Creator Weekly: YouTube Shopping + Amazon, Instagram Reels Drafts, Firefly Music

Hello readers! This week there are updates for YouTube, Instagram Bluesky, Substack, Google Search, Firefly, Gemini and more.

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Top Updates

Creators monetizing with YouTube Shopping in the US can now tag Amazon products.
Instagram can now create a “first draft” of a Reel from your video clips.
Meta settled a huge lawsuit, will pay $18B, and had to add new teen safety features. They are strongly requesting YouTube and Twitch implement the same.
YouTube is rolling out a “Get Feedback” button to review your Shorts drafts.
YouTube is testing creating multiple custom feeds, and having those replace the topic chips on the mobile app Home screen.
Bluesky now lets you upload videos up to 10 minutes long.
Bluesky lets you hide your posts from Discover.
Threads is testing a new embedded podcast format that shows animated synced captions.
Substack has a new Creator Match feature to help connect with collaborators.
Substack lets you target your publication specific subscribers using tags and segments.
Patreon published their roadmap, including improvements for small creators.
Google Search will no longer apply manual actions under their site reputation policy in the European Economic Area.
WordPress(dot)com has a new ChatGPT plugin that lets ou manage your site from ChatGPT.
Adobe Firefly can generate universally licensed music for your video. And sound effects!
Plus updates for Gemini Omni, Gemini Notebook, Google Flow, Adobe Photoshop and more.

YouTube Shopping + Amazon

YouTube Creators in the YouTube Partner Program can now tag products from Amazon. Note that this does not include all Amazon products, but rather a “curated catalog of highly requested and trending products.”

Eligibility requirements:

U.S. Creators
YouTube Partner Program with the YouTube Shopping affiliate program.
Not available if your channel is Made for Kids or a music channel.
Active account in the Amazon Influencer Program (AIP) or Amazon Associates Program (AAP).

You must connect your YouTube channel to your AIP or AAP account, starting from your Amazon Storefront.

How it works:

If a viewer clicks a tagged Amazon product, the Amazon mobile app or website opens. You can earn if the person then purchases something.
Viewers outside the US may see the tags and be directed to a local merchant, local Amazon storefront, or the US Amazon storefront.
Earnings are paid through your AdSense for YouTube account, along with your other YouTube Shopping revenue. There is a longer lag than ad revenue, so, for example, earnings from January get paid out in March.
If you have auto-tagging enabled, your recent uploads will be reviewed to tag eligible Amazon products.
You only see aggregated Analytics. That means you see your daily earnings, but no breakdowns by product or video.

Instagram First Draft for Reels

Instagram has a new tool that creates a “First Draft” of your video, to jump-start your creative process.

Select clips and tap the First Draft button to create an editable draft.
You can reorder, remove, or adjust the clips in the draft.
Automatically trims pauses and silences in talking videos.
Start from the Reels gallery or the Instagram camera.
Currently iOS only.

Meta Settles Lawsuit & Announces Teen Protections

Meta settled a lawsuit filed by a coalition of 29 US state Attorneys General by paying $18 billion (with a B) that can fund youth online safety initiatives.

The suit claimed that Meta “designed and deployed harmful features on Instagram and Facebook that drive compulsive use by children and teens to their mental and physical detriment, all the while misleading users, their families, and the public regarding the existence and severity of these risks.”

Part of the settlement requires Meta to implement new teen protections on Facebook and Instagram.

Default 2 hour daily time limit
Apps blocked between midnight and 6AM
Notifications muted during school hours (8AM and 3PM).
Prompts to review activity every 15 minutes and after 60 minutes and 90 minutes of activity.
Option to set a non-algorithmic feed as the default, and turn off autoplay.
Teens won’t see the number of likes and reactions on posts.
Easier to report harmful content, with the requirement that Meta respond to 90% of reports within 6 hours.
Cosmetic surgery and extreme makeup filters blocked.
Improved technology for age detection.
Improved systems to ensure age-appropriate content.
Continue existing practices to default teens to private accounts, prevent contact from suspicious adults, and strengthen parental controls.

Meta is also prohibited from making “false, misleading or deceptive statements” about its safety features. We’ll see how that goes.

Meta is positioning itself as setting the industry standard, despite the information that was revealed during the suit that the company took intentional steps to ignore issues regarding teen safety.

They are aggressively calling on TikTok and YouTube to implement the same measures. Not surprisingly, neither platform has responded.

And unless these limits are implemented truly industry-wide, teens will just go elsewhere. Maybe this is a win for Twitch?

How will this affect creators?

Beyond how the new limitations affect teen creators, any creator with a teen audience may see lower views and engagement.

There will likely be more intrusive age verification measures, which can affect everyone.

And the requirements to reply to teen reports within 6 hours will almost certainly mean more automated content reviews.

YouTube and Video

A new “Get Feedback” tool gives you insights into your YouTube Shorts before you publish. Upload an unlisted draft of your Short (uploaded on mobile), then click the Get Feedback button for feedback on the hook, pacing and structure. This is being tested as VibeCheck in YouTube Labs (join here to test experimental features).

YouTube is experimenting with new features for Custom Feeds. Custom Feeds let you use a prompt to create a feed from the button at the top of your Home feed. There is a new option to create multiple custom feeds (mobile, US, English, History on). And in the mobile app, the topic chips are replaced by the Custom Feeds. If you try it, send feedback.

Bluesky now supports longer videos. Publish videos up to 10 minutes long (previously 3 minutes), and up to 300MB. Click the link for a thread highlighting neat videos.

TikTok launched a Substack newsletter to highlight TikTok LIVE creators.

Web Publishing

Substack Creator Match is a new feature that helps you find other creators with a similar audience size and similar interests to potentially collab with.

Personalize your Substack publication:

Assign tags to your subscribers, and you can now target posts to subscribers in a specific segment or with a particular tag.
Posts (written, podcast or video) can have content blocks personalized by subscription status (free, paid or founding).
Comments can be limited to subscribers (paid, or both free and paid)

Patreon published their roadmap. They are working on improved discovery for smaller creators and new features for everyone.

Niches are topic-based community spaces for multiple creators and fans.
Discovery is shifting from finding similar creators (which favors big creators) to similar content.
They are working to get more fans onto Patreon (they are still figuring this out).
Video features: Clips from videos, suggested previews of videos, improved video playback and casting, 18+ video.
Live streaming features: easier Live scheduling, Live Q&A, Live practice mode
Improved payment and analytics features
Other features: Quip quotes (a Quip is like a Tweet), Fan profiles, add images to comments, unlock header image in paid posts (so everyone can see it), paid posts in the Home feed.

Google Search will handle manual action under the site reputation policy differently in Europe (the EEA). This policy addresses the practice where 3rd party content is published on a trusted site, using that site’s good reputation to rank better in search. Outside the EEA, if a manual action is applied to a site under this policy, it will affect that portion of the site ranking in Search. In the EEA, the manual action won’t apply, but Google may treat that portion of the site separately so that it may eventually rank differently.

WordPress(dot)com (the paid WordPress hosting site, not the free software) has a new ChatGPT plugin. That lets you use ChatGPT to manage your blog (such as scheduling a post), check stats and comments, and update your site (such as adding pages).

Social Media

Bluesky now lets you hide your posts from non-followers in Discover, because “not everyone wants to go viral.”

Threads is testing a new feature that adds an animated transcript above a shared podcast.

This week in the Fediverse: Flipboard acquires Graze, the feed builder working to monetize the open social web

Tools

Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) is changing the way usage limits work. Usage limits will factor in prompt complexity, chat length, the number of sources and features you use. Limits refresh every 5 hours, and if you reach your limit, you can defer outputs like Video Overviews until later.

Google Flow updates via Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash: more control over start and end frames (to keep the characters and narrative consistent), export video in 1080p or 4K resolution, and you can draft videos at 360p (faster, fewer credits required). Flow is Google’s AI-powered movie-making platform. Learn more about Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash.

Adobe Firefly has new audio features: Generate Music matching your video mood (and you don’t have to worry about music licenses), Generate Speech (with the option to use ElevenLabs) for voiceovers, and Generate Sound Effects. Gemini Omni Flash has been added as a 3rd party model option. And there are improvements to AI Assistant (still in beta).

Adobe Photoshop also has a number of updates. Too many to list here, but if you are a Photoshop user you should check it out.

Google Calendar is making it easier to join 3rd party video meetings (Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Cisco Webex) from a Calendar event. It automatically turns meeting links and passcodes into a “Join meeting” link.

Google Workspace Chat Space owners and managers can control who can view the Space member list.

Peggy K's Creator News

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