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Creators: Get the latest tips, tutorials and updates!

Are you a video creator, blogger, content collector or curator? Subscribe to get news and tutorials for YouTube, Blogger, AdSense, and other creator tools, platforms, social media, and more!  Learn more about me . Last updated January 2025       Subscribe to the RSS feed      Subscribe to Weekly Creator Updates only Subscribe to my Weekly Creator Newsletter by email Creator Weekly Live!  Join me live on Sundays at 10:30 AM Pacific to discuss the week's creator updates.  Watch or set a notification. Watch previous episodes: Tips, Tutorials & Updates       Blogger Tutorials & Updates        YouTube  and  Live Streaming  Tutorials & Updates        Chat and Meet  Tutorials & Update...
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Creator Weekly: YouTube Playlist Voting, TikTok Animation, Threads Links

This week there are updates from YouTube, TikTok, X, Adobe, Threads and more. Google was a bit quiet this week, which is not too surprising given that Google I/O is just days away. Expect plenty of announcements next week. Stay tuned! 📨 Subscribe to get Creator Weekly by email. Top news and updates this week Collaborators can upvote (or downvote) videos in YouTube playlists. For Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Google (Android and Chrome), Apple , TikTok and Meta announced new accessibility features. YouTube launched weekly Podcast Charts in the US. YouTube updated the mobile miniplayer to pause when it’s hidden. YouTube announced new advertising opportunities at Brandcast, including placing ads where videos are most engaging. TikTok announced AI Alive, a tool that turns a photo into a short video. In response to user feedback Spotify will only display Plays publicly for major milestones. X now supports 4k video uploads for Premium subscribers...

10 Years Ago This Week: Discord Launched

To celebrate 10 years of Creator Weekly, I’m sharing  tech highlights from 2015  that still resonate 10 years later. This update was for the  week ending May 16, 2015. 10 years ago this week Discord launched to the public. It was designed as a chat platform for gamers. Founder Jason Citron started in the gaming industry and  launched Discord when gamers were more interested in the chat features  of his company's latest game than the actual game play. Discord header from 2016 blog post. Discord's logo, nicknamed Clyde, is a cute game controller. Why Discord? Founder and CEO Jason Citron said:  We picked the name because at the end of the day it just sounds cool and has to do with talking. … You want a name that is easy to say, spell, remember, related to the function of the product, available for ™, and has a website you can get. … Discord met all the criteria that we had and we fell in love with the name. You can creat...

Creator Weekly: YouTube Editor, Spotify Plays, AdSense Auto Optimize

A theme this week is authenticity. Are you who you say you are? Are you human? Are you communicating clearly enough for AI to understand? Do you want AI to understand? Would you like a social feed of just AI-generated content? Do you want an AI friend? OK, I’m getting off track. But trying to elevate the “authentic” over the “fake” is going to be an ongoing topic of discussion. In any case, there are updates for video creators from YouTube, Spotify, Edits and Substack; for web publishers from AdSense and Google Search; and social media for Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Reddit and more. 📨 Subscribe to get Creator Weekly by email. Top news and updates this week YouTube’s improved mid-roll ad serving starts May 12th. Creators in the YouTube Partner Program should check their settings. Brands have more tools to connect with YouTube Creators, including AI-powered Insights Finder and a new Creator Partnership Hub. YouTube is removing the “return to original” option in the Studio video ed...

10 Years Ago This Week: Should YouTube bring back subscription collections?

To celebrate 10 years of Creator Weekly, I’m sharing  tech highlights from 2015  that still resonate 10 years later. This update was for the week ending May 9, 2015 . Ten years ago this week, YouTube killed subscription collections. This wasn't a huge change, and I'll bet most folks don't even remember this feature. But I miss it.  Collections launched in 2013 as a way to group your YouTube subscriptions together by topic . When you clicked the collection on the sidebar you would get a feed of content from just the channels in that collection. So if you were in the mood for tech videos you could select that collection. Or comedy. Or music. Or Let's Plays of your favorite game. Or videos from the friends you know "in real life". You get the idea. Why did YouTube get rid of subscription collections? The original announcement was either on Google+ or on the old YouTube help community platform, which are both long gone. My guess is that not enough people...

Creator Weekly: YouTube on TV, Patreon iOS app, Kickstarter Tariff Manager

Happy May! This week there are updates for YouTube, AdSense, Vimeo, LinkedIn, Threads, Pinterest and more. Plus new features for Google Gemini and Meta AI. I focus a bit on changes affecting monetizing creators: a ruling in Epic Games v. Apple that should let iOS apps like Patreon bypass the Apple Tax for subscriptions, and new tools for managing tariffs on platforms like Kickstarter and Shopify that let creators offer physical goods. But it’s not all about accounting, I promise! Read on for this week’s updates. 📨 Subscribe to get Creator Weekly by email. Top news and updates this week A court order in Epic Games v. Apple lawsuit lets apps direct users to pay for services outside the App Store. Patreon and Spotify have updated their apps to help users avoid the Apple tax. In this time of tariffs Kickstarter is launching a Tariff Manager tool, Shopify helps calculate import taxes, and Spring touted their “tariff-proof” fulfillment options. There are a number of viewer improve...