Peggy K's Creator News

Tech companies are back up to speed after the winter holidays with new product updates and features. There’s news from YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Bluesky, Instagram, Search and AI updates from Gemini, ChatGPT, and Grok. There are two new ways to get your Creator Weekly news: 👂 New ! Listen to Creator Weekly Live as a podcast in YouTube Music . ⭐ New ! Add PeggyKTC.com as a Preferred Source for Google Search Top Stories. 📨 Subscribe to get Creator Weekly by email. Top news and updates this week YouTube simplified its search filters. YouTube now allows monetization of some controversial content. Google Veo 3.1 “ Ingredients to Video” lets you create video clips using up to 3 reference images, and is available in Gemini, YouTube, and Google Vids. Spotify makes it easier for video podcasters to qualify for their Partner Program. Apple launched the new Creator Studio creative app suite, with a subscription price a fraction of a Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. Bluesky lets you add...

Looking back at the past year there were a number of notable trends. See also: Top YouTube Updates of 2025 and 10 New YouTube Features to Build Your Audience There has been a continuation of 2024 Creator Trends , with more vertical video and updates to platforms like Substack and Patreon where creators can (supposedly) “own” their audience. And, of course, there is more generative AI in everything. But in 2025 Creators were affected by political decisions that affect policy and economics, there was pushback against AI-generated content, and “authenticity” is the new watchword. Next week I’ll be back with the usual creator update news. 📨 Subscribe to get Creator Weekly by email. 🔴 Creator Weekly Live Join Creator Weekly Live on Sunday, 10:30AM Pacific time (6:30PM UTC). Join me live or watch the recording . ✅ Take this week’s quiz What do you know about the 2025 updates on YouTube? Take this week’s quiz . My top creator trends for 2025 (and into 2026) More of the ol...

One of the things I do at the end of December is look back at all the changes that happened over the past year. And it turns out that in 2025 there were a ton of updates for Creators, not only on YouTube, but also Meta’s platforms (Threads, Facebook, Instagram), Twitch, TikTok, Reddit, and so much more. What that means in practical terms is that there’s much too much to review all in a single article. So this week I’m going to give an overview of YouTube’s top updates in 2025 and next week I’ll recap 2025 Creator trends going into 2026. You can find my personal 2025 recap here, with links to my top posts and video tutorials. Thank you so much for reading, watching and joining me live! YouTube’s Top 2025 Updates YouTube is dominating entertainment. YouTube Creators are “ The New Hollywood” , it’s the top video streaming platform , and where people get their podcasts . Part of the magic is that it’s for all types of Creators, both big and small. In 2025 YouTube launched a number ...

Thanks to everyone for reading and watching in 2025! Here's a brief recap of my year. 15 Years as a Google Product Expert! Social Media In 2025 my YouTube channel gained nearly 1700 subscribers, with a year-end total of 8,598 subs. My goal for 2026 is to reach 10,000 subscribers, which should be doable! I stopped posting on X , because reading posts there isn’t enjoyable and my shared link posts don’t get any engagement. I don’t miss it. I am currently active on Bluesky and Threads . You can follow me from the Fediverse at @peggykolm@threads.net. Newsletter and Posts This year I published: 50 Creator Weekly newsletters ( subscribe to get the free weekly email!) A 50-part series: 10 Years Ago This Week , which looked at the top tech updates in 2015. Most popular posts:  ...

To celebrate 10 years of Creator Weekly, I’m sharing  tech highlights from 2015  that still resonate a decade later.   Ten years ago, Google open-sourced their Santa Tracker and built a new Santa's Village. Watch the Short version. Tracking Santa Santa Tracker and Santa's Village in December 2015 Google launched their first Santa Tracker in 2004 , shortly after acquiring a company called Keyhole, which would become Google Earth. In 2007 they officially partnered with NORAD , which had been tracking Santa since the 1950s.   In 2012, NORAD switched to using Bing Maps . Google continued on their own, using a "new route algorithm " and a site where you could visit Santa's Village to play mini-games and get into the holiday spirit. Open Source Santa In 2015 Google made their Santa Tracker open source , including both the Android and Polymer-based mobile-optimized web versions.  Probably not coincidentally,  Polymer 1.0  (an open-source JavaScri...