind Jaymondy. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• Linda Yaccarino is leaving X after spending just over two years as the platform’s CEO. (TechCrunch)
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• Perplexity is throwing its hat in the AI search ring with the launch of its own web browser, Comet. (The Verge)
  
  

• Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has announced the beta launch of a messaging app that can reportedly operate without an internet connection. (TechCrunch)

20 YEARS OF YOUTUBE

In 2015, Casey Neistat revolutionized the vlog 

In February 2025, YouTube turned 20. The platform has gone through a lot over the past two decades, including an acquisition, an earnings glow-up, and multiple generations of star creators. In our 20 Years of YouTube series, we’ll examine the milestones that have defined the world’s favorite video site—one year at a time. Click here for a full archive of the series.

The context: In 2015, multi-channel networks were starting to merge with media corporations, tech innovations were reshaping the digital economy, and outside investments had transformed the meaning of the word “creator.” A decade later, YouTube is now the hottest thing on TV screens—and that cultural shift might have looked completely different if not for a high school dropout with a director’s eye, a gritty filmmaking style, and a penchant for distressed sunglasses.

The creator: After cutting his teeth in the underground NYC arts scene, Casey Neistat landed an HBO series alongside his sibling Van. The Neistat Bros ran for eight episodes in 2010, and Casey began uploading to his namesake YouTube hub that same year. Those early videos contain all the hallmarks that would later define his daily vlog: cheeky establishing shots, bold editing choices, and vibey musical cues. In 2015, the creator started making those clever, artful videos every day, and quickly attracted a devoted fanbase.

The impact: Many creators who broke out on YouTube in 2010s chose to chase TV and film deals. There were some success stories (like Issa Rae‘s HBO sitcom Insecure) but in many cases, attempts to translate online video success to television met serious roadblocks.

Then Neistat showed up and reminded creators that they didn’t have to covet TV airtime. His daily vlog was never meant to last forever—by 2016, the creators was already pivoting to a different form of immediate, on-the-street filmmaking—but by turning the humble vlog into a wide-reaching experiment, he paved the way for the next generation of vloggers. On YouTube, upstarts like Emma Chamberlain, David Dobrik, and Elle Mills discovered that they could unlock a new creative format that evolved the traditional media pipeline rather than chasing after it.

THE BIZ

OpenAI’s next project is a browser to beat Google Chrome

The context: Over the last year, Google has embraced generative AI and called on YouTube creators to incorporate it into their production pipeline. Now, thanks in part to that relentless promotion, we are fully in the gen AI era—and in an ironic (if predictable) twist, the companies powering that revolution are coming for Google’s user base.

The rival browser: Enter OpenAI. As it turns out, the ChatGPT parent isn’t content with just taking Google’s search traffic and challenging X—it’s gearing up to take on Chrome, too. In the coming weeks, OpenAI will launch an AI web browser that Reuters reports will allow it to do two things: “fundamentally change how consumers browse the web” and access the vast trove of user data Google currently obtains from people utilizing Search and Chrome. That user data fuels Google’s core business: advertising, which accounts for 75% of the company’s annual revenue.

The potential impact: A thorough gutting of individual website traffic (which has already been kickstarted by things like Google’s AI Search Overviews) would be a natural side effect of an OpenAI browser. The company reportedly plans to keep some users who search in a ChatGPT-esque interface instead of actually sending them through to the intended destination.

People using OpenAI’s new browser will also likely be urged to give Sam Altman‘s company more data through tools like Operator (which is a new AI tool for users to automate web tasks that OpenAI unveiled this past January). As Reuters notes, if this browser project is successful in pulling over even a fraction of ChatGPT’s 500 million weekly active users, it could put a serious dent in Google’s traffic.

WATCH THIS

Is a scripted digital boom here at last?

The Diamond Rose: Unscripted content might still reign over social media feeds across the world, but studios like Second Rodeo Productions are bringing scripted minidramas into the limelight.

Earlier this summer, Second Rodeo released The Diamond Rose on the app My Drama—a leading distributer of the kind of vertical series that have been thriving among Chinese audiences. (It also just dropped the series trailer on YouTube, which you can check out here if you’re craving some soapy dark romance.)

The context: Could the early success of minidramas indicate that a scripted digital boom is on the horizon for platforms like YouTube?

As Second Rodeo CEO Scott Brown pointed out in a recent article on Tubefilter, YouTube recently announced that its TV app will allow creators to present videos in intended order—a feature that could provide the perfect environment for the rise of serialized digital storytelling.

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