Here's a quick look back at my 2024, with a few stats, this year's top
tutorials and achievements.
Note: You can find my post about Creator Trends in 2024 here.
Milestones
- Creator Weekly blog and newsletter turn 10 on January 5, 2025.
- Creator Weekly Live on YouTube turned one in April.
- I started using Blogger 20 years ago!
- I reflected on my social media 5 years after the demise of Google+.
And yes, that makes me feel old.
Thank you for reading, watching, commenting and chatting!
A special thank you to my regular readers and viewers. It means a lot to me,
and I appreciate every comment and tip.
Newsletter Readers
A special shout-out to my top 25 subscribers who opened up more than 92% of my emails. I assume you are reading this, so thank you! Having regular readers makes writing worthwhile.
Some of you reached out by email and I appreciate that too!
Blog Commenters
Constructive comments, observations and questions are always welcome. Thank
you to my top blog commenters this year!
Adam
Craig Long
Diana Studer
İsmail Şevik
Sam Nordberg
Livestream Chatters
It’s great to go live knowing that I’m not alone. Those of you who show up every week are the best.
Thank you all for participating in the live chat!
Andrew Hatchett
Braylen Avy
Brigitte Uras
Craig Long
Jolyn Bowler
Ileane Smith
İsmail Şevik
Mark Barrus
Nina Trankova
One of the big changes I made this year is that I’ve moved from X/Twitter, where I haven’t been very active for over a year, to Threads and Bluesky.
The truth is that I hadn’t really enjoyed X/Twitter for a while, and mostly dropping it has been nice. I do share my blog post and live stream links there, but the views and clicks are almost zero. Not surprising when X has explicitly said that posts with links are deprioritized and posts by paid subscribers (which I’m not) get boosted.
Threads has a more corporate vibe, and its connection to Instagram means you can find many brands and influencers there. There’s also a lot of engagement bait, but you can indicate you’re not interested in those posts to clean up your “For You” feed. And you can choose to use your Following feed or create custom feeds.
Bluesky has a bit more rough-and-tumble feel, especially as it’s still rapidly growing. It’s got a large community of scientists (as opposed to science communicators) and writers, which I find interesting. You can use the unofficial Starter Pack directory to find communities to follow.
In any case, I’m posting news and updates, along with some personal posts, on both platforms. If you are on either, let's connect!
Me on Bluesky.
Adam
Craig Long
Diana Studer
İsmail Şevik
Sam Nordberg
Livestream Chatters
It’s great to go live knowing that I’m not alone. Those of you who show up every week are the best.
Thank you all for participating in the live chat!
Andrew Hatchett
Braylen Avy
Brigitte Uras
Craig Long
Jolyn Bowler
Ileane Smith
İsmail Şevik
Mark Barrus
Nina Trankova
Social Media
The truth is that I hadn’t really enjoyed X/Twitter for a while, and mostly dropping it has been nice. I do share my blog post and live stream links there, but the views and clicks are almost zero. Not surprising when X has explicitly said that posts with links are deprioritized and posts by paid subscribers (which I’m not) get boosted.
Threads has a more corporate vibe, and its connection to Instagram means you can find many brands and influencers there. There’s also a lot of engagement bait, but you can indicate you’re not interested in those posts to clean up your “For You” feed. And you can choose to use your Following feed or create custom feeds.
Bluesky has a bit more rough-and-tumble feel, especially as it’s still rapidly growing. It’s got a large community of scientists (as opposed to science communicators) and writers, which I find interesting. You can use the unofficial Starter Pack directory to find communities to follow.
In any case, I’m posting news and updates, along with some personal posts, on both platforms. If you are on either, let's connect!
Me on Bluesky.
Me on Threads..png)
Most of this year’s updates were from YouTube, but I also covered news from other video and live streaming platforms (Twitch, TikTok, StreamYard, Vimeo), social media and the social web (Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn), and blogging and newsletter platforms (WordPress, Medium, Substack, Beehiiv, Tumblr).
I also shared updates from Google, Microsoft, Meta and more tech news from around the web.
If you are reading this on the web and want to get a copy in your email inbox every Saturday, sign up for the newsletter. And I’d be grateful if you share the link with anyone you think might be interested.
2024 Creator Weekly
The Creator Weekly newsletter started as a blog post in January 2015. I’ll
be celebrating its 10th anniversary next week, but I want to highlight this
year’s milestones.
- I published a newsletter (and blog post) every Saturday this year. This will be issue 52!
- My newsletter subscribers increased 20%. Yes, the numbers are pretty small. But I feel like that’s a positive direction.
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Most of this year’s updates were from YouTube, but I also covered news from other video and live streaming platforms (Twitch, TikTok, StreamYard, Vimeo), social media and the social web (Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn), and blogging and newsletter platforms (WordPress, Medium, Substack, Beehiiv, Tumblr).
I also shared updates from Google, Microsoft, Meta and more tech news from around the web.
If you are reading this on the web and want to get a copy in your email inbox every Saturday, sign up for the newsletter. And I’d be grateful if you share the link with anyone you think might be interested.
Creator Weekly Live 2024
Every Sunday at 10:30 AM Pacific time (6:30 PM UTC) I host a 30 minute live stream on YouTube to talk about the week’s updates. There are 51 episodes this year!
If you want to be sure you never miss an episode,
subscribe to my channel and add the
Creator Weekly episode playlist to your YouTube library.
This week’s episode (on December 29) will be an end-of-year celebration and recap. I hope you can join us!
Top Blog Tutorials
The top viewed tutorial this year was How to Customize your Blogger Profile, published in 2019.
And number two was my 2023 post on how to Find your end-of-year tax documents in your AdSense account. Especially impressive because almost all the views were (not surprisingly) between January and April 15th (US tax day).
My top two posts published this year:
My top video tutorials this year were all Shorts (not surprising, since I mostly published Shorts).
This week’s episode (on December 29) will be an end-of-year celebration and recap. I hope you can join us!
Tutorials and Tips
In addition to reporting the latest tech updates, I also shared tips and tutorials.Top Blog Tutorials
The top viewed tutorial this year was How to Customize your Blogger Profile, published in 2019.
And number two was my 2023 post on how to Find your end-of-year tax documents in your AdSense account. Especially impressive because almost all the views were (not surprisingly) between January and April 15th (US tax day).
My top two posts published this year:
- Long awaited, and still confusing: Google Meet and Duo will finally be fully integrated
-
And a popular YouTube update:
YouTube Achievement badges
My top video tutorials this year were all Shorts (not surprising, since I mostly published Shorts).
- YouTube Achievement Badges (the video that goes along with my blog post).
- Longer YouTube Shorts
- Disclose AI-generated content in your YouTube videos
- Opt in to allow 3rd party companies to train AI with your YouTube content
- And one that isn’t about YouTube: Add a cover image to Google Docs
OnEBoard
In addition to my newsletter and show, I'm also a member of OnEBoard.
We live stream every Sunday, immediately after the Creator Weekly Live show.
It alternates between Tech Topic 3 Tips in 10 minutes and OnEBoard Chat, which
is a deep dive discussion about online topics (we’ve covered video creation,
blogging, SEO, using AI tools, Google Workspace and more).
Subscribe to the
OnEBoard YouTube channel and
newsletter.
Michael Daniels had me on his always-interesting Tinkering with Tech show to
talk about recovering and securing a hijacked Google or YouTube account.
I have been posting a tech-related quiz on my YouTube channel every week since quizzes launched in July 2023. But for reasons unknown, they really took off in February this year.
If you want to work on your YouTube Quiz Whiz achievement badge (or just like quizzes), head over to my YouTube channel and test your knowledge.
This year’s most popular quiz questions:
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As most of you are probably aware, I am a
Google Product Expert for YouTube,
AdSense, Blogger, Google Meet and Chat, and other Google products.
This year’s regional meetup for Product Expert in North America was in Austin, Texas. There was good food and drink, music (of course!) and sessions where we learned more about Google products from the folks working on them.
I was deeply honored to receive the Positive Impact award with a very nice introduction from my friend and colleague Nina Trankova.
It was not just for helping people with their various YouTube issues and whatnot, but also having a positive impact on my fellow Product Experts.
Open the Short in the YouTube mobile app and tap the “Add Yours” sticker to share your own goal for 2025.
I do get set in my ways and very much rely on a routine. Being adaptable means changing my focus, if need be. Or creating more realistic goals.
I have several larger projects that have been put on the back burner (more than once) because I can’t seem to find the time to complete them. I think what I need to do is break them down into easier-to-complete smaller projects. We’ll see how that goes.
Again, thank you all for reading and watching!
I hope you have a fabulous New Year!
Elsewhere
What do you know?
I have been posting a tech-related quiz on my YouTube channel every week since quizzes launched in July 2023. But for reasons unknown, they really took off in February this year.
If you want to work on your YouTube Quiz Whiz achievement badge (or just like quizzes), head over to my YouTube channel and test your knowledge.
This year’s most popular quiz questions:
- Where can you find the Clips viewers created from your YouTube videos? (77% got this correct)
- How many creators are in the YouTube Partner program? (74% got this correct)
- How does YouTube’s new Hype feature work? (77% got this correct)
- What’s the current (January 2024) most popular streaming platform by hours watched of live broadcasts? (66% got this correct)
Positive Impact Award
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This year’s regional meetup for Product Expert in North America was in Austin, Texas. There was good food and drink, music (of course!) and sessions where we learned more about Google products from the folks working on them.
I was deeply honored to receive the Positive Impact award with a very nice introduction from my friend and colleague Nina Trankova.
It was not just for helping people with their various YouTube issues and whatnot, but also having a positive impact on my fellow Product Experts.
Goals for 2025
My main goal for 2025 is to better adapt to my life’s ever-changing circumstances.Open the Short in the YouTube mobile app and tap the “Add Yours” sticker to share your own goal for 2025.
I do get set in my ways and very much rely on a routine. Being adaptable means changing my focus, if need be. Or creating more realistic goals.
I have several larger projects that have been put on the back burner (more than once) because I can’t seem to find the time to complete them. I think what I need to do is break them down into easier-to-complete smaller projects. We’ll see how that goes.
Again, thank you all for reading and watching!
I hope you have a fabulous New Year!
This is a very nice article. I always feel sad when I read things about the past. I miss YouTube before Shorts, Instagram before Reels, Twitter before Musk.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the mention. It's been a pleasure to be one of your followers.
ReplyDeleteGlad for the mention. Of course while I'm not an email subscriber of yours, I do read every post by RSS, so your actual readership may be quite a bit higher than those stats reveal. That's always been one of the key barriers to adoption of RSS I think; most sites prefer Social Media for the stats that just aren't often available via RSS.
ReplyDelete