Creator Weekly: YouTube Partner Program Fan Funding, Google Domains Sold, Instagram Broadcast Channels

Happy Father’s Day weekend to all you dads and father figures. Also happy Juneteenth weekend!

There was a lot announced this week. There are monetization updates on YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, and Facebook; new creator tools Facebook; Broadcast Channels on Instagram; and much more. Plus learn how the sale of Google Domains and the removal of the Google Album Archive may affect you.

Subscribe to get the Creator Weekly by email.

Album Archive will be removed July 19. Don’t panic!

Did you get an email from Google with the subject line An Update to Album Archive?

I’ve seen a bunch of posts from people who didn’t realize Album Archive even existed, and so are especially confused about it shutting down. But it's likely it won't significantly affect you.

I’ve written up an overview of what the shutdown of Album Archive means, how to find the images you uploaded to Google products, and how to create a downloadable archive in Google Takeout.

The short version is that you should check yours (get.google.com/albumarchive).

It likely only has images from Blogger blogs (which you can access in the Blogger Media Manager instead) and Hangouts (which should mostly be available in your Google Chat).

You can use Google Takeout to export what’s there.

Creator Weekly Live

Sunday I’ll be live with a recap of this week’s top updates! What do you think of YouTube’s monetization updates? Will you be using an Instagram Broadcast Channel? Do you use Google Domains?

It’s scheduled for 10:30 AM Pacific time (5:30 UTC). Set a reminder or join on YouTube here.

Watch last week’s episode.

Google Domains Sold to Squarespace

Google Domains is not the cheapest domain registrar, but it is straightforward to use and nicely integrated with other Google products. That’s why there was disappointment when Google Announced they were selling their domain business to Squarespace.

Both Google and Squarespace have provided a FAQ for customers, including:

• The deal requires regulatory approval, so there is no timeline for the change yet
• Domain owners don’t need to do anything at this time
• After the deal is finalized, all domains will be moved from Google Domains to Squarespace where they can be managed
• Billing and support for Google Workspace purchased through Google Domains will be transferred to Squarespace

This likely means that Google Cloud Domains will also be shutting down.

You can contact Google Domains support if you have any questions.

It is not clear what will happen with the integrations currently offered for Google products:

• Blogger lets you purchase a custom domain through Google Domains, and offers easy custom domain setup
• Google Domains is linked to the Google Sites site builder
• Google App Engine app hosting
• Easy Google Workspace for Business setup

I expect it will be similar to using a domain on any other third party site (like GoDaddy or Namecheap), so some of the ease of setup will be lost. There should be more information before this change goes into effect.

The YouTube Partner Program Opens Fan Funding to More Creators

The big news this week is that YouTube has created a slightly-easier-to-achieve new Partner Program tier.

Your channel needs to meet all of these requirements:

• 500 subscribers
• 3 video uploads in the past 90 days
• Either 3000 hours watch time in the past year OR 3 million Shorts views in the past 90 days

If your application for the YouTube Partner Program is approved, that gives your channel access to fan funding:

• Channel Memberships
• Super Chats, Super Stickers and Super Thanks (live chat and comment tip jars)
• YouTube Shopping, to sell your own merch

When your channel reaches the eligibility requirement for ad revenue sharing (1000 subs, plus 4000 hours watch time in the past year OR 10 million Shorts views in the past 90 days), it will not have to go through the full application review process again.

You can watch my video overview and get all the details in my writeup.

Twitch Partner Plus Program

Hot on the heels of last week’s updated Terms of Service and Monetized Streamer Agreement, Twitch also announced a new partnership tier, the Partner Plus Program.

This offers a more lucrative 70% share of paid subscriber revenue (rather than 50%) for streamers meeting the eligibility requirements. And that’s the catch.

To qualify the streamer must maintain at least 350 paid recurring subscribers for at least 3 consecutive months. It does not include gift subscriptions or subscriptions through Amazon Prime. This is an extremely high bar.

Eligibility is reviewed every 12 months, so if after a year you no longer meet the subscriber minimum, you lose the 70% revenue share benefit.

For top streamers, there is a cap of $100,000 per year. After they hit that amount of revenue, the split goes back down to 50-50.

Some folks have calculated that only 5% or so of Twitch Partners (and a much smaller fraction of all streamers) will be eligible, which makes this for the elite only.

More YouTube and Video Updates

Licensed healthcare professionals in the UK on YouTube, including doctors, nurses, psychologists and health organizations can now apply for their channel to have health product features. That adds a “from a licensed (doctor, etc)” banner and allows the channel’s videos to appear on health content shelves. Channels must be primarily focused on health information, and have either 2,000 hours watch time in the past year or 5 million valid Shorts views in the past 90 days.

YouTube expanded their Shopping Affiliate Program to eligible US-based creators with a channel with at least 20,000 subscribers. This lets the creator tag products from different retailers and brands in their videos. See the overview and eligibility information.

Facebook has new tools for creating Reels. The Professional Dashboard now has an “Inspiration Hub” that highlights popular Reels, topics, hashtags and music. You can use one of the trending Templates to create your video in the new and improved mobile Reel editor. Also coming soon is an improved Clips to Reels editor that will help automatically select high quality clips from Live videos to turn into Reels.

Web Publishing Updates

If you have videos embedded on your website or blog, Google is now providing more detailed information about why videos are not indexed in a new Search Console report. Videos need to be at least 140 pixels wide, but less than 1080 pixels tall. The video also needs to be completely seen when the page loads.

An article in The Verge profiled small online shop owners who feel they need to use big blobs of AI-written text to rank their products in Google Search. Google felt the need to Tweet a reminder to “create your content for people, not robots”.

There is a new form to let you report a “spammy, deceptive or low quality web page” in Google Search Console.

Social Media Updates

Facebook is expanding monetization options to more creators and Pages. They have reduced the eligibility requirements for partnership ads, which lets Creators who use Pages to allow brand partners to run ads from their Page.They are also inviting more creators to their Performance bonus program (for popular posts), lowering eligibility requirements to earn from fan Stars, and soon some creators will be able to monetize Reels with licensed music.


Twitter CEO Elon Musk says that “in a few weeks” Twitter will start paying creators for ads in replies to their Tweets. You must have a verified account to qualify, and only ads served to other verified accounts count. Musk claims there is a $5 million revenue pool that will be split accordingly. Andrew Hutchinson at Social Media Today points out it’s likely to incentivize posting content that gets people angry, arguing and commenting. Good times. (It’s unclear how this relates to the ad revenue sharing that was supposedly “starting today” in February.)

In related news, researchers have also found that ads are running on Twitter next to neo-Nazi content posted by verified accounts. Advertisers include major brands like Disney, Microsoft and Adobe. Both the head of Trust & Safety and the head of Brand Safety were fired a few weeks ago, which may be part of the problem. But it’s not clear how brands will feel about their ads showing next to content designed to rile people up in order to earn a few dollars or to spread hate and misinformation.

Group DMs on Twitter can now include up to 100 people.

According to Matt Navarra LinkedIn is killing the new style post carousel (but not the pdf carousel), profile video, and link stickers for images and video.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman talked to The Verge about the protest blackout of many subreddits over the past week. It reads pretty defensive, and he doesn’t seem to acknowledge the value of third party developers, moderators (who he referred to as being like “landed gentry” in another interview) and power users who are using the third party apps. And there’s no indication that he appreciates that “their” (Reddit’s) content is posted by users for free.

Huffman is also apparently inspired by Twitter CEO Musk’s cost cutting measures, especially laying off the staff.

Instagram is expanding broadcast channels globally. Broadcast channels let a creator post short text messages, polls and voice notes to their followers. Instagram is working on question prompts, a dedicated Broadcasts tab in your Instagram inbox and collaboration tools.

And More

Adobe Express looks like it is taking on Canva. The latest version (in beta) of the free web-based editor lets you design images, create TikToks and Reels, and more using “tons of templates” and the integrated Adobe Firefly AI tool. Join the free beta.

Google Docs has improved table placement, and has improved the import and export of Microsoft Word documents with tables.

You can now add third party smart chips in Google Docs. To use this, you need to install the smart chip add on for the third party. Current third parties are Miro, Atlassian, and Whimsical.

Google Meet now has live automated captioning for more languages, adding French Canadian, Indonesian, Polish, Romanian, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese, in addition to the other 13 languages supported by Meet. There are also more automated translation options for Google Workspace customers.

Microsoft Teams also improved their live captioning, with the option to scroll up through the previous minute of captions, and the option to customize the caption font size, font color and caption block height.


That’s all the updates for this week. Subscribe to get the Weekly Update in your email inbox or favorite feed reader every week. Miss last week’s update? Get the June 10 edition here.


Header image background: Blue paint from Canva. Free for commercial use.