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Creator Weekly: YouTube DMs, Instagram Grid, Spotify Podcast Plays

Hello dear readers, this week the World Cup tournament begins, with features for fans and creators. Plus there are creator updates for YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and more.

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Top Updates

  • There are World Cup features and content for creators and fans.
  • Apple Podcasts will get better support for video podcasts on Macs and tvOS, editing with Apple Intelligence in Photos features, and more from WWDC 2026. 
  • YouTube DMs have expanded to the US, Brazil and more countries.
  • The YouTube Creator Responsibility Policy now prohibits using YouTube’s tools to create content that harms others (including spam).
  • The YouTube Remix button has moved. 
  • YouTube’s portrait mode mobile player has been simplified.
  • You can now view non-music YouTube Shorts in picture-in-picture mode.
  • Spotify has redefined a podcast “play” to require watching or listening for at least 30 seconds. 
  • Spotify for Creators also added new analytics data and graphs. 
  • Restream now lets you automatically publish Live Clips as you stream. And you can now livestream to Patreon directly. 
  • The Edits video editing app lets you try Beta features, and will soon have a desktop version.
  • AdSense expanded PayPal Hyperwallet payments in Latin America and the Caribbean.
  • Google Search Central posted guidance on hiring an SEO and using 3rd party SEO tools. 
  • Canva has new integrations with Google Gemini.
  • NotebookLM can now help you research and output information in more formats.
  • Instagram lets you reorder your profile image grid.
  • Instagram “Your Algorithm” is coming to the main feed, and Adam Mosseri explained why top down algorithmic feeds make people feel bad.
  • Bluesky now lets you attach up to 10 photos to a post, create Group Chats with up to 50 people and share your profile with a QR code. 
  • LinkedIn added a Creator Marketplace to connect Creators with Brands (now in Alpha).

World Cup For Creators and Fans

This week starts the World Cup, the biggest sporting event in the world. 

Here in the Bay Area, it feels like there hasn’t been that much ado about the matches being played locally. The Australian team has been welcomed as they make Oakland their home base, and there are local watch parties, but people don’t want to pay big prices to attend matches for low ranked teams.

It will be interesting to see if excitement builds over time.

Of course this is going to be a Creator and fan bonanza, both for big names, and anyone else who wants to join in. 

Apple WWDC 2026

This week Apple announced their latest features and tools at their annual World Wide Developers Conference. I’m going to list a few highlights, but you can get a more comprehensive overview here.
  • Apple Podcasts in tvOS gets a redesign with “video podcast playback, a new sidebar navigation …, and support for the podcast creators’ episode and show artwork. 
  • Apple Podcasts on the Mac have an improved video podcast experience, including picture-in-picture support (coming this fall).
  • Apple Podcasts are adding a new “search within show” option to find episodes faster.
  • iCloud Shared Albums are getting a number of improvements including new collaborative temporary albums, support for more file types, full resolution sharing and the ability for even non-Apple users to participate.
  • Siri AI and Apple Intelligence is integrated across the Apple ecosystem from the new Image Playground to communications in Mail and Messages to answering questions and more. These are powered by Apple Foundation Models, which are “custom-built in collaboration with Google and its Gemini models”.
  • The Photos app has new AI editing features, including Spatial Reframing (to change perspective), Extend (to expand images), and improved Clean Up (to remove objects).
  • Image Playground now lets you generate high-quality photorealistic images (rather than cartoons). You can use it to create Lock Screen wallpapers, Contact Posters or share the images.
  • You can have Safari monitor web pages for changes.

Apple also made a big point to explain that European users will have delayed access to the new Siri AI, due to the Digital Markets Act.

YouTube and Video

YouTube DMs have expanded outside Europe, and are now available in the US, Brazil and several other countries. There's also a new messaging icon to make it easier to manage your conversations. This is designed for sharing videos with friends and family, rather than for Creators to communicate with fans.

  • You can only invite people to chat with a link shared on a 3rd party platform. No inviting channel names or handles. 
  • You must be 18 (and possibly verify your age).
  • In the mobile YouTube app only.

YouTube updated its Creator Responsibility policy to add that “using YouTube’s features, tools, or services to create new or modified content that harms or is intended to harm others is considered a serious violation.” This includes creating spam and covers both on- and off-platform behavior. Violations  can result in loss of access to YouTube features or monetization being disabled. The Creator Responsibility policy was introduced in February 2018 as part of the fallout of the Logan Paul incident.

The Remix button under YouTube videos is now in the Share menu (rather than being a separate button). This is available in the YouTube mobile app, and opens the Shorts editor.

YouTube simplified the mobile player in portrait mode. Watch to learn more.

  • Like, dislike, share and ask have new icons.
  • The Like count moved from the like button to below the video title (next to the channel name).
  • The horizontal scrolling list of action buttons is replaced with a 3 dot menu icon (including Save, Download and Report options). 
  • No changes for landscape, desktop or TV.

Picture-in-picture viewing for YouTube non-music Shorts is now expanding to everyone globally. YouTube Premium subscribers can access picture-in-picture music content.

YouTube ended the Shopping tags in posts experiment. You can no longer tag products, and as of July 3rd viewers will no longer see existing product tags.

Spotify has updated their definition of a “Play” for podcasts, and now will count the number of times a podcast was watched or listened to for at least 30 seconds. This is the Alliance for Measurement in Podcasting (AMP) Measurement definition. How does this align with other platforms?  Apple reportedly counts every play longer than 0 seconds. YouTube counts a a TrueView ad view after 30 seconds, and it’s assumed that long form video views are counted the same way (although YouTube just says they count “legitimate views”, without any timeframe).

Spotify for Creators has also added new data and graphs to help Creators understand their podcast analytics. 

  • Audience segments: New or returning fans.
  • Trends: Compare your latest episode to the rest of your episodes.
  • Engagement: Insights on comments, followers, audience retention. 
  • Full history available in your Analytics overview. 
  • Jump from homepage overviews directly to in depth charts.
  • Discovery Journey: How your show reaches new audiences on Spotify, including impressions, plays and episode completion. And which episodes drive your growth.

Restream now lets you automatically publish Live Clips as they are created (and while you are still streaming). You can choose which channels (platforms) clips post to, set a minimum “virality” score (so only the best clips post) and add preset captions. This requires a Live Clipping subscription, which includes 250 clips for $59 per month (spendy!).  Learn more about Clips. 

You can also use Restream to live stream to Patreon directly. You can choose the visibility, including limiting to Patreon paid tiers.

StreamYard now lets you easily download your chat after the livestream ends.

Streamlabs now shows Twitch Power-Up alerts.

The Edits video editing app has more new features: 

  • Search for specific topics in the Inspiration tab to find the right template (like “Birthday”)
  • 15 new in and out animation effects (iOS only)
  • Create multiple project versions. 
  • Snap and align elements to each other for precision editing. 
  • The Beta tab in your settings lets you try new features before they launch. 
  • And Edits AI Assistant and Desktop version is coming soon.

Web Publishers

The new Desktop Mode plugin for WordPress (by Automattic) creates a “desktop-style workspace” for admins. You’ll see a dock on the side, windows and all your content and plugins. Like a computer desktop, but inside your WordPress account.

AdSense publishers in Latin America and the Caribbean can now choose PayPal Hyperwallet as their payment method. This was already available in the US, China and Argentina. Follow the link for the full list of supported countries. Once Hyperwallet is set up, you can choose to get a payout to PayPal, and other options.

Google Search Central posted a new document: Google Search's Guidance on Third-Party SEO Tools & Advice. Their take away message: “Some third-party services provide data that some users of those tools misinterpret as somehow being from Google. Third-party tools don't have access to our internal ranking data. They can't guarantee performance. Any predictions are their own and like predictions generally, may not happen.”

Google Search Central also posted: Do You Need an SEO? Tips for Hiring an SEO. It has helpful questions to ask when hiring someone, and what to be wary of.

From Sparktoro: In 2026, Less than One Third of Google Searches Still Send a Click. In 2019 49% of Google Searches ended without a click, but now zero-click searches are up to 68%. Dire for websites. The advice is that your website is still important, if you want to appear in search, but also,  “Learn how to storytell, entice, promote, and educate in short-form content: video, audio, images, and text that can live on the walled gardens that dominate our online experiences.”

Canva and Gemini

Canva has integrations with Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini and Perplexity. What this means is that you can generate designs referencing your Canva Brand Kit, search and summarize your Canva Content, edit text and images through prompts and resize designs.

Canva’s Magic Layers, which turns a flat image into editable layered objects and text, is now available to all users in Google Gemini and Open AI ChatGPT. All you need to do is connect Canva in the Gemini or ChatGPT settings, or prompt @canva. Learn more.

For Gemini, you need to be sure to be using a personal Google Account and have Keep Activity turned on. You also need a Canva account. Canva is only available at gemini.google.com and in the Gemini mobile app.

AI Tools

Google’s NotebookLM is getting a number of updates: 

  • Gemini 3.5 and Antigravity, with deeper research and more complex analysis. 
  • More output formats, including PDF reports, data visualization charts, structured data (csv, json), Excel and Powerpoint files and more.
  • It can now help guide building your source repository in the chat.

Google Gemini 3.5 Live Translate is Google’s new audio translation model, with “near real-time speech-to-speech translation in over 70 languages”. This will be available in the Google Translate mobile app and Google Meet (for Enterprise).

Social Media

You can now reorder your Instagram profile image grid. Changes are saved immediately and shown to your profile visitors. As Instagram says “first impressions matter”, and this makes it easy to make sure your best, most interesting, or most important images are seen first. And if you have a vision for the way your profile should look, you no longer have to carefully upload images in the desired order.

The Instagram Plus subscription is now available, with “fun little extra features”, meant for everybody, “not just professionals”.

  • Extend Stories from 24 to 48 hours.
  • See how many times your Story was rewatched.
  • Search your Story viewer list.
  • Preview someone else's Story by long pressing.

“Your Algorithm” is coming to the main Instagram feed (rather than just Reels and Explore). Instagram head Adam Mosseri shared some thoughts about the bad feelings caused by the shift to a purely algorithmic feed.
“Who you follow used to be a meaningful tool for shaping your experience. As recommendations took over the main feed, that tool quietly stopped working.” and “I think this loss of agency is part of what people feel when they feel uneasy about social media - not the content itself, but the sense that the experience is happening to them rather than being shaped by them.”
Picking the Instagram topics you prefer in your feed are supposed to make this better, and Instagram is “actively working on supporting requests for people, different moods or vibes, content types, and more.” See How to “Tune your algorithm” in the Android or iOS mobile app.

You can now attach up to 10 photos in a Bluesky post. They also redesigned the carousel so that it only appears if there are at least 5 photos. 

Bluesky added Group Chats, with up to 50 people. You can add people using a link. This is a step they are taking towards enabling Communities on the platform.

Bluesky also now lets you share your profile using a QR code. Click the Share button on your profile in the mobile app to get yours.

As I posted last week, video comments are now available on Reddit. It should be interesting.

Discord added a new “You Bar” to simplify navigation in the mobile app. It also helps you jump directly to your notifications, profile and settings.

Discord now end-to-end encrypts all voice and video calls (outside of stage channels).

LinkedIn has launched a Creator Marketplace that lets Brands connect with Creators. Eligible Creators will be able to sign up via a new Monetization tab, and create their profile showcasing handpicked content, choosing how Brands can contact them, and evaluate Brand requests.. This is currently in alpha, featuring select Brands and Creators in North America, in English.

Interesting Reading

404 Media: Chatbots Keep Telling Stories About Lighthouse Keeper 'Elias Thorne'. We Might Know Why. 

TechCrunch: Bending Spoons is going public. Bending Spoons has made more than 50 acquisitions, including AOL, Eventbrite, Vimeo, WeTransfer, Evernote, Brightcove, Filmic Pro and StreamYard. Its business model is to acquire struggling businesses, fire the original staff, then increase prices. It will IPO in the US this summer. A former StreamYard team member says, “Every platform they acquire is maintained just enough to keep the revenue flowing. They’re not innovators, they're private equity with a motivated tech team.”

Thanks for Reading! 🌼

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