Jaron Lanier: We Need AI Regulation and Data Provenance (ASAP)
Adrian Pennington
TL;DR
Tech guru and Microsoft scientist Jaron Lanier adds his voice to those calling for regulation of AI.
He says all data should have its provenance tracked to ensure integrity, reward where reward is due, and to curb deepfakes.
Lanier thinks more executives in Big Tech companies (like him) should speak more freely and be prepared to criticize in order to build a better business and a better society.
Tech guru Jaron Lanier has added his voice to those calling for regulation in AI, arguing that it is in the best interest of society — and that of Big Tech.
As part of that regulation, Lanier, who now works at Microsoft, also argues for all data used by AI models to have its origin and ownership declared, to counter the threat from misinformation and deepfakes.
“All of us, Microsoft, Open AI, everybody in AI of any scale is and saying, we do want to be regulated. [AI] is a place where regulation makes sense,” Lanier told Bloomberg’s AI IRL videocast. “We want to be regulated because everybody can see [that AI] could be like the troubles of social media, times a thousand. We want to be regulated. We don’t want to mess up society. We depend on society for our business. You know, markets are fast and creative. And you don’t get that without a stable layer created by regulation.”
Speaking to the idea of “data dignity,” Lanier explained that this is the notion that creators should be compensated, especially if their data is being used to train algorithms.
Provenance
“In order to do it, we have to calculate and present the provenance of which human sources were the most important to give an AI output. We don’t currently do that. We can though. We can do it efficiently and effectively,” Lanier says. “It’s just that we’re not yet. And it has to be a societal decision to shift to doing that.”
He admits to being “scared” of the potential for misinformation caused by unregulated AI use interfering with politics but feels the answer to deep fakes is provenance. “If you know where data came from, you no longer worry about deep fakes. The provenance system has to be robust.”
Lanier’s Role
Lanier’s bizarre title at Microsoft is “Prime Unifying Scientist,” something he admitted was a humorous attempt to encompass everything he does, like an octopus.
“I have come to resemble one, or so my students tell me, and I’m also very interested in their neurology. They have amazing nervous systems. So we thought it would be an appropriate title.”
However, this gives him something of a free-roaming role both inside and outside the company. He was at pains to point out that he was not speaking here in an official Microsoft capacity.
In fact, Lanier has become a fierce critic of the industry he helped build, but he wants to challenge it to do better from within.
“To be an optimist, you have to have the courage to be a fearsome critic. It’s the critic who believes things can be better. The critic is the true optimist, even if they don’t like to admit it. The critic is the one who says this can be better.”
Open Source Concerns
For example, he doesn’t think the open source model for AI or Web3 makes any sense. He poured scorn on the idea that open source would democratize and decentralize the internet and its reward system.
“I think the open source idea comes from a really good place and that people who believe in it, believe that it makes things more open and democratic, and honest and safe. The problem with it is this idea that opening things leads to decentralization is just mathematically false. Instead of decentralization, you end up with hyper-centralization and monopoly. And then that hub is incentivized to keep certain things very secret and proprietary, like its algorithms.”
Instead, he advocates for a market economy, in which people and businesses pay to use technology, like AI. He hints that doing so would fund data provenance and retain data integrity.
Lanier says he doesn’t agree with the founder of OpenAI, Sam Altman, on everything, including his notion of a universal cryptocurrency: “I think that some criminal organization will take that over, no matter how robust he tries to make it.”
The Benefits of Speaking Up
He says being able to criticize from within Big Tech is actually beneficial for Microsoft’s own business.
“I’ve tried to create a proof of that, where I can say things that are not official Microsoft. Look, I spend all day working on making Microsoft stuff better. And I really am proud that people want to buy our stuff and want to buy our stock. I like our customers. I like working with them. I like the idea of making something that somebody likes enough to pay you money for it. That to me is the market economy.”
Lanier wants to persuade colleagues at Meta and Google to speak their minds more, too.
“If the other tech companies had a little bit of [free] speech in it might actually be healthy for them. I think it would actually improve the business performance of companies like Google and Meta. You know, they’re notoriously closed off. They don’t have people who speak, and I think they suffer for that, [even if] you might not think so because they are they’re big successful companies. I really think they could do more.”
He says there are four or five other execs at Microsoft with public careers outside the company who speak their mind.
“I think it’s been a successful model. Do I agree with absolutely everything that happens in Microsoft? Of course not. I mean, listen, it’s as big as a country, you know.”
How Influencer-Generated Content Has Become Core to Brand Strategies
TL;DR
In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, the creator economy has emerged as a powerful force, reshaping the way brands connect withconsumers.
An overwhelming majority of brands are using creator-generated content for channels beyond social media, highlighting its versatility and reach, a new survey finds.
The terms “creator” and “influencer” tend to be used interchangeably, but marketers are applying different metrics to judge the performance of each.
Influencer-generated content is now core to brand strategies, with marketers increasingly savvy about the differences between creators and influencers and how to measure their performance.
A recent study conducted by creator marketing platform LTK underlines the profound impact of creator marketing, an industry now estimated at $21 billion globally.
Next year, worldwide, marketers are expected to spend more than $32 billion on influencer marketing. Influencer spend is now outpacing traditional ad investment, with 80% of brands saying they increased creator budgets in 2023, per the report.
Some 92% of brands plan to increase their spending on creators in 2024, and 36% plan to spend at least half of their entire digital marketing budget on creators.
Because of what LTK calls the “significant trust” creators have built with their communities, the majority of brands it surveyed said consumers are turning to creators the most compared to social media ads and celebrities.
An overwhelming majority of brands (98%) are using creator content for channels beyond just social media, highlighting its versatility and reach.
Indeed, when asked where their marketing dollars are shifting, creator marketing and connected TV shared the top position overall for investment growth, beating out channels like paid search and paid social.
Cr: LTK
Cr: LTK
Cr: LTK
The study also found that dollars are being moved from digital ads to creator marketing because the scale of creator marketing has proven to be more efficient when compared to side-by-side, all-cost measurement.
Marketers, however, are becoming more discerning about the difference between influencers and creators.
“As marketers have got more comfortable with the creator economy, influencers have become the go-to for performance marketing, while creators are considered more for branding purposes,” says Krystal Scanlon, writing at Digiday.
Marketers are feeling the pressure to be super transparent and efficient about their purchases and the reasons behind them. This means they’re getting specific about when it’s better to collaborate with an influencer versus a creator.
Lindsey Bott, senior content manager at Ruckus Marketing, told Scanlon, “Previously, influencer involvement might have organically emerged in ongoing discussions. Now, we’re seeing brands come to us more frequently with well-defined briefs or specific suggestions right from the outset.”
The days of pay-for-reach deals are long gone, it seems. In fact, influencers increasingly have specific metrics, such as engagement rate, CPM, CPE, clicks, click-through rate and conversions, tied to them.
For example, Bott’s team has observed clients gravitating toward influencers due to their established reach and engagement metrics, emphasizing performance-driven results.
Conversely, there’s a growing interest in creators who prioritize crafting genuine, narrative-based content that closely aligns with a brand’s values and campaign themes.
“They’re unbelievable storytellers who can really shape perception,” Keith Bendes, VP of strategy at Linqia, reports at Digiday.
Unlike influencers, creators usually don’t have the same set of metrics tied to them.
“Over time, as marketers understand how a specific creator’s content performs when repurposed on their social channels or paid media, they may start to benchmark specific benchmarks for that creator’s assets,” said Lindsey Gamble, associate director at influencer marketing platform Mavrck.
According to Scanlon, this shift underscores how brands are distinguishing between utilizing audience influence and cultivating content that profoundly connects with their intended audience.
“Creators have evolved into valuable assets for brands, capable of driving substantial business impact,” says Rodney Mason, VP and head of marketing at LTK, writes at Adweek. “As we move into 2024, creator marketing is fundamental shifting how brands engage with consumers. Those marketers who embrace the rise of creators will find themselves at the forefront of this transformative wave. The time to invest in creators and their unique ability to influence, engage and build trust with consumers is now.”
In a recent webinar, “The Next Wave of Creator Marketing: 2024 Forecast,” LTK’s director of strategy insights brand partnerships, Ally Anderson, shares more detail about how “creator guided shopping” is becoming the foundation for marketing efforts and now influencing consumers through all aspects of their discovery journey. Watch the full presentation in the video below:
Continued growth will be driven by marketing through short-form videos on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
November 26, 2023
Posted
November 24, 2023
What Comes Next for the Creator Economy? (Um, Apart from That $480 Billion)
TL;DR
A national poll identified 27 million people, or 14% of 16 to 54-year-olds, working as “influencers” in the US economy.
The creator economy could be a $480 billion industry by 2027 as it continues to grow a sizable business ecosystem around social media stars.
Yet traffic and wealth tends to be concentrated among a very few creators with less than 10% of full-timers earning a decent wage and the vast majority making less than $2,000 a year.
The latest innovation driving the creator economy forward is artificial intelligence.
While there is near universal agreement about the growing size and importance of the creator economy, estimates vary widely. For example: Citi estimates there are more than 120 million content creators generating $60 billion of revenue, a figure which it estimates is growing at about 10% per year.
Goldman Sachs research has a very different estimate, saying the total addressable market of the creator economy could roughly double in size over the next five years to $480 billion by 2027 from $250 billion today.
Meanwhile, it estimates there are presently 50 million global creators, growing at 10-20% per year — far less than Citi.
In a national poll of 5,854 Americans market researcher Keller identified 27 million people, or 14% of 16 to 54 year olds, working as “influencers” in the US economy.
However, there is consensus that growth has not stopped and will be driven by investment in influencer marketing and the rise of ad-revenue-share models, particularly in short-form video on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
As Goldman Sachs puts it, creators earn income primarily through direct branding deals to pitch products as an influencer; via a share of ad revenues with the host platform; and through subscriptions, donations and other forms of direct payment from followers. Brand deals are the main source of revenue at about 70%, according to its data.
eMarketer’s Insider Intelligence forecasts that in 2024, US influencer-marketing spend will hit $5.89 billion, and that its growth will “remain in the double digits through 2025.“
“The funds are not drying up anytime soon and we are seeing more and more people becoming creators,” Shannae Ingleton Smith, president and CEO of Kensington Grey Agency tells Amanda Perelli at Business Insider. “It’s a viable career space and in many cases pays more than the top tech jobs. Where the advertising dollars are, to me, is a great indication of sustainability.”
Since its inception in the mid-2000s the creator economy has also grown to encompass a range of professionals who work for creators. These range from managers to video editors, as well as tech execs who have built platforms and companies to help creators make money and build audiences.
She interviews Kate Lingua-Marina, a creator known by her handle @SiliconValleyGirl, who explains that she made my first video in 2014 while applying to universities in the United States. She decided to document her journey — and her views exploded to the point that she now has three YouTube channels and a vlogging channel.
“I used to film everything myself,” Lingua-Marina says. “These days I have videographers who helped me from time to time depending on the type of content that I’m creating. I have several editors to help me with editing. If someone helps me post on platforms. I have a manager who’s responsible for working with brands.”
But not everyone can be a MrBeast. In fact, no one should be mistaken that becoming an influencer is an easy way to make money.
Only about 4% of global creators are deemed professionals, meaning they pull in more than $100,000 a year, finds Goldman Sachs.
A recent survey of 689 creators by the influencer-marketing platform Mavrck found about 51% made less than $500 a month. In the survey, nearly a quarter of creators said they earned more than $2,000, and about 4% said they earned more than $10,000 per month.
Keller’s research concluded that 6% of Americans full-time creators and earn an average of $179,000 per year but that the average income is $93,000 per year. More than half of creators make less than $10,000 annually and a third only make $2,000.
“While the livelihood of the 11.6 million full-time creators (in the States) is a robust $179K/year, the total number of creators is larger than most estimates, likely based on the one third of them who earn less than 2K a year,” the researcher notes.
The creative economy is also facing mixed financial signals. After a flat 2022 YouTube ad revenues were up around 5% by the third quarter of 2023. Creators received just over half of the ad revenue generated on their channels. On the other hand, investment in the creative economy has dropped sharply with total funding for us startups fell 50% last year compared to 2021.
Revenue and funding going into platforms has decreased quite dramatically.
Criddle says, “One key problem for the creator economy is that creator traffic and wealth tends to be concentrated among the very few, such as MrBeast. Only 4% of creators are defined as professionals earning at least $100,000 a year.”
While the creative economy might be moving away from past explosive growth, there is evidence consumers remain willing to pay for quality content.
“The days of wild growth might be over or at least on hold but that’s not going to stop the millions of creators out there,” Criddle says. “There is enough demand, enough supply and now is the time when the focus should shift from quantity to quality.”
AI Comes To the Creator Economy
The latest innovation driving the creator economy forward is artificial intelligence.
This year, YouTube unveiled new AI tools and features aimed at simplifying content creation. According to Business Insider, the industry is betting on AI not to replace creators, but to increase productivity and bring more opportunities for people to make content.
Rising AI startups in the creator economy like Crate, an AI platform helping creators streamline the creative process, and Midjourney, an AI model that can generate images, are winning over investors.
Keller’s survey found half of Creators saying they want to start working with AI and that Virtual reality/augmented reality is #2 on their list of tech they’d like to engage with in the future.
In a recent survey of 2,000 influencers by membership platform Creator Now, 90% said they were using ChatGPT during the content creation process, and 31% said they were using Midjourney. The top reason cited for using AI was to increase the speed of content creation. AI tools can edit TikTok or YouTube videos in a fraction of the time it takes today.
“AI is a game changer,” says a creator speaking to the Financial Times. “The first time we used it was to create a script. I had to change some things, but it was right there in front of me in 60 seconds.
“If I create an AI version of myself, if AI create scripts, then my job is to decide which content goes out there and which topic my AI prototype is talking about. Good creators are becoming producers.”
The creator economy emerges as a powerful force in the digital marketing landscape, reshaping the way brands connect with consumers.
November 26, 2023
Posted
November 20, 2023
Gavin Guidry: How to Get Great Content From/With/By Creators
TL;DR
Gavin Guidry, creative director at Spotify, maintains there’s a “massive disconnect” between the mindset of a marketer and that of a creator and outlines what can be done to address this. Watch his full presentation above.
By putting creators in the driver’s seat, brands can create content that is unique and relevant and that cuts through to audiences.
The secret ingredient to all of this is community “because relevance comes through creating consistent impact.”
Brands can no longer just post content and hope that audiences on social media platforms will actually see it. They either need a massive spend, or they need to cross collaborate or pay to collaborate with a creator to actually get their content seen.
“Really what we’re seeing is a brand’s ability to impact audiences going down, while creators’ ability to impact audiences is steadily moving upwards,” says Gavin Guidry, creative director at Spotify. “That means the road to relevance must go through real people.”
In a video published on Vimeo titled “The Road to Relevant Video Content,” held as part of Vimeo’s Outside the Frame event, Guidry talks marketers through the ins and outs of a successful influencer collaboration. Guidry heads up Spotify’s podcasts, working with creators and brands to create content.
He claims there’s a “massive disconnect” between the mindset of a marketer and that of a creator.
From Gavin Guidry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”
From Gavin Guidry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”
What Creators Want to Make
A marketer cares about KPIs, ROI and brand perception, he says, but creators care about authenticity and connection to their community above all else. They don’t always know what marketers want, and marketers don’t always know what creators want.
“But when creators have a say in making content, you get content that’s authentic and connected to their community, and it can help you check your marketing boxes as well. Working with creators helps your brand actually build credibility.
“The good thing about working with creators from a fan perspective is that monetizing doesn’t feel like buying — it feels like supporting a creator that they love.”
Some 49% of consumers says they rely on influencer recommendations for their purchasing decisions.
“People trust people more than they do brands, and algorithms are responding to that. Hiring an influencer to create your video content is a winning strategy, but the collaboration can be fraught.”
From Gavin Guidry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”
Creating Impact
The secret to success is community “because relevance comes through creating consistent impact.”
Guidry insists, “It’s not about chasing cultural relevance; it’s about earning community relevance.”
He outlines three steps to create impact through community: get vulnerable; collaborate with influencers; use video.
Vulnerability is not a marketing metric, or a business tactic. It’s more of a soft skill, he explains. It’s about showing that your brand is human.
“When a brand doesn’t open themselves up, they don’t ask the community what they want, they just give them content without really asking. And that can end up exploiting a community. The goal is to ramp up your vulnerability by asking your audience, what they want.”
Guidry urges brands “to embrace risk” because getting vulnerable requires exposure to meaningful risks.
From Gavin Guidry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”
This will lead to better creator collaboration. It means going deeper than demographics to truly understand the creator’s audience.
“The term creator is really broad — they could be comedians, writers, hosts, musicians, even activists — but the thing that binds them all together is that they make content that nourishes audiences. So it’s important to know that creators have their own audience, their own style and their own motivation.”
For creators, their audience is “what they spend their blood, sweat and tears curating with their content. You don’t want to ask them to do anything that their audience will find unauthentic.”
Instead, seek to understand their audience and what you can offer them through this partnership.
Creator, Collaborator, Partner
Think about style — the way a creator talks or the way that they create for their audience. Don’t present a campaign that fits outside their style, but do seek their input on how their content comes to life through their unique lens.
Consider a creator’s motivation. Guidry says there’s a bit of a misconception with creators that it’s all about the money.
From Gavin Guidry’s presentation “The Road to Relevant Video Content”
“That couldn’t be further from the truth. Creators are probably more excited than you are to work with big brands. It’s like a feather in their cap. They’re able to say, ‘Hey look audience, I’m now able to work with these brands.'”
But don’t just seek a transactional deal with creators, Guidry advises. “Seek to build a long term relationship that creators can talk about with their audiences over time. Offer a mutually beneficial partnership that results in creators raising their profile through your partnership.”
Of course, you want to make sure you find a creator with the right niche and an engaged audience. You want to make sure that creator is an authentic user of your brand or product and that they have a strong style and POV.
“You also want to make sure that they’re professional, and that they have craft that can elevate your brand.
“Lastly, use video. Over 200 million people consider themselves as creators, and this means that your audience is just a resource of creativity waiting to be unlocked. You can use video and creative partnerships to do just that. It’s the best way to engage audiences with CTAs and educate in relevant ways.
“You get video that’s raw and real and shows your brand is human. And you get to sit back and let your videos woo a built-in audience.”
He sums up: “So if you didn’t hear anything else I said today, when you prioritize community and build authentic creator relationships, you can create relevant video content.”
Casey Neistat is most famous as a YouTuber, but that wasn’t his goal… his career “wasn’t an option” when he started creating videos.
November 12, 2023
Posted
November 12, 2023
Evan Shapiro: “What’s Next” for Media in the User-Centric Era — Part 2
Watch media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro’s keynote address, “What’s Next” at the 2023 NAB Show New York.
TL;DR
Evan Shapiro’s keynote address at NAB Show New York continues to dissect the user-centric era of media, focusing on the digital ad revolution and the essential “Rules of Gravity” for the M&E industry to successfully navigate the new landscape.
The streaming boom has led to a saturated market, and Shapiro highlights the challenges of subscription churn and the need for innovative business models to retain viewer engagement and ad revenue.
Shapiro’s analysis of industry data reveals a seismic shift in ad revenue, with digital and CTV ad spending projected to reach nearly $58 billion in 2023, challenging traditional TV’s market dominance.
The advertising paradigm is changing, with a significant portion of ad spend concentrated among a few tech giants and a move towards performance-based digital marketing, emphasizing the importance of ROMI and ROAS in media buying.
Shapiro concludes with his “7 Rules of Gravity,” advocating for integration, a symbiotic relationship between subscriptions and advertising, and the strategic importance of daily engagement, commerce, and diversity in leadership to thrive in the user-centric era.
Backed by new research and fresh market analysis, media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro’s keynote address at NAB Show New York charts a course for navigating the new user-centric era of media, where seismic shifts are rapidly reshaping the industry and the rate of change is constant.
Part 1 of NAB Amplify’s two-part report examines the profound transformation of the Media & Entertainment landscape, from evolving consumption habits to fulfilling consumers’ “Hierarchy of Feeds” as a strategy for thriving in the new era. Part 2 continues the exploration, delving into the digital ad revolution and the pivotal “Rules of Gravity” that can help companies redefine their business strategies.
Explore the key highlights detailed below, and gain full access to Shapiro’s insights by watching the keynote address in the video at the top of the page.
Streaming Ascendant: Growth and Challenges
The streaming sector is experiencing an unprecedented boom, reshaping the M&E landscape with its rapid growth and the challenges that accompany it. As streaming services proliferate, they face the dual challenge of saturating the market while striving to maintain and grow their subscriber bases.
The pandemic, Shapiro notes, served as a catalyst for an unprecedented surge in connected television (CTV) sales and subscriptions, leading to a scenario where “more people have more intelligent televisions than they’ve ever had in more rooms.” This proliferation of smart TVs has not only changed how consumers engage with content but has also raised the stakes for content providers to develop a comprehensive CTV strategy.
Contrary to the belief that younger audiences are averse to paying for content, Shapiro argues that they are discerning but willing to invest in premium experiences. The decision to pay hinges on content relevancy, the presence of exclusive originals, refresh rates, and the breadth of the content library. These factors are pivotal in attracting and retaining the younger demographic, who place a higher value on content quality and exclusivity than on cost.
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Shapiro emphasizes the consumer’s newfound power in the user-centric era, with the ability to fluidly navigate between various content offerings, including ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) and subscription-based video on demand (ASVOD), as well as video game platforms. This shift in consumption patterns demands a cohesive content delivery approach from providers.
One of the most pressing issues for streaming services is subscription churn. Shapiro sheds light on the industry’s churn rate, which has seen a significant increase. He explains that every four months, a quarter of all premium ASVOD subscriptions are canceled, a trend that reflects the consumers’ growing propensity for “serial churning” — a cycle of subscribing, binge-watching, and canceling.
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
“If people are churning out on this massive a basis on a regular month-to-month continuum, keeping the ad dollars in ecosystem is going to be difficult in and of itself. It’s not just a subscription problem; it is also an advertising problem.”
The solution, says Shapiro, is to change how streaming companies charge users for content. “They need to figure out ways that are different than just cancel or not cancel,” he counsels. “It doesn’t have to be a binary choice. What if, I don’t know, Pluto and Paramount+ were the same app? And that when you were done with Paramount, you stop paying but you’re still living inside the Paramount ecosystem, and they can still remarket to you? And instead of having to re-onboard the whole time over again, you just click back on for the paid [content]. What if you only pay when you watch, so you always are subscribed, but you’re only paying based on usage?”
Disregarding the need to change their business models will lead to failure, Shapiro admonishes. “Even Netflix is going to have a hard time over the next five years making their business work if they can’t grow their ad business,” he says. “And if they fall into this trap, their ad business will never work.”
Adapt or Perish: The New Metrics of Media Advertising
The advertising landscape within the media industry is undergoing a pivotal transformation, with digital platforms and Connected TV (CTV) rapidly ascending as the new titans of ad revenue. Shapiro’s analysis of the latest industry data highlights a critical juncture for media entities: evolve swiftly with new advertising trends or face decline.
“If you’re in the ad business It’s going to be an interesting time,” he says, explaining how the US just exited an 11-month decline in advertising but ad sales, while rising, still haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels.
Digital video and connected TV (CTV) platforms commanded an already impressive $41.1 billion in 2021, soaring to nearly $58 billion in 2023. This steep upward trend in digital ad revenue is reshaping the traditional advertising paradigm, Shapiro says. In 2021, traditional TV held a dominant 62% share of the advertising market, but has now contracted to just 51%. In contrast, the market share for digital video and CTV has ballooned from 38% in 2021 to an impressive 49%, signaling a near equalization with traditional TV’s market presence.
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Ad spend is indeed on the rise, says Shapiro, pointing to a recent Google earnings call that reported a 12.5% increase in revenue for YouTube, “but it is not being distributed proportionally across the ecosystem the way it was pre-lockdown,” he cautions, “and it never will be again. It’s going to the big platforms. And it’s going to the places where the ad buyers know that their dollars work.”
Media buyers, he says, are moving out of more traditional upfront deals “into much more performance-based digital marketing” like CTV and digital. Emphasizing that “the money is going to go where the money works,” he points out that a staggering 60% of all ad spend in the United States is funneled to just three companies.
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
One crucial point, Shapiro adds, is that consumers see creator-led social video as a quality equivalent to professionally-produced content. “More importantly, for your business, advertisers now see it the same way,” he says, easily moving ad budgets back and forth between these two ecosystems on a regular basis based on pricing performance and need case.
“As a provider of ad impressions [you] need to be able to demonstrate that their money isn’t being wasted when they spend it with you,” Shapiro advises, noting that more than half of advertisers, brands and agencies surveyed said return on media investment is the number one metric for determining media buys.
The key to thriving in this new advertising economy, Shapiro says, is understanding and leveraging the metrics that matter. Return on media investment (ROMI) and return on ad spend (ROAS) are becoming the primary metrics for media buying, he asserts. “This number is going to rise [at] every upfront forever, it’s never going to turn back around.”
Shapiro’s “7 Rules of Gravity for the User-Centric Era”
Shapiro concludes his keynote with the “7 Rules of Gravity” for the user-centric era, guiding principles for media entities navigating the new landscape where consumers dictate the orbit.
Cr: Evan Shapiro/ESHAP
Rule 1: Integration Over Isolation — Shapiro champions a unified media experience, where users control the convergence of video, audio, social, and games. “The user is the center of all of it,” he insists, advocating for a seamless integration of media services.
Rule 2: Subscription and Advertising Symbiosis — The second rule dismantles the notion that subscriptions and advertising are at odds. Shapiro argues for a complementary relationship where both models can coexist and bolster the other, providing a stable revenue mix.
Rule 3: Global Audience, Local Content — Shapiro highlights the importance of content that resonates locally while reaching globally, especially for the under-40 demographic that constitutes a majority worldwide.
Rule 4: Compete and Cooperate with Tech Giants — Media companies must navigate the delicate balance of both working with and competing against the tech behemoths. Shapiro advises learning from diversified companies like Amazon and Google, which offer bundled services for consumers and advertisers alike.
Rule 5: Daily Engagement is Must-Have — To be indispensable, Shapiro says, media must engage users daily. “Just because they use you today doesn’t mean you’re a must-have,” he cautions, pushing for consistent and compelling daily engagement.
Rule 6: Commerce Pumps the Heart of Media — Shapiro reminds us that commerce is the lifeblood of media, and integrating commerce into media strategies is not just an option but a necessity. “Commerce pumps the heart of media, it always has,” he states.
Rule 7: Representation at the Helm — Shapiro calls for diversity in media leadership, ensuring content reflects and resonates with a broad audience. “The media has too few people at the top from the communities it’s supposed to serve most,” he points out, stressing that a diverse array of voices in leadership positions is not just a moral imperative but a strategic one.
Shapiro’s parting message is one of urgency and action. He implores media companies to align with these principles swiftly, not only to survive but to lead in the user-centric era. The future favors those who place the user at the core of their strategy, who innovate in content, engagement, and commerce, and who act decisively. The era of user-centric media is not on the horizon — it’s here, and the time to adapt is now.
Media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro examines the pivotal shift to a user-centric era of media, supported by new consumer research.
November 12, 2023
Posted
November 12, 2023
Evan Shapiro: “What’s Next” for Media in the User-Centric Era — Part 1
Watch media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro’s keynote address, “What’s Next” at the 2023 NAB Show New York.
TL;DR
Media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro’s keynote address at NAB Show New York centered on the pivotal shift to a new user-centric era of media, unveiling new consumer research and urging industry adaptation.
Demonstrating the volatility of the media ecosystem, a Publishers Clearing House survey of 27,000 people in the US found that only 7% of users planned to stick with their current suite of subscriptions over the next year.
Shapiro discusses the “Hierarchy of Feeds” as a crucial adaptation strategy for media companies to meet the diverse and daily needs of consumers.
Highlighting the unexpected rise of local news, Shapiro underscores its significant role and potential for growth in the media landscape.
Shapiro spotlights the rapid growth of Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST), which is projected to reach a global market value of $20 billion by 2028.
Media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro commanded the Main Stage at NAB Show New York in October with a keynote address that urged industry professionals to embrace the inevitable: a new era where user choice dictates the flow of content and technology giants carve the path forward. With his customary wit, Shapiro unveiled fresh consumer research and a set of strategic imperatives designed to navigate the shifting currents of media consumption.
Evan Shapiro at NAB Show New York
Going beyond analysis, Shapiro’s presentation is a call to action, depicting a future that’s unfolding in real time. From the “Hierarchy of Feeds” to the new “Rules of Gravity” in a media world centered around the consumer, he provides a practical guide for industry adaptation.
Explore key highlights in NAB Amplify’s two-part report, and gain full access to Shapiro’s insights by watching the keynote address in the video at the top of the page.
The User-Centric Era of Media Is Already Here
The Media & Entertainment landscape is undergoing a profound transformation with consumers now at the helm, while tech giants diversify to deliver a “Hierarchy of Feeds” including “must-haves.” Shapiro, in his keynote, delineates this transition with strategic imperatives for navigating these changes as he urges industry professionals to acknowledge and adapt to the present realities of media consumption.
“I think there’s this misperception that we’re coming to what’s next, that what’s next is around the corner… maybe a few years off, and that’s absolutely untrue,” he says at head of his talk. “What’s next is already here.”
The gravitational pull of what Shapiro calls “big tech Death Stars” is reshaping the media universe. His two most recent media maps, sized by market share and communities, illustrate this point vividly. Companies must now operate in a domain where the rules are written by the likes of Amazon, Apple and Google — entities that command a significant share of global mobile users and advertising spend. At the same time, these big tech companies have ceded enormous power to users, who program personalized media bundles on a daily basis using just their thumbs.
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Addressing changing media consumption habits, Shapiro revealed a Publishers Clearing House survey of 27,000 people in the US, which found that only 7% of users planned to stick with their current suite of subscriptions. “Now, math is not my best topic,” he acknowledges. “But what I understand is that means that 97% of consumers are rethinking some or parts or all of their subscriptions that they have in their home on a month to month basis. Ready to switch out, ready to cancel.”
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Shapiro emphasizes “Hierarchy of Feeds” as critical for adaptation to the user-centric era of media. “This is the set of itches [consumers are] looking to scratch when they wake up every morning and pick up that first piece of glass.” Media companies, he says, must ask themselves, “Do I touch all these needs? If not, there are plenty of companies who do, and if not, consumers are going to be spending time with other forms of media while they’re not paying attention to you.”
The New York Times serves as a prime example of a legacy media company that successfully transitioned its business model from a print-centric approach to becoming a multimedia conglomerate. They achieved this by diversifying into “lifestyle bundles” that cater to a variety of consumer “must-haves,” ranging from games and sports to news, entertainment, food, video and television.
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Samsung has also adapted to cater to users. The company isn’t “just a manufacturer of televisions,” Shapiro notes, but also an operating system and channel business. “Google isn’t just a platform with video and audio, but also the maker of the fastest growing connected television operating system on the face of the earth. Amazon isn’t just Prime and free shipping and Twitch, but also the manufacturer of Fire,” he continues.
“You have to think about being everywhere your consumers are because you need to build your business around them, not make them fit into your business.”
Local News Isn’t Just Surviving, It’s Thriving
In an era where the digital transformation of media is often headlined by global platforms and streaming giants, Shapiro spotlights a surprising, yet pivotal player: local news. His analysis reveals a sector that’s not just surviving but thriving amid the media revolution, commanding a significant portion of screen time and audience attention.
As the number one use case for broadcast, “local is not just a segment, it’s a quarter of all TV time,” he points out. “Local urgent programming information that I can use in my daily life is going to be one of if not the most important part of the video economy in the United States and around the rest of the world for the next 10 years.”
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The rise of local news isn’t just about numbers; it’s about relevance and the ability to meet the immediate needs of the community. Shapiro notes the fragmented but significant ways people access local content, from FAST news channels to station apps, and the urgent need among younger demographics for local information. “[For] two-thirds of consumers under the age of 45… local news is really important,” he says. “We all need our weather, our local school boards; these things matter more and more on a regular basis.”
Shapiro’s call to action for local media is clear: adapt and innovate. “If you work in local television, think about ‘what’s my website strategy? What’s my app strategy? What’s my FAST strategy, what’s my podcast strategy?’” he advises.
The shift in advertising dollars follows the audience, and local news is no exception. “The money is going to go where the money works,” he says, suggesting that local news can capitalize on this trend by understanding and leveraging the new metrics of media investment, such as cost per activation and video completion.
The Future of FAST
Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST) is staking its claim in the media landscape, with a growth trajectory that commands attention. Shapiro underscores its significance, noting, “FAST is the fastest-growing segment of the video economy.” This trend transcends borders, with the UK, Austria, Brazil, and Germany among the countries riding the FAST wave.
Platforms such as Samsung TV Plus, Roku, and Pluto TV have seen their monthly active users skyrocket, yet Shapiro urges industry professionals to view this data within the broader market perspective. He projects that by 2028 the FAST industry could be worth between $14 to $20 billion dollars worldwide. But while these are impressive numbers, they still pale in comparison to behemoths like YouTube, which is on track to earn a whopping $34 billion this year.
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The data reveals a volatile subscription landscape, with premium ASVODs gaining and losing subscribers at a comparable pace. Shapiro interprets this as a potential pivot point for revenue strategies. Even Netflix is branching into advertising, he says, signaling an industry-wide shift towards a hybrid revenue model that combines subscriptions with ads.
While FAST is a crucial piece of the puzzle, Shapiro says, it’s not the sole answer to a media company’s business model challenges. “Yes, FAST is great,” he says. “Yes, FAST is important. Yes, you should be looking at FAST as part of the continuum you’re making out there. But if you’re resting all of your future laurels on this one format, and thinking it’s going to save your business in and of itself and replace all the revenue you’re losing from all these other traditional platforms, not so much.”
Evan Shapiro presents his “7 Rules of Gravity” with actionable steps for building a sustainable media business and thriving in this new era.
November 6, 2023
Posted
November 5, 2023
When It Comes to M&E Technology, Let’s Separate “Hot” and “Hype”
TL;DR
There’s a wave of pragmatism and caution underlying investment in technology across the industry as buyers reign in their equipment spend.
A report compiled by Caretta Research finds buyers increasingly selective about new developments, focusing instead on creating efficiencies within their technology stack.
Generative AI is identified as the most transformative technology by buyers, but most arestill not yet clear on how they will use it.
Disappointingly, sustainability is not yet having a significant impact on buying decisions, the report finds, although it is becoming a consideration for certain parts of the supply chain.
Buyers still maintain the strategic importance of large global trade shows such as NAB Show and IBC for meeting with vendors.
There’s a wave of pragmatism and caution underlying investment in technology across the industry as buyers reign in their equipment spend.
A report examining Media Technology Buying Decisions, compiled by Caretta Research, finds buyers increasingly selective about new developments and more focused on creating efficiencies within their technology stack.
They are not easily swayed by buzzwords and, although open to persuasion, buyers will not consider futuristic technology without a strong business case and product fit.
“Flashy new technology does not sway buyers,” the report states. “Despite the hype that trade press and industry events create around buzzword trends, buyers are not easily convinced.”
This approach rules out technology that is considered futuristic like the metaverse, Web3 applications and even AR/XR.
Buyers perceive such technology to have “a modest impact in the industry broadly,” and most are not currently considering it in their strategies, the report found.
“Buyers talk to other buyers in order to evaluate whether trendy technology is something to look out for. Few are willing to hedge their bets on unproven solutions.”
Nor do buyers want vendors to overly-influence their own technology strategy and roadmap. “There is skepticism of relying too heavily on vendors to deliver large parts of their supply chain and most are moving away from end-to-end services,” says Caretta. Instead, buyers would prefer to implement modular solutions which integrate with their existing stack.
Cr: Caretta Research/Bubble Agency
Cloud is another casualty of this pragmatism. Cloud been an enduring trend since before the pandemic and many consider it to be standard technology in a modern stack. But the report confirmed other recent surveys, including from the IABM, that there is pushback against the idea that everything can and should be run from the cloud.
There are concerns over the cost of cloud, particularly where parts of the supply chain have not been optimized for deployment, the report finds.
Other concerns lie in the readiness of cloud solutions, that certain parts of the supply chain simply work better on-premise. This is particularly true of concerns relating to latency in live playout.
Some buyers still have security concerns about the cloud, “which means that their stack will remain on-prem for the time to come,” the report predicts.
“Vendors will have to prove that cloud native solutions are capable and reliable, if not better than on-premise deployments to sway buyers who may have these and other concerns.”
Buyers are looking for hybrid solutions. Generally, if it makes sense to do something in the cloud versus on-premise, then that is the approach buyers will take.
The Economy of SaaS
Here, SaaS-based platforms are considered to be a “transformative trend” allowing buyers to have flexibility in their architecture, but also ongoing support and incremental improvements to service.
There is a concern, however, over the lack of support given by some vendors to their customers. “Like with traditional licensing models, a one-off sales approach is no longer sufficient. Buyers have an expectation that support will be continuous and that products will continue to roll out new features over time.”
There is also a perception that the industry has stopped innovating. Particularly with the shift towards SaaS, buyers are able to change suppliers more easily than ever before. Per the report, this means that there’s a lower tolerance for lack of innovation on the buyer side, and less certainty around buying cycles on the vendor side.
“This is a dangerous place for industry vendors to be,” judges Caretta.
Broadly speaking, difficult economic conditions have impacted both buyers and vendors leaving most prioritizing existing revenue and streamlining their operations to do more with less.
Per the survey, 75% of vendors and buyers are seeing the need to tighten belts and 30% have had a hiring freeze, which compounds the widespread feeling of being under-resourced.
Caretta’s conclusion: “Buyers are seeking efficiency when deploying new technology in their stacks and are taking a pragmatic approach to new services, only investing in those which deliver value to audiences.”
Generative AI Interest
Generative AI is identified as the most transformative technology by both the survey and buyer focus group, but most are still not yet clear on how they will use it.
There are some early use cases in news editing and metadata for example, however the true potential of generative AI is still under consideration.
“There is a healthy amount of skepticism towards GenAI, but most see it as an opportunity despite reservations,” Caretta concludes.
Disappointingly it seems that sustainability is not yet having a significant impact on buying decisions, the report finds, although it is becoming a consideration for parts of the supply chain where vendor products and services are similar in terms of feature and price.
Trade Show Value
Of particular interest to trade show organizations like IBC and NAB is that in-person meetings are still considered valuable, with the trade show itself among the very best places to do business.
“Buyers consider industry events as one of their most important sources of information, and vendors consider it their most important channel for promoting their products to buyers.”
Yet half of buyers and vendors in the survey group have scaled back on investment in events since the pandemic and only 5% of vendors have increased their investment.
“Manufacturers may be left with a conundrum of how to get in front of new customers if investment in events by buyers continues to decline. Fewer buyer attendees will make it harder to get sales people in front of prospective customers.”
In 2024, AI applications and algorithms that can optimize data, perform complex tasks, and make decisions with human-like accuracy will be used in diverse ways, the study finds.
October 29, 2023
Yes, It’s Time to Think/Talk About Technology in 2024
TL;DR
Gartner dives into 10 predictions for the future that represent opportunities or threats.
Digital charisma filters are going to make us all individually better, according to analysts.
By 2027 a quarter of Fortune 500 companies will actively recruit neurodiverse talent across conditions like autism, ADHD, dyslexia to improve business performance.
Generative AI will be a new machine-to human-interface and a new and increasingly important machine-to-machine interface.
“In 20 years, when we look back, we are going to think that this is the year that everything changed,” says Gartner analyst Leigh McMullen. “I don’t know if any of us feel like that future’s too futuristic anymore. I don’t think it feels like science fiction.”
Generative AI is going to make us all individually better, according to a new future trends report by Gartner. The report was unveiled by McMullen at the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo in a session entitled “Strategic Predictions for 2024 & Beyond: The Year Everything Changed,” that you can watch in full above.
“With generative AI we have the ability to let individuals profit from innovations and technology, free up time, become better at what they do, maybe even spend a little bit more time with their families,” McMullen said. “Generative AI has the ability to help us write better it has the ability to help us engage with our customers more intimately. It has the ability to make us more charismatic.”
The latter might seem odd but Gartner is actually predicting that by 2026 30% of workers will leverage digital “charisma filters” to achieve previously unattainable advances in their careers.
Which begs the question: What’s a charisma filter?
McMullen explains, “We’re talking about the ability to increase your presence in the spoken word, increase your presence in the written word, increase your presence in your organization, virtually.”
We’re already seeing technology from organizations like NVIDIA that will adjust your eyelines so you’re always looking right down the barrel of the camera and that will skinny you up or make you look a little bit prettier.
“Digital charisma filters are going to help us in our organizations achieve new sorts of personal heights that will help us achieve new levels of personal performance.”
It’s also going to become an indicator of national performance.
Gartner expects these 10 trends, which each fall into one or more categories, to factor into many business and technology decisions over the next 36 months. Cr: Gartner View a larger version here.
The analyst thinks that the productivity value of AI will be recognized as a primary indicator of national power. It’s not farfetched given that we already use indicators of productivity GDP and organizational productivity as a source of power by making it a national benchmark.
“By making it something that we report on as nations this will cause greater investment it will speed this transformation into a world where we all prosper.”
By 2027, a quarter of Fortune 500 companies will actively recruit neurodiverse talent across conditions like autism, ADHD and dyslexia to improve business performance.
“Neurodiversity and cognitive diversity are superpowers for organizations. When you have cognitively diverse people, they see problems in different ways. They see opportunities in different ways. And they will create different ways to engage with each other, to engage with customers, to engage with citizens, to engage with fellow employees to unlock new sources of value,” says McMullen.
“This is not about giving some group of people special privileges,” McMullen stresses, “It’s not about shifting privilege around. It’s about creating an environment where we can all take our masks off, and be our authentic selves at work. And the value that that is going to unlock is tremendous.”
Another prediction: By 2028, there will be more smart robots than frontline workers in manufacturing, retail and logistics.
Since COVID, we’ve already seen more and more jobs replaced by machines. Just think of your local supermarket check-out.
Gartner thinks it is realistic to start imagining that by 2028 robots might start out in the workforce, not just in a highly-advanced supply chain but “everywhere across our ecosystem.” Indeed, we need to start thinking about generative AI as a new user interface.
“Whether that interfaces at a terminal that I’m talking to, or whether that interface is in a robot that’s making my coffee for me, it’s going to become a new user interface.”
AI-Augmented Development is the use of AI technologies, such as generative AI and machine learning (ML), to aid software engineers in creating, testing and delivering applications. Cr: Gartner
AI’s ability to create net new content (images, speech, text and more) and its widespread availability will democratize access to information and skills, making it one of the most disruptive trends of this decade. Cr: Gartner
Industry Cloud Platforms address industry-relevant business outcomes by combining underlying SaaS, PaaS and IaaS services into a whole product offering with composable capabilities. Cr: Gartner
Generative AI will be a new machine-to-human interface and a new and increasingly important machine-to-machine interface.
By 2026, 30% of large companies will have a dedicated business unit, or sales channels to access fast growing machine customer markets, Gartner predicts.
When it comes to threats and risks, Gartner predicts that “mal-information” is going to become a multi front threat by 2028, by which time the enterprise will be spending $30 billion a year trying to combat it. What is mal-information? The analyst describes this term as “algorithmically groomed and targeted disinformation or even the truth which is out of context and designed to change mental models.”
Today, mal-information is a $78 billion threat, which is just “people to people mal-information.” AI-based mal-information “will cause your AI to have a hallucination or cause it to ingest data that causes it to hallucinate. And that has the potential to grow to enormous sums.”
McMullen concludes with a call to action. “I’m imploring you to take the decisions that you make today and into the future about generative AI very, very seriously because we are literally the last generation of managers who get to make those decisions,” he says.
After those decisions are made it will become a one-way door, “which will become very, very difficult to reverse.”
In 2024, AI applications and algorithms that can optimize data, perform complex tasks, and make decisions with human-like accuracy will be used in diverse ways, the study finds.
October 30, 2023
Posted
October 29, 2023
Peter Csathy: It’s Time to “Generate” Your AI Game Plan
Futurist Peter Csathy says the WGA has been smart to agree to a time limit of three years in its new pact with the studios. This will allow the guild to survey the changing landscape and determine if contracts need to be updated.
Csathy thinks there are “compelling opportunities” for all players in the Media & Entertainment industry to leverage the power of AI, provided you do your homework and “Get a game plan.”
When it comes to AI, for futurist Peter Csathy, you have to get real: “I understand the fear, but we can’t put our heads in the sand. We need to look at things stoically.”
Csathy is considered a leading expert in Media & Entertainment and in particular where M&E meets future tech. In a new presentation, that you can watch below, he shares his thoughts on the current state of play of generative AI in the overall creative economy, highlights “compelling opportunities” to leverage its power for all players in the entertainment industry, and assesses the sobering risks it poses to artists within the entertainment ecosystem.
“I’m certainly no engineer, but I understand [tech] pretty deeply and I’m not afraid of it,” he says. “But with AI and with all new technologies, we need to be stoic about it, understand not only the possibilities, but also the risks and the impacts on life as we know it today and on the industry that we love so much.”
AI may be a mainstream topic in Hollywood, he says, but it is the Big Tech companies that will make the most money and have most control and power.
“Let’s look at the realities of economics. Big Tech has multitrillion-dollar valuations. Whereas the biggest media company out there, a traditional media company, which is Disney, has $150 billion market valuation. Ultimately, Big Tech is the big winner here. And I would say that Big Tech is the big winner on the backs of creators, artists, musicians.”
Certainly, creators, artists and musicians can learn to leverage AI for their benefit, but ultimately, “the scale of it all really inures to the benefit of Big Tech.”
That said, not even the CEOs of Microsoft, Google or Amazon know precisely how the sausage is made. “They don’t know precisely how a work is created [by generative AI]. They know generally how it’s created but they don’t know precisely how the ultimate output is achieved, when it comes to the black box of generative AI and the inputs that we put into it. Even the smartest minds developing the technology don’t know exactly how it does what it does, or where it’s going to be going.”
While that spreads inevitable confusion, uncertainty and fear, Csathy cautions that Media & Entertainment companies historically tend to “put their heads in the sand.” Ignoring AI is not a sound business strategy.
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He advises CEOs to think about what Pixar did to traditional animation. “Before Pixar, Disney artists would be hand-framed, drawing each picture. Now, there’s a beautiful art to that. But imagine the length of time it takes to realize the vision of the film, while Pixar came in with computer generated animation and really disrupted and transformed the industry. Now, for some, it was not welcome because it disrupted their job as traditional animators but, on the flip side, it created an entirely new industry with new jobs,” he explains.
“I don’t want to minimize the human pain of that,” he adds. “It’s akin to what happened with factories on automation.”
Csathy suggests that governments are not equipped to create guardrails or regulation on AI, due to a lack of understanding and “demographic imbalances” in Congress. However, the biggest guardrail for Media & Entertainment companies using generative AI is existing copyright legislation, which in the US prohibits AI-generated works from receiving protection.
“While it’s daunting, just because it creates entirely new creative words doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s cannibalistic. I certainly believe that humans love engaging with cool content and experiences. There may be some cannibalizing because we have limited time in a day, but nonetheless, if I liked this AI generated work, I still may like the song I was listening to that is not AI generated. They’re not mutually exclusive.”
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He imagines likeness and voice licensing opportunities for actors like Tom Cruise (“So you can imagine a case where Tom Cruise Mission Impossible 20 is in production, and Tom Cruise is on a beach sipping his margaritas,” while, the script, the actors, etc., are auto-generated) but this doesn’t address the fears of the 99% of talent without Cruise’s star power.
Of course, SAG has yet to agree terms with the studios, with AI royalties being a sticking point. Csathy says the WGA has been smart to agree to a time limit of three years in its new pact with the studios. This will allow the guild to survey the changing landscape and determine if contracts need to be updated.
“You have to learn to understand the language of AI, all of you no matter what role you play in the ecosystem of creativity, M&E, or technology. So you get it yourself. So you can speak the vernacular. So you have credibility. So you can work with other people and collaborate with them. It’s very important and follow developments closely,” he concludes.
“You got to create your game plan. Like I said, you can’t fear AI. This is the reality. This is where we are. Stoicism is key.”
The disruptive force of AI could be as transformative to democratic institutions as the printing press, argues policy expert Samuel Hammond.
October 30, 2023
Posted
October 17, 2023
Evan Shapiro: We “Need a Holistic CTV Strategy”
Join Evan Shapiro at NAB Show New York for the session “The Televisioning of FAST,” held Wednesday, October 25 at 11:45 a.m.
Shapiro dives into TV’s hottest topic, FAST, through a conversation with Justin Evans, Global Head of Analytics & Insights for Samsung Ads. Together they will delve into insights on what FAST needs to do to mature and grow into its full potential.
graphic courtesy of Evan Shapiro
FAST is now both incredibly popular and immensely disjointed, even “more fragmented than cable TV used to be,” writes Evan Shapiro.
He nods to an nScreenMedia reports that two-thirds of American viewers now report watching FAST channels, with the caveat that the average FAST channel garnered approximately two minutes of viewing time monthly (according to data from 2021). That’s perhaps less surprising when you consider that there are more than 1,000 FAST channels in the US alone.
And they continue to proliferate in numbers and in share of viewing time. Per Nielsen, Roku, Tubi and Pluto totaled 3.4% of all TV viewing in July and 3.3% of TV viewing in August.
graphic courtesy of Evan Shapiro
FAST revenue is also projected to explode; Omdia forecasts it reaching $11 billion by 2028 (again, in the US alone), a 208% increase over a five-year period. The researcher sees these US numbers as on the low end, with Mexico’s revenue growing by about 400% over the same period and topping off in Australia at 565%; Canada and the UK are expected to have increases more similar to the US, at 300% and 250%, respectively.
Shapiro cautions against misinterpreting the reason behind this growth (and looking at it without context). After all, it wasn’t long ago that SVOD was king and media watchers believed a hatred for ads was the raison d’être for Netflix.
“What consumers actually hated was the over-priced, inflexible cable bundle oligarchy, not linear TV, nor even the ads,” Shapiro writes. “Viewers (even younger audiences) want choice. They want a steady flow of stuff to watch. Their first (second, third, and fourth) priority is the relevancy and depth of the content they get, not the format, nor the ad load.”
graphic courtesy of Evan Shapiro
In terms of the numbers, remember that, Shapiro writes, “in Ampere Analysis’ projection for worldwide Media revenues, [FAST and AVOD’s] 2027 total comes to approximately 25% of ‘normal’ TV advertising, less than 40% of online display ads, and a tiny fraction of social and search advertising.”
While at first blush, this may seem counterintuitive, Shapiro points out that “FAST publishers must split all their revenues with the FAST platforms, and inversely, the platforms must split their ad sales with the channel providers.”
To get around the slicing and dicing, “many of the bigger FAST platforms are cutting back on voluminous channel offerings, and moving their marbles to channels they own and operate themselves” — AKA what Pluto pioneered.
In terms of content, that means “Gone are the days of launching dozens of channels full of repurposed YouTube videos every quarter. Today, the name of the game is quality over quality, and Distinction over ubiquity,” Shapiro writes.
He predicts that 2024 FAST will feature “professional, recurring, utility programming that emulates the best parts of traditional cable TV.”
That especially makes sense given consumers’ viewpoint:They “see FAST, AVOD, SVOD, vMVPDs, and YouTube not as separate things, but as one, big smorgasbord of video content on their CTVs that they control with the touch of a button or the swipe of a thumb.”
graphic courtesy of Evan Shapiro
In addition to programming changes, Shapiro thinks “FAST platforms must find more ways to make money than just ads. Hence Roku jumping into commerce. CTV tech allows for way, WAY more user-friendly commerce than we’re doing.”
Shapiro also advocates for “unified CTV strategy that treats their YouTube and FAST channels as two parallel lanes on the same TV highway, much as we used to see DirecTV and Comcast,” unless, of course, you’re getting paid for exclusivity rights. After all, YouTube is FAST’s biggest direct competitor.
To be adequately nimble, Shapiro says, “programmers need a holistic CTV strategy” because “consumers see media as a continuum, not a set of binary choices.”
At the same time, however, AI tools are often seen as a springboard to next-level human creativity. Technologies such as Anthropic’s chatbot Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Dall-E 3 offer a seductive creative experience.
Will these tools help us survive and thrive as a creative species? Or are they the death knell of creativity as we know it?
What is Creativity?
In her book The Creative Mind, cognitive science expert Margaret Boden distinguishes between two types of human creativity.
Psychological or personal (p-type) creativity happens when an individual thinks something for the first time — even if others have thought it separately before. One example is a child realizing water can take any shape.
Essentially, p-type creativity is learning something useful and, in the process, synchronizing our thoughts with others.
Historical creativity (h-type), on the other hand, happens when an individual thinks something that has never been thought before. One example would be Archimedes’s “eureka” moment in the bath, which supposedly led to him discovering the law of buoyancy.
The more someone’s creativity subsequently affects other people’s thinking, the more momentous and enduring we consider their legacy.
This is why Wandjina rock art in the Kimberley, Homer’s Iliad, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house and Albert Einstein’s Annus Mirabilis papers are all considered exceptional works left behind by exceptional humans. They are important because they continue to shape our thinking.
Generative AI Doesn’t Belong in Either Category
AI obviously has the potential to promote both p-type and h-type creativity. It can lead us to insights about biology, history and mathematics, and help us create texts and images that may be useful or thought-provoking.
But there is one key difference between human creativity and AI-driven creativity: the latter doesn’t stem from the evolutionary clash of mind and world.
AI models don’t contain reality. They rely on the complex statistical abstraction of digital data. This limits their real-world creative significance and their capacity to produce “eureka” moments.
To differentiate AI-driven creativity from old-fashioned creativity, I have proposed a new term: generic, or g-type, creativity. It formalizes the fact that while AI models are capable of provoking new thought, they are limited by the underlying data they have been trained on.
The Big Risk: A Generic Spiral
We can expect an explosion in g-type creativity in our future. The danger here is that our increasing use of AI could make us think too much alike, leading to a decrease in cognitive diversity and an increase in cultural tightness.
In this scenario, societies would become more rigid in the norms they enforce, and less tolerant of deviations from the status quo. At a population level this would be a creativity killer.
The threat isn’t just AI-generated movies, TV, books and art. In the future, the homes we live in, the cars we drive (or won’t have to drive) and our shared public spaces will all be shaped by AI. We may see our thinking become homogenized under the pressure of increasingly similar environments and experiences.
This sameness further put us at risk of a generic spiral. AI models are trained on content we create. So the more we use AI for g-type creativity, the more generic our content will become — and since this will be used to further train AI, the more generic AI outputs will become.
While this might be useful for certain specialist tasks — such as consistently interpreting law — it’s worrying to contemplate the kind of Orwellian political economy a generic spiral might give rise to.
Can We Enjoy AI and Also Preserve Creativity?
Balancing and reconciling human creativity with AI isn’t as simple as going for regular walks in nature — although that will probably help.
Generative AI may well be a transformative technology to rival the printing press or steam engine. Such juggernauts are difficult to resist; we collectively get swept up in the change, uncertainty and alienation they foment.
Some of the best minds of our generation are already abandoning other pursuits to try their luck at building and using advanced AI models.
Our best chance to remain truly creative is to protect and privilege the human over the artificial. Intellectual property law is key. Any further moves towards legal personhood for AI — such as allowing AI a “fair use” right to train itself on copyrighted material, or have copyright applied to AI outputs — will erode our creative system and risk a generic spiral in human creativity.
Interested in how artificial intelligence will impact technology, business, and creativity? (How can you not be?) Ride the wave into the future of Media & Entertainment, where curiosity meets innovation meets storytelling, with NAB Amplify’s dedicated resource exploring the transformative force of AI. Dive into explainers that demystify complex concepts, discover real-world applications in Hollywood, and glimpse the road ahead. Aimed at industry professionals working at all stages of the content lifecycle, these resources are your gateway to understanding how AI is reshaping the entertainment landscape. Join us, and let’s Amplify the conversation!
Reducing production times and costs, virtual news anchors allow for the delivery of around-the-clock video programming in up to 30 languages.
He says the technology is not suitable in every case and not yet advanced enough to move from pre-recorded packages into live — but that’s definitely on the horizon.
Virtual humans are an emerging phenomenon likely to be increasingly used by filmmakers on-screen and widespread in hospitality and retail scenarios but perhaps alarmingly beginning to creep into broadcast news and journalism.
The first such virtual humanoid news anchor in the US, Raxana, was unveiled earlier this year as a lead host of DeFiance Daily, a program on streaming channel DeFiance.tv.
Marc Scarpa, founder and CEO of parent company DeFiance Media, is headed to NAB Show New York to share his experiences in creating Raxana and why he is optimistic for the future of broadcast news created and presented using AI tools.
Scarpa will provide his insights in a fireside chat with StoryTech’s Lori H. Schwartz entitled “AI Virtual Humans in Broadcast News.” During the session, Scarpa “will share the benefits of leveraging AI, along with human expertise.” Also, learn how DeFiance Media built a bespoke virtual studio for around-the-clock broadcast news.
“We are not here to destroy journalism; we are here to empower it,” he tells NAB Amplify. “At the end of the day, news producers will still need a workflow that involves humans. Virtual humans are just a device to communicate what those broadcast journalist stories may be.”
Scarpa predicts that virtual humans will become pervasive across all sorts of storytelling genres. “You are seeing it in social media. You will see it in healthcare and education, in other areas of entertainment, and broadcast journalism will not be immune,” he says.
Part of his argument for AI is simple cost efficiency: Local news in the US, as in other parts of the world such as the UK, has been challenged for some time in terms of operating costs. While local news remains an FCC mandate, its continued existence is in contention because of changing business models.
Scarpa says he is a big believer in the value of local news broadcast as a staple of information and culture, but the economics have to change.
“Broadcasters have to find new ways to monetize local news. They’ve not veered from the same business model for the last half century. They have attempted to reduce costs in terms of basic infrastructure in studios and control rooms and now there’s shift in terms of talent from an on-camera presence to virtual humans.”
Marc Scarpa, founder & CEO of DeFiance Media (left) and StoryTech’s Lori H. Schwartz (right)
This could be to the benefit of already stretched on-air talent, suggests Scarpa, since their likeness can be cloned into a digital representation of them.
“This would allow for the ability for known personalities to deliver more news packages without having to physically be there to shoot them and therefore generate more revenue for themselves. It would be a residual (royalty) module that runs on a blockchain.”
Scarpa is putting his theory into practice at DeFiance.tv, a television and digital network reporting on the alternative economy — meaning Web3, AI, VR, and digital asset developments.
Creating and Casting Raxana
During his fireside chat at NAB Show New York, Scarpa will share lessons learned in the course of creating Raxana. DeFiance originally worked with an out-of-the-box solution from Israeli developer Hour One but decided to customize one for their purpose.
“Hour One have fantastic technology, in particular for business-to-business applications, such as virtual humans for customer service, but it was not quite the storytelling device we needed for news. We realized that we needed a virtual human who is representative of our brand and who could communicate well with our audience.”
Instead, DeFiance used Hour One’s templates to create a bespoke virtual human based on an existing news anchor already employed by the network.
“What is most important is you can go and start with a stock character which is something that we did, but ultimately, we chose to create our own. That was a huge shift. Our engagement increased. The resonance with our brand really changed,” he said.
“There is old saying, ‘you have a face for radio,’ which means something intangible about your ability to connect with listeners,” Scarpa says. “I believe there is something similar about people who have an on-camera presence. I am not sure of the science behind it, but some people are able to communicate better than others in front of a camera. That art can be replicated, starting by recording motion capture of the person and delivering their virtual likeness on screen.
“We cast Raxana — based on a real person — to represent this Eurasian human, which studies predict that most humans will have this similar genetic mix in future. In essence, Raxana is the most intelligent journalist that can read a teleprompter in the world, but she is not going to be doing Barbara Walters interviews anytime soon.”
He continues, “How we use virtual humans is very rudimentary and basic at this stage. We are not using it to substitute for investigative journalism or a talk show format. The tech is not there yet, but it will [be]. I have seen AI virtual companion software that is outstanding.”
However, DeFinance is using AI across the news production workflow, not just in presentation.
“We use AI for fact checking and scripting and research and generation of video. We’re utilizing a variety of AI tech in our workflow to deliver factual accurate news packages,” Scarpa says.
Other AI Anchors
While the technology is cutting-edge, Scarpa is not the first to implement it.
In 2018, Chinese News agency Xinhua News unveiled an AI news anchor. A year later, it launched a female AI news anchor, “Xin Xiaomeng,” also developed by Chinese tech firm Sogu, whose voice and image were clones of a reporter named Qu Meng, a news anchor at Xinhua’s New Media Center.
In April this year, Kuwait News introduced “Fedha,” an AI news anchor on Twitter, as a test of its potential to offer new content.
The New Face of News?
Would an artificial news anchor weaken and destroy any faith we have left in broadcast news as a source of trusted information?
Scarpa replies by arguing that Walter Cronkie was the most trusted face of news in history — but that there was still an organization of broadcast journalists behind the camera.
“There are different types of broadcasters. Some are investigative, some report sports or the weather. All the rest of the hosts on our platform are humans who present traditional TV news shows, doing their own independent research and giving their opinions,” he says.
“Raxana’s function is very specific. She is not able to do much, but she is able to do enough for what we want her deliver and to able to package that news up at scale.
“For example, we can create and broadcast a news bulletin every two hours and take that package and auto-translate it into 30 languages. That’s an economy of scale that only AI can achieve. At the same time, we’re getting across information about the new economy out to as many people as possible. That is our focus and that is why Raxana works for us.”
However, live broadcasts are not yet possible. Scarpa says, “If I have a live camera covering the Senate hearings, then I would not feel comfortable having that fed into an AI for real-time commentary as human anchors and journalists do with authority today, but anything pre-taped can work in that manner.”
That said, Scarpa imagines weather presentation to evolve to virtual humans “fairly soon” with some forms of sports commentary to follow — although, again, not where there’s any live interaction between a virtual sports presenter and an athlete, human news anchor or pundit.
“We are not there yet with live. I’ve seen it working and seen you can do it, but it’s not ready for primetime.”
Get in on key trends and powerful intel at NAB Show New York’s Insight Theater! This is where you can catch up and connect the dots. Between process and products. Between the ways we now create and consume content. This is an intimate space to glean coveted insight and interact with the people and products transforming the industry.
The winner of the “Empire State of Mind” photo competition will be unveiled during the session, receiving a cash prize of $4,000. Contestants can enter via the official contest website.
The session will reveal new storytelling techniques blending photos, videos and narratives, and provide insights into leveraging social media tools and content monetization strategies.
Urbom underscores the vital role of personal branding in today’s Media & Entertainment industry, describing the Bamboo platform as a unique space for creators to evolve their online presence and personal brands.
In a world where digital innovation shapes our daily lives, the fusion of technology and visual creativity has never been more apparent. As artists and creators harness the power of modern technology to craft compelling narratives, they also embrace a sense of personal branding, reflecting the values and complexities of our time.
Experience this exciting convergence at NAB Show New York, where Bamboo founder and CEO Nick Urbom will announce the winner and present a fascinating case study featuring the participants of the “Empire State of Mind” competition.
“Empire State of Mind presented by Bamboo” is seeking the next great photographer and their creative collaborators to shoot an exclusive creator merch drop. The twist is, the creator will be taking to the streets of NYC for an epic fan-meets-creator photoshoot. On Bamboo, creators will build a collaborative feed with their team to showcase their artistic style. They can include their chosen collaborators to present their creative, photographic approach to fashion on the streets of New York. The winner will get to lead the merch shoot for the renowned creator, Avori Henderson, and be tagged in the final post by Avori. The exciting journey will be documented and shared on the Bamboo platform and social media. The winner of the competition will receive a cash prize of $4,000 to help fund their creative journey.
The “Empire State of Mind: A Photo Competition Review” session at NAB Show New York will demonstrate new storytelling techniques, allowing attendees to discover innovative ways to blend visual mediums. The session will also cover social media tools, providing concrete practices for leveraging photos and videos for social media channels, as well as strategies for content monetization and winning methods for crowd-sourcing photo/video projects.
Urbom, the visionary behind Bamboo, has developed and produced a number of cutting-edge experiences for creators to advance their careers, including tech platforms, professional conferences and awards shows. He was the Co-Founder, CEO and Chairman of Infinity Festival Hollywood, and has co-founded three world-renowned trade organizations: the International 3D Society, the Advanced Imaging Society, and the VR Society.
He views the Bamboo platform as a space where creators can evolve with their presence online. “One of the major benefits of our platform is that you can create collaborative feeds on any topic,” he explains.
Bamboo founder & CEO Nick Urbom.
“So if you’re currently a drummer, and then you join a band, and then you later start a business in your career, like I did, you might have a feed on your personal music, and then you might also add a feed on the band. Then you might add a feed on what you’re doing with business, and you might add another feed on what you’re doing with the record industry now that you know some professionals in the music business — whatever it might be — so you can actually evolve over time as a personal brand.”
This evolution of personal branding, as Urbom describes it, is emblematic of a broader shift in the Creator Economy and the wider Media & Entertainment industry at large. In an era where individuality and authenticity are highly valued, the development of a personal brand has become a vital aspect of a creator’s journey. It’s not just about showcasing skills or talents; it’s about weaving a cohesive narrative that resonates with an audience, reflects one’s unique perspective, and adapts to the ever-changing landscape of creativity and innovation.
Bamboo’s unique approach to collaborative posting and monetization is a game-changer for creators. “What we noticed, what was missing in essence, was that there’s no way to collaborate on shared topics, and curate who can post into that space and who can see it,” Urbom recounts of the platform’s inception.
“Maybe you want to put a paywall in front of it, and maybe you want to put a product in there that you want to sell,” he continues. “And so we just started listening to all these ideas and testing features out with our platform. We got feedback from users on what they were looking to have available to them as tools, and that is what has now resulted in Bamboo, the social platform for collaboration and monetization. The “Empire State of Mind” competition, with its focus on creative collaboration and innovative storytelling techniques, is an opportunity to continue learning directly from creators about their evolving needs.”
Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to be part of the creative revolution and turbocharge your personal brand. Join Urbom and register today for NAB Show New York to discover new storytelling techniques and opportunities for monetization, and learn how to maximize your content and brand.
So what is the Photo+Video Lab? It’s a space where the worlds of photo and video converge, where image-based, still photography fuses with motion capture, where you find the inspiration to try something new.
It’s a space to connect — not only with the end-to-end workflow for your craft, but with your community. Content creators. Photographers. Videographers. And so many others… through photo walks, meetups, Q&A sessions, demos, exhibits, workshops and more. View the full schedule of events here.
Dive into a full-on immersion into the photo and video world with an integrated workflow experience that will allow you to sample the latest tech and gear side-by-side from iconic brands and innovative newcomers.
Held Oct. 26, the conference is for photographers and online video creators who want to build their businesses and expand their skillsets.
September 17, 2023
Strange New Worlds: Evan Shapiro Expands His Search for the Media Universe
From “Star Trek,” courtesy of Paramount Television
TL;DR
Evan Shapiro has debuted a new kind of media map: the Global Media Ecosystem, which illustrates where both audiences and economies are gravitating, rather than only focusing on the market cap of individual companies.
Spoiler alert: mobile video and gaming have really come into their own, and media companies need to start integrating this type of content into their portfolio to most effectively leverage their IP.
Shapiro offers seven suggestions for thriving in the year 2023. All require an understanding of the current landscape and changing tastes of younger demographics and emerging markets. Still, his way forward sounds remarkably common sense.
Evan Shapiro’s latest map of the media universe has a new look. (And if you think that the resemblance to old-school video games is coincidental, you’re fooling yourself.)
Shapiro’s map of the 2023 Global Media Ecosystem is scaled according to the size of communities. This newly retooled version reflects a different way of thinking.
Per Shapiro, this version “refocuses our view around the audiences and economics at the foundation of our Global Media Ecosystem.”
In Amsterdam, Shapiro told an IBC audience, “This map is meant to be specifically a graphical representation of how most media consumers across the planet look at our media ecosystem right now.”
What’s New and Notable?
What can we learn from Shapiro’s latest map (crafted from Ampere Analytics data)?
Vive le mobile révolution! About half of all mobile usage (cellular data, not time) consists of video, and half of all video content watched on mobile is YouTube, reports Michael Burns for IBC365.
Additionally, the gaming sector is not just fun and games. Brands are now raking in $94 billion worth of in-game revenue annually. Burns notes that this is more than AVOD and FAST advertising represents. (Also, this is probably why the new map looks the way it does. Only Evan can confirm or deny.)
So who’s playing their cards right? Shapiro says Sony, the New York Times, and Amazon are all making smart bets and diversifying their portfolio in ways that anticipated where the market’s headed.
He told Burns, “Sony plays across that ecosystem incredibly well,” he said. “They’re in gaming. They’re in TV. They have a huge audio business. They have one of the best niche subscriber products in the world in Crunchyroll and Funimation. They’re in hardware that touches all of these things. It’s a multifaceted company.”
Some may be surprised he counts NYT as a winner, but Shapiro points out that this legacy media company “has a strategy for this entire map. It does gaming, social, audio, news, cooking and sports and all these different things. It’s a model for transformation for traditional media in this new age.” Shapiro thinks its “digital content bundle” even comes close to rivaling Amazon!
Speaking of which. He notes, Amazon’s Prime Video will host “a live shopping event at the halftime of the Jets-Dolphins game on Black Friday in the United States.”
He told IBC attendees, “Both (the New York Times and Amazon] are right now multifaceted, personalized lifestyle bundles that power a constant state of evolution around the needs of their customers. Two very different companies; one that inspired the new era that we’ve already begun, and the other that had to reinvent itself to compete ably inside this era.”
On the big tech side, Shapiro shouts out Apple and Google: “
Apple helped drive us to this moment and to this user centric era. And they are beyond well armed to battle for their place atop it with an arsenal of media services that goes along with their best in breed tech. Google starts this new era in pole positions across every segment of the media economy, video, social, audio and gaming. These and other tech giants are readying themselves to use their enormous resources to battle for control of the hearts and the minds and the money represented on this map. But they cannot and they will not run this ecosystem by themselves.”
Oh, and about YouTube? Shapiro says Google’s video platform relies on traditional media to survive. He tells Burns, “Without the Public Service Broadcasters and the local content creators, YouTube would be a wasteland, no one would ever go there. Yes, it has to have MrBeast, but it also has to have local creators and news. Increasingly that’s where people are going. YouTube is the biggest channel on television, in the UK, in Italy, and Germany. Why? Because you can get stuff from all around the world but also you can get news from around the corner.”
How can companies wrap their head around all this change? Shapiro suggests, “The fastest way to get there is [diversifying] age and class and race and gender. But you can find old white dudes like Mark Thompson (ex-BBC DG, ex-New York Times CEO, and now CEO of CNN) who think differently, you just have to know where to look for them.”
Just keep in mind that Shapiro would likely chide you, sharply, if you don’t take a closer look at the Global Media Ecosystem (September 2023) graphic, too.
That’s because he knows that people tend to view these maps as predictive, but they’re actually made in real time. As he told his Substack subscribers, “This map is not a warning. It’s a weather report.”
“Everything that’s happened in the media ecosystem [since 2020] has only proved the thesis that much more,” Shapiro told attendees at his IBC2023 keynote.
Surviving the Media Apocalypse
Shapiro insists that he’s an optimist (repeatedly) and even offers a survival kit for media companies that want to thrive in this era of change.
There are seven ingredients Shapiro thinks we need to succeed in 2023 and beyond:
Understand that IP is the hub of the wheel, which means that video, audio, social, and gaming are all spokes and not separate categories any more.
You don’t have to choose between subscription-based or ad-based models anymore.
Look outside of North America if you want to grow your footprint. Africa in particular has a lot of potential for investment.
You need Silicon Valley, and Silicon Valley needs your content.
Create and maintain relationships with your audience, and don’t let another company be the gatekeeper.
Consumers are buying content, which makes it a product. Invest in something worth paying for.
New ideas require new kinds of people, and you need to understand the users you hope to gain and retain. That means sourcing leaders who don’t think and look and act like you.
Media cartographer and industry observer Evan Shapiro is set to deliver the keynote address at NAB Show New York. Known as media’s official Unofficial Cartographer for his visual charting of the industry’s continual evolution, Shapiro’s speech will center on “What’s Next” for Media & Entertainment. He’ll use this keynote to lay out what to expect in the next era of media, whether we’re ready for it or not.
Attendees can look forward to new research and insights, as well as Shapiro’s honest assessment of how the M&E industry can grapple with its next era. Preceded by remarks from NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt, this keynote session is scheduled for Wednesday, October 25, at 10:30 a.m. on the Insight Theater stage.
Media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro charts a course through the current media apocalypse towards rebuilding the industry.
September 5, 2023
AI Scores in the Top Percentile of Creative Thinking (No, Seriously)
BY ERIK GUZIK, UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA
From “The Birth of Venus” by
Sandro Botticelli, 1483 – 1485
Of all the forms of human intellect that one might expect artificial intelligence to emulate, few people would likely place creativity at the top of their list. Creativity is wonderfully mysterious — and frustratingly fleeting. It defines us as human beings — and seemingly defies the cold logic that lies behind the silicon curtain of machines.
Yet, the use of AI for creative endeavors is now growing.
New AI tools like DALL-E and Midjourney are increasingly part of creative production, and some have started to win awards for their creative output. The growing impact is both social and economic — as just one example, the potential of AI to generate new, creative content is a defining flashpoint behind the Hollywood writers strike.
And if our recent study into the striking originality of AI is any indication, the emergence of AI-based creativity — along with examples of both its promise and peril — is likely just beginning.
A Blend of Novelty and Utiliy
When people are at their most creative, they’re responding to a need, goal or problem by generating something new — a product or solution that didn’t previously exist.
In this sense, creativity is an act of combining existing resources — ideas, materials, knowledge — in a novel way that’s useful or gratifying. Quite often, the result of creative thinking is also surprising, leading to something that the creator did not — and perhaps could not — foresee.
It might involve an invention, an unexpected punchline to a joke or a groundbreaking theory in physics. It might be a unique arrangement of notes, tempo, sounds and lyrics that results in a new song.
So, as a researcher of creative thinking, I immediately noticed something interesting about the content generated by the latest versions of AI, including GPT-4.
When prompted with tasks requiring creative thinking, the novelty and usefulness of GPT-4’s output reminded me of the creative types of ideas submitted by students and colleagues I had worked with as a teacher and entrepreneur.
The ideas were different and surprising, yet relevant and useful. And, when required, quite imaginative.
Consider the following prompt offered to GPT-4: “Suppose all children became giants for one day out of the week. What would happen?” The ideas generated by GPT-4 touched on culture, economics, psychology, politics, interpersonal communication, transportation, recreation and much more — many surprising and unique in terms of the novel connections generated.
This combination of novelty and utility is difficult to pull off, as most scientists, artists, writers, musicians, poets, chefs, founders, engineers and academics can attest.
Yet AI seemed to be doing it — and doing it well.
Putting AI to the Test
With researchers in creativity and entrepreneurship Christian Byrge and Christian Gilde, I decided to put AI’s creative abilities to the test by having it take the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, or TTCT.
The TTCT prompts the test-taker to engage in the kinds of creativity required for real-life tasks: asking questions, how to be more resourceful or efficient, guessing cause and effect or improving a product. It might ask a test-taker to suggest ways to improve a children’s toy or imagine the consequences of a hypothetical situation, as the above example demonstrates.
The tests are not designed to measure historical creativity, which is what some researchers use to describe the transformative brilliance of figures like Mozart and Einstein. Rather, it assesses the general creative abilities of individuals, often referred to as psychological or personal creativity.
In addition to running the TTCT through GPT-4 eight times, we also administered the test to 24 of our undergraduate students.
All of the results were evaluated by trained reviewers at Scholastic Testing Service, a private testing company that provides scoring for the TTCT. They didn’t know in advance that some of the tests they’d be scoring had been completed by AI.
Since Scholastic Testing Service is a private company, it does not share its prompts with the public. This ensured that GPT-4 would not have been able to scrape the internet for past prompts and their responses. In addition, the company has a database of thousands of tests completed by college students and adults, providing a large, additional control group with which to compare AI scores.
Our results?
GPT-4 scored in the top 1% of test-takers for the originality of its ideas. From our research, we believe this marks one of the first examples of AI meeting or exceeding the human ability for original thinking.
In short, we believe that AI models like GPT-4 are capable of producing ideas that people see as unexpected, novel and unique. Other researchers are arriving at similar conclusions in their research of AI and creativity.
Yes, Creativity Can Be Evaluated
The emerging creative ability of AI is surprising for a number of reasons.
For one, many outside of the research community continue to believe that creativity cannot be defined, let alone scored. Yet products of human novelty and ingenuity have been prized — and bought and sold — for thousands of years. And creative work has been defined and scored in fields like psychology since at least the 1950s.
The person, product, process, press model of creativity, which researcher Mel Rhodes introduced in 1961, was an attempt to categorize the myriad ways in which creativity had been understood and evaluated until that point. Since then, the understanding of creativity has only grown.
Still others are surprised that the term “creativity” might be applied to nonhuman entities like computers. On this point, we tend to agree with cognitive scientist Margaret Boden, who has argued that the question of whether the term creativity should be applied to AI is a philosophical rather than scientific question.
AI’s Founders Foresaw its Creative Abilities
It’s worth noting that we studied only the output of AI in our research. We didn’t study its creative process, which is likely very different from human thinking processes, or the environment in which the ideas were generated. And had we defined creativity as requiring a human person, then we would have had to conclude, by definition, that AI cannot possibly be creative.
But regardless of the debate over definitions of creativity and the creative process, the products generated by the latest versions of AI are novel and useful. We believe this satisfies the definition of creativity that is now dominant in the fields of psychology and science.
Furthermore, the creative abilities of AI’s current iterations are not entirely unexpected.
In this same proposal, computer scientist Nathaniel Rochester revealed his motivation: “How can I make a machine which will exhibit originality in its solution of problems?”
Apparently, AI’s founders believed that creativity, including the originality of ideas, was among the specific forms of human intelligence that machines could emulate.
To me, the surprising creativity scores of GPT-4 and other AI models highlight a more pressing concern: Within U.S. schools, very few official programs and curricula have been implemented to date that specifically target human creativity and cultivate its development.
In this sense, the creative abilities now realized by AI may provide a “Sputnik moment” for educators and others interested in furthering human creative abilities, including those who see creativity as an essential condition of individual, social and economic growth.
Ride the wave and learn how to harness the power of AI for your creative processes! NAB Show and Future Media Conferences are teaming up to present the AI Creative Summit. This series of training events, sponsored by Dell Technologies and made possible by NVIDIA, is set to teach and empower the creative industry by demonstrating how artificial intelligence tools can amplify and streamline creative workflows.
The inaugural event, happening virtually September 14-15, is an online conference that offers an exclusive opportunity to engage with some of the industry’s leading trainers and experts from the comfort of your home or office for just $25. This will be followed by an in-person, two-day immersive experience that will take place in conjunction with NAB Show New York, running October 24-25 at the Javits Center.
Aimed at empowering creatives, the AI Creative Summit will be held at NAB Show New York Oct. 24-25.
August 7, 2023
Posted
August 7, 2023
Accelerating Innovation with Advertising Intelligence
Click the image to get the AWS ebook.
Learn how organizations including Publicis, FreeWheel, TripleLift and Amazon Ads are using AWS cloud-based tools to accelerate time to market for predictive analytics workloads and analyze media for contextual signals to improve personalization.
So What Does Everyone Else Think About AI? (It’s the Beginning or the End or Both)
TL;DR
To find out what people really think about AI and what they want from it, The Verge teamed up with Vox Media’s Insights and Research team to poll more than 2,000 US adults.
The results tell the story of an emerging, uncertain, and exciting technology — where many have yet to use it, many are fearful of its potential, and many still have great hopes for what it could someday do for them.
One finding is particularly clear: AI is expanding what people can create and there is ambivalence about the ethics of copyright theft.
AI is out in the wild and being used most extensively for creative experiments, according to a new survey.
People are generating music and videos, creating stories, and tinkering with photos using free AI engines like ChatGPT.
Above all, people have simply been using AI systems to answer questions — suggesting chatbots like ChatGPT, Bing, and Bard may replace search engines, for better or worse.
The report, “Hope, Fear and AI,” from The Verge and Vox Media, polled 2,000 Americans about their attitudes to towards artificial intelligence.
One finding is particularly clear: AI is expanding what people can create. In every category polled, people who used AI said they used these systems to make something they couldn’t otherwise, with artwork being the most popular category within these creative fields.
“This makes sense given that AI image generators are much more advanced than tools that create audio or video,” note the survey authors.
There is general awareness of the ethical issues around AI and art, but less clarity about what to do about it. For example, most people think artists should get compensated when an AI tool clones their style, but a majority also don’t want these capabilities to be limited. Indeed, almost half of respondents said they’d tested the system by generating art in the style or voice of a writer, artist or other well known figure.
A new survey from The Verge and Vox Media shows broad support for regulations on AI. Cr: The Verge
More than three-quarters of respondents agreed with the statement: “Regulations and laws need to be developed regarding the development of AI.”
These laws are currently in the works, with the EU AI Act working its way through final negotiations and the US recently holding hearings to develop its own legal framework.
The report highlights that there’s strong demand for higher standards in AI systems and disclosure of their use. Strong majorities are in favor of labeling AI-generated deepfakes, for example. But many principles with wide support would be difficult to enforce, including training AI language models on fact-checked data and banning deepfakes of people made without their consent.
The use of generative AI tools doesn’t stretch much beyond experimentation at this stage and in fact only one in three survey respondents have used them. When they do, brand recognition for ChatGPT is highest, though few people are familiar with the companies and startups behind the tools.
That said, people have high expectations for AI’s impact on the world — beyond those of other emergent technologies. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said AI will have a large or moderate impact on society. That’s compared to 69% for electric vehicles and a paltry 34% for NFTs.
More than 60% of survey participants predicted job losses as a result of AI and other societal dangers, including threats to privacy and government (ranked at 68%) and corporate misuse (67%).
Graphic courtesy of Vox Media
“These dangers are weighted more heavily than potential positive applications, like new medical treatments (51%) and economic empowerment (51%). And when asked how they feel about the potential impact on their personal and professional life and on society more generally, people are pretty evenly split between worried and excited. Most often, they’re both.”
Fifty-six percent of respondents think “people will develop emotional relationships with AI,” and roughly half expect that a sentient AI will emerge at some point in the future (two-thirds don’t have an issue with companies trying to make one).
Yet, nearly 40% think that AI will wipe out human civilization.
Perhaps that’s why more people are worried than not.
Evan Shapiro: What’s Changing (and Changed) in Media Consumption
TL;DR
Media cartographer Evan Shapiro delivered the closing keynote address at Streaming Media East, providing a close look at the latest consumer data in the global streaming marketplace.
It’s critical for stakeholders to understand shifts in demographics in the world’s population, Shapiro says, in order to identify untapped markets.
Younger generations are more likely to pay for services they want, he says, because they’ve been trained to do that since birth.
Shapiro predicts that the current advertising recession in the US will end in July, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the outlook is rosy.
Evan Shapiro loves to talk. And that’s a good thing, because his insights into the Media & Entertainment industry are invaluable, plotting the effects of disruption as the streaming universe changes its gravitational pull and reforms itself around new business models. The media cartographer and ESHAP CEO — known for his detailed maps and accompanying analysis charting the media universe — provided a close look at the latest consumer data at the Streaming Media East conference. You can watch the full session, “The Mind of the Modern Media Consumer,” in the video below.
Shapiro spoke about shifts in consumer demographics, how streaming is changing the television landscape, and survival tactics for an increasingly volatile ecosystem. He also predicted that the current advertising recession will end in July, with new data to back up that claim, and identified the biggest areas for growth.
“Constant disruption is now the operating system of our ecosystem,” Shapiro said in his opening remarks, noting that his job is to help stakeholders survive what he calls “the current media apocalypse.”
In a global marketplace, Shapiro said, it’s important to understand the demographic changes in the world’s population. “One of the things that you have to know is that the population on the planet Earth is completely different now from what it is when most of us were growing up,” he said, pointing out that 63% of the world’s population is now under the age of 40. “So If you’re over the age of 40, you’re in a minority for the first time in your life.”
Watch the full session, “The Mind of the Modern Media Consumer,” above.
But what’s even more critical to understand, says Shapiro, is how the demographics break down across regions: 33% of the world’s population is under 20, but that number changes drastically by region. In North America it’s 25%, and in Europe it’s 21%, but in Asia and Latin America that figure jumps to 32%, and in Africa it’s a whopping 51%.
“Half of the fastest growing economies on the face of the earth are in Africa,” he says. “So think about the world as you think about your business, look for opportunity outside of where you’re operating today.”
Shapiro also tackled misconceptions that younger consumers don’t want to pay for services. That’s “absolutely untrue,” he said, “The younger consumer is more apt to pay for services. They want to pay for media. We’ve raised three generations, the youngest generations, the largest generations, the most diverse generations on the planet, to pay for their media.”
He also pointed out that, according to surveys, the most important things to young subscribers are “relevant content, original content, refreshed content, and library size,” all of which are ranked as more important than cost.
Cr: ESHAP
Not thinking globally is a sure business-killer, Shapiro insists, using Roku as an example. “Roku is the number-one platform for streaming television on the planet Earth,” he said. “They’re not in the top five anywhere outside of the United States. So if you think about how to lose your business, focus only on America. And if you wanted to look at a good case study, look at Roku’s stock price over the last 24 months. Not a good story. Right? They moved far too late to go global, and it’s killing them right now.”
Companies like Samsung and Google, Shapiro said, are the new gatekeepers, and “in many cases, also your direct competitors.”
Samsung has already moved into publishing content, he said, noting that that streamers have to be included in the company’s home screen offerings to be considered a global publishing brand.
“Google is the direct competitor and an aggregator of yours. So this idea that we have these ‘frenemies’ I am now rebranding them — or trying to — into collaborators. You’re competing with them. And you also have to bear hug them, you don’t have a choice,” he continued.
“The idea that you’re going to be able to operate around these collaborators, specifically, Google is adorably naive, it’s just not possible. So you have to think about a way to both compete with them, and collaborate with them simultaneously.”
But what about that ad recession, you ask? Shapiro had plenty to say about that, along with some cold, hard data to back everything up. The upshot is that churn is the killer of advertising. “Serial churning is the new channel changing,” he said, and “when somebody cancels a subscription, not only do [streamers] lose that subscriber revenue, they also lose those ad impressions.”
In Q4 of last year, Shapiro noted, SVODs signed up 41.3 million new subscribers and lost another 33.8 million subscribers, an 82% loss. “That’s a shitty business, and, by the way, not great for advertisers,” he commented.
The US advertising market has experienced nine months of decline, Shapiro observed, but “bold prediction for you — the ad recession will end in July.”
Math, he says, has provided the answers. “The reason why we’re in an ad recession is primarily due to the comparison to the year prior,” he says, looking at ad revenue from the first quarter of 2022.
“It’s hard to keep that pace up,” he adds. “Now in July, the comparison is going to be a lot easier than it was a year ago. The ad recession is going to end magically in the middle of this summer, because math, and you’re going to hear about how advertising is back this fall.”
The outlook isn’t entirely rosy, however, Shapiro warns: “What’s going to happen though, is not all the ads are going to be shared equally amongst all the players. Because gravity sucks. Ads are going to go where the ads are most effective; ads are going to go where the ads are already working.”
The Mr. Beast Game Show, TikTok OH NO, and the Truth About Instagram Algorithms
BY JIM LOUDERBACK
TL;DR
Jimmy “Mr. Beast” Donaldson tweeted about his vision to produce a game show for traditional TV. Neat idea, and another step towards global media domination for one of the world’s great creators.
A nascent effort to bring creators together to collectively advocate is brewing – which I strongly support – but that’s not all. Top League of Legends players have also walked off the job.
TikTok joins Snap in developing an in-app AI chatbot. Part of Double-T’s push to replace search, this one’s called ‘Tako’. It could be a powerful addition. Or it might just make the focused short video app just a bit bulkier and more unfocused.
Although nearly 6 in 10 US adults have heard of ChatGPT, only 14% have actually used it, according to new research from Pew. That’s dramatically different from the creator universe, according to a new study from Epidemic Sound.
This Week: Mr. Beast wants to produce TV, collective action for the creator economy, weird new chatbots, algorithm insights from Adam Mosseri and why I think we’ve achieved peak research. Hi, I’m Jim and I helped build VidCon, OG-MCN Revision3, PC Magazine and TechTV. It’s the first week of Juneand here’s what you need to know.
Tic-Tac-Toe Uh-Oh: TikTok joins Snap in developing an in-app AI chatbot. Part of Double-T’s push to replace search, this one’s called ‘Tako’. It could be a powerful addition. Or it might just make the focused short video app just a bit bulkier and more unfocused. That name too! Quick, say it fast out loud three times – “TikTok Tako”. Yeah that’s what I thought as well. Maybe they’ll rebrand “Taco Tuesday” while they’re at it. Also, now you can send Snap’s chatbot a pic and get a snappy GenAI response. A qdp-fueled descent into debauchery will surely follow.
Trading on Creator Success? Imagine a stock fund focusing on creator-heavy businesses. Could it outperform the market? That’s the hypothesis of Conor Begley‘s latest stock index concept. First up – Lululemon – and more companies will be added soon. Alas, early returns are not great. But this is an idea worth testing.
🌟 UPDATE: Looks like Lululemon was up biggly Friday after releasing earnings. So, I guess this might be working after all!
AI Use Not Widespread: Although nearly 6 in 10 US adults have heard of ChatGPT, only 14% have actually used it, according to new research from Pew. That’s dramatically different from the creator universe, according to a new study from Epidemic Sound. After talking to 1,500 creators, they found that 93% of “monetizing creators” are using AI tools. And based on my discussions last week with a variety of exciting startups, even more super-useful tools incorporating AI are on the way. Paradoxically, though, AI as a promoted feature will fade away. Our tools will be laced with the stuff, thus becoming outrageously more capable. But like electricity, wireless internet, and video compression it will silently fade into the background. Where it belongs.
Peak Research Has Arrived: Another relatively self-serving creator economy study – this one from creator marketing platform Aspire, finds YouTube is the most profitable monetization platform and helps marketers price their partnerships. Along with Epidemic Sound’s study highlighted above, we may have reached peak research. Remember, aside from Pew, these studies are directional, not projectible.
Thanks for reading and see you around the internet. Send me a note with your feedback, or post in the comments! Feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested, and if someone forwarded this to you, you can sign up and subscribe on LinkedIn for free here!
From predicting the probability of a catch in real time to forecasting ticket sales, tech is revolutionizing the business of sports. Learn how AWS is changing the game.
Access key industry solutions demos and dive deep into panel sessions with AWS from NAB Show.
June 12, 2023
Jim Louderback: Twitch Enrages Creators Again — Why Can’t they Learn? Plus the Dark Side of Baby Gronk and Good News for Shorts Creators!
BY JIM LOUDERBACK
TL;DR
Twitch has disastrously decided to prohibit burned in display and audio ads.
We’ve got more than everything you need to know about Baby Gronk, Baby Diggs and the NIL-spawn Livvy. I really hope we’re not seeing the next Honey Boo-Boo here, but in hindsight this should have been expected when NIL became legit.
We’re five months into the Shorts monetization chapter, and it’s mostly atrocious. However, there’s a light.
This Week: Twitch turmoil, Baby Gronk, Shorts improvements, what Apple’s new headset means for creators, and much more! Hi, I’m Jim and I helped build VidCon, OG-MCN Revision3, PC Magazine and TechTV. It’s the 2nd week of Juneand here’s what you need to know.
Twitch Enrages Creators Again: Back in 2010, the YouTube network I ran – Revision3 – had a legal agreement that allowed us to run burned in sponsor ads on our videos (negotiated by the amazing Damon Berger). Other networks wanted to do the same, but YouTube wouldn’t let them. And then they put the legal screws on us to try to box us out too. Luckily common sense prevailed, and brand deals provide creators with much of their income. Most platforms encourage it. But instead of learning from history, Twitch decided to repeat it – to disastrous results. After the rapid roll-back, I assume this was more of a comms failure rather than an actual return to 2010, but the result was the same. It just added to the anomie and distrust creators already felt towards the platform. A suggestion: Maybe Twitch needs to pressure test these changes with a trusted creator council before launching. And if one already exists, a compositional change might be appropriate. Also note that simulcasting was banned, and partner agreements torn up – and those changes stay (HT Publish Press – happy anniversary!).
Here Comes Baby Gronk! Here’s more than everything you need to know about Baby Gronk, Baby Diggs and the NIL-spawn Livvy. I really hope we’re not seeing the next Honey Boo-Boo here, but in hindsight this should have been expected when NIL became legit. This unsettling interview with Baby Gronk’s Dad ($) reminds me of that night I spent on the couch with Mama June in 2013. 2023’s recipe for disaster: A “pretty good at this internet stuff” Dad with a 10-year-old “product”. Can’t we just let kids be kids?
There’s a Light in the Darkness? We’re five months into the Shorts monetization chapter, and it’s mostly atrocious. However, there’s a light (over at the Frankenstein place). It’s Premium, which is delivering 5x the percentage revenue of long-form, according to Matt Gielen. And it looks like YouTube is even more committed to having Shorts become an entry point for search, as Google’s DeepMind AI is now generating Shorts descriptions, promising to supercharge discoverability. But creators are still trying to figure out how it works. Matt Koval shares insight from his client work, where he mostly recommends putting Shorts on a separate channel from longer-form video. Perhaps there’s strength in the community here, as YouTube’s new#ShortsFriends initiative aims to connect creators to each other to jump-start growth. Hopefully the picture becomes clearer soon, so we can time warp back to when YouTube delivered meaningful revshare across all video formats.
How Apple’s Vision Pro Will Change the Creator Economy: Lots of digital ink spilled last week on an expensive tech product that won’t be available for a year. Ben Thompson’s take is worth reading, while most of the rest was either breathless adulation or predictable predictions of failure. I’m reminded of Bill Gates’ quote about how we overestimate short-term impact but underestimate the change 10 years later. Yes it’s pricey, but $3,500 is relatively cheap for an Apple category buster: upon release the first Mac cost $7,000 in 2022 dollars, while the Apple Lisa – perhaps a better comp – would cost $30,000 today. A few thoughts on how creators will evolve in the long term:
Headcasting from events will become popular as we teleport inside our favorite creator’s head at the Met Gala, Coachella, VidCon and other experiences.
Roblox creators find a lucrative new market for goods and experiences.
Superfan hangouts with creators become more intimate, personal, and engaging – and offer a new avenue for AI-based constructs to drive revenue.
Digital collectibles and badges take off (just don’t call them NFTs).
A new class of creators currently suffering through middle school will dominate the Tubefilter top 50 by 2033.
Don’t Kill the Golden Archive! Insatiable demand for AI training data brought down the Internet Archive – and has also indirectly led to Reddit and Twitter charging for API access too. You can witness the Reddit impact today, as a 48-hour Reddit blackout is underway. It’s the 2023 tragedy of the commons. Hopefully brewster kahle and team will figure out how to grant access without breaking the system – and maybe even make some money too. Let’s not inadvertently kill the things we love as we build the future.
Research Study of the Week: Most creators know about AI, while around 2/3rds are using it in some way, according to a new study from tools vendor Lightricks. Despite wide usage, the study also reported widespread concern about AI – from deepfakes to copyright infringement. The study also looks at monetization – which appears to be up for most creators. This study was executed by YouGov, so it’s likely more reliable than some of the others we’ve talked about. But the methodology is not well defined. Grade: B –Directional, not Predictive.
Where I’ll be: Going to VidCon? See you there – I’m hosting and moderating sessions on both the industry and creator track! Also check out my “how to VidCon video”, updated for 2023.
Thanks for reading and see you around the internet. Send me a note with your feedback, or post in the comments! Feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested, and if someone forwarded this to you, you can sign up and subscribe on LinkedIn for free here!
It can… but falls apart when asked to produce something truly new.
The ‘Portrait of Edmond de Bellamy’ was produced by a generative adversarial network that was fed a data set of 15,000 portraits spanning six centuries.
Christies/Picril
Is computational creativity possible? The recent hype around generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, Dall-E and many others, raises new questions about whether creativity is a uniquely human skill. Some recent and remarkable milestones of generative AI foster this question:
An AI artwork, The Portrait of Edmond de Belamy, sold for $432,500, nearly 45 times its high estimate, by the auction house Christie’s in 2018. The artwork was created by a generative adversarial network that was fed a data set of 15,000 portraits covering six centuries.
Music producers such as Grammy-nominee Alex Da Kid, have collaborated with AI (in this case IBM’s Watson) to churn out hits and inform their creative process.
In the cases above, a human is still at the helm, curating the AI’s output according to their own vision and thereby retaining the authorship of the piece. Yet, AI image generator Dall-E, for example, can produce novel output on any theme you wish within seconds. Through diffusion, whereby huge datasets are scraped together to train the AI, generative AI tools can now transpose written phrases into novel pictures or improvise music in the style of any composer, devising new content that resembles the training data but isn’t identical. Authorship in this case is perhaps more complex. Is it the algorithm? The thousands of artists whose work has been scraped to produce the image? The prompter who successfully describes the style, reference, subject matter, lighting, point of view and even emotion evoked? To answer these questions, we must return to an age-old question.
What is Creativity?
According to Margaret Boden, there are three types of creativity: combinational, exploratory, and transformational creativity. Combinational creativity combines familiar ideas together. Exploratory creativity generates new ideas by exploring ‘structured conceptual spaces,’ that is, tweaking an accepted style of thinking by exploring its contents, boundaries and potential. Both of these types of creativity are not a million miles from generative AI’s algorithmic production of art; creating novel works in the same style as millions of others in the training data, a ‘synthetic creativity.’ Transformational creativity, however, means generating ideas beyond existing structures and styles to create something entirely original; this is at the heart of current debates around AI in terms of fair use and copyright – very much unchartered legal waters, so we will have to wait and see what the courts decide.
The key characteristic of AI’s creative processes is that the current computational creativity is systematic, not impulsive, as its human counterpart can often be. It is programmed to process information in a certain way to achieve particular results predictably, albeit in often unexpected ways. In fact, this is perhaps the most significant difference between artists and AI: while artists are self- and product-driven, AI is very much consumer-centric and market-driven — we only get the art we ask for, which is not perhaps, what we need.
So far, generative AI seems to work best with human partners and, perhaps then, the synthetic creativity of the AI is a catalyst to push our human creativity, augmenting human creativity rather than producing it. As is often the case, the hype around these tools as disruptive forces outstrips the reality. In fact, art history shows us that technology has rarely directly displaced humans from work they wanted to do. Think of the camera, for example, which was feared due to its power to put portrait painters out of business. What are the business implications for the use of synthetic creativity by AI, then?
Synthetic Art for Business
Synthetic creativity on demand, as currently generated by AI, is certainly a boon to business and marketing. Recent examples include:
AI-augmented fashion styling: Stitch Fix utilized AI to capture personalized visualizations of clothing based on requested customer preferences such as color, fabric and style.
The potential use scenarios are endless and what they require is another form of creativity: curation. AI has been known to ‘hallucinate’ — an industry term for spewing nonsense — and the decidedly human skill required is in sense-making, that is expressing concepts, ideas and truths, rather than just something that is pleasing to the senses. Curation is therefore needed to select and frame, or reframe, a unified and compelling vision.
Aimed at empowering creatives, the AI Creative Summit will be held at NAB Show New York Oct. 24-25.
June 4, 2023
What’s Behind the $100 Billion+ Creator Economy (Hint: It’s Not Creativity)
TL;DR
The Creator Economy comprises more than 200 million people globally, contributing to an industry expected to be worth over $100 billion by end of this year.
Creator-led brands have emerged as valuable partners for well-known companies, sports teams, leagues and other entities looking to expand their audience by tapping into the niche audiences of content creators.
Multi-language audio tracking represents an opportunity for creators to grow their reach. YouTube reported that dubbed videos made up approximately 15% of watch-time in a channel’s non-primary language.
The creator economy is maturing into an industry worth north of $104 billion globally by the end of 2023, according to data compiled in a new report.
There’s been a 314% increase in the number of people earning a living as creators worldwide, up from 50 million in 2021 to 207 million this year, per the “2023 Creator Economy Report” from The Influencer Marketing Factory.
This includes amateur creators whose number has almost tripled in size since 2021, while the demand for creator mentorship and monetization opportunities is “drastically increasing.”
Creator-led brands have emerged as valuable partners for well-known companies, sports teams, leagues, and other entities looking to expand their audience by tapping into the content creators’ niche audience.
“The industry is starting to recognize that creators are businesses,” says Sima Gandhi, Co-Founder, CEO of Creative Juice, one of a dozen industry execs quoted in the report. “We’ve seen that when creators leverage business and tax tools, they can make more, save more, and grow faster.”
TikTok and YouTube are the top favored and top earning platforms at a relatively even rate in 2023. For both TikTok and YouTube, 26% of creators say they are their favorite platforms and 26% say they earn the most on either platform.
The report supports other research that being a full time creator will net you a decent living but by no means one you can retire on. The majority of content creators interviewed for this report make between $50,000 and $100,000 per year. More than 75% of creators earning less than $20,000 annually have less than 150,000 followers.
The report suggests that this may be due to the fact that they are smaller creators just starting out in their creator careers, or they may use influencer marketing and user-generated content as a side hustle.
To start earning $1 million a year, creators will need more than five million followers. Even then, only 4.8% of creators interviewed with more than five million followers reported earning more than $1 million per year in 2023.
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Avi Gandhi, Founder of Partner with Creators, points to the rise of the “grown up” creator.
“Ten years ago, when you said ‘creator,’ the mental image would be of a young teen or 20-something taking Instagram photos or making YouTube videos,” he says. “Then COVID-19 happened, and every gainfully employed adult in the world was sent home. Since then, hundreds of thousands of professional adults have augmented their incomes or gone full time as creators.”
Being a creator is no longer a young person’s game: “As tools, platforms, and services businesses have arisen to feed relatively new revenue models – like masterminds, coaching, courses and more — small audiences have started to yield large dollars.”
In addition, creators don’t need to appeal to the masses to make a living; they can carve out a niche and find people willing to pay for their content.
“Content creation isn’t just about creativity and entertainment anymore,” Ghandi adds. “Now, more than ever, it’s about utility.”
The report provides an overview of every notable social media platform and creator tool. For instance, it notes that multi-language audio tracking is now available for creators on YouTube.
YouTube reported that dubbed videos made up approximately 15% of watch-time in the channels’ non-primary language.
One of the world’s highest earning creators, Mr. Beast, tells the report that multi-language audio is extremely useful for creators like himself who have several subchannels for content translated to a different language in that their spread of content can be condensed to one main channel.
“You can imagine if you take twelve channels like those and instead of doing them all separate you combine them on one, it supercharges the heck out of the video,” says Mr. Beast.
This in turn makes it easier for global viewers to locate content and simply select their language dubbing preference from the video settings menu. Mr. Beast advises that creators dub their old content as well as their new content so that fans may binge watch your content.
“Just as word-of-mouth marketing has always been the most effective form of advertising, creators harness that power, but at scale,” Brendan Gahan, Partner & Chief Social Officer at Mekanism says in the report. “Individuals are the trusted media outlets.”
He goes onto argue that the relationship creators have with viewers isn’t so much a fan relationship but one more akin to friendship.
“Influencers form powerful, parasocial bonds with their audiences. It’s a one-to-many, scalable friendship. Celebrities may be recognized, but it’s creators who are truly loved and trusted by their communities.”
Jim Louderback: YouTube Algorithm Insider Explains What’s New, and Revelations from an Expert Model of the Creator Economy
BY JIM LOUDERBACK
TL;DR
YouTube algorithm chief Todd Beaupré explains how it really works in a must watch video for anyone building on YouTube.
OG creator Peter Hollens’ recent essay passionately explains why creators really do make the best social media managers.
Researchers from Cornell and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology just released an economic and quantitative model of the influencer economy to explain how it works and divulged some interesting conclusions.
This Week: New insights on audience satisfaction and content optimization from YouTube’s internal algorithm czar, copyright challenges for the video and AI age, and new academic research on the influencer economy. Also updates on the post-creator landscape, TikTok’s Creator Marketplace and much more. It’s the end of May and here’s what you need to know.
YouTube Algorithm Chief Explains How It Really Works: A must watch video for anyone building on YouTube featuring Todd Beaupré. Top insights include “don’t think algorithm, think audience”, and an exploration of how YouTube takes the long view via “satisfaction” – and how that complements watch time. He also shares how YouTube evaluates new creators and helps them find an audience and how to think about optimizing Shorts, podcasts, and long-form. Todd also expands what “satisfaction” really means in a LinkedIn comment. Love hearing from the source, more please YouTube! (Pro tip: YouTube lets you adjust playback speed. It’s even better at 1.5x).
From F* Pay Me to F* Hire Me: OG creator Peter Hollens 🟣 has been an advocate for creators nearly forever. One of Patreon’s first investors, he’s now focusing on the post-creator experience. And his recent essay passionately explains why creators really do make the best social media managers. And also why companies that hire creators build real competitive advantage. The article also lays out the thesis for his latest startup, but is worth reading beyond the self-promotion. Other examples are emerging too, including Too Faced’s new creative director Sara Echeagaray, Sophie Lightning’s stint at Nerf and now Made by Gather, and many more. But it’s not just another promotional avenue, as success creators can directly translate those skills to building success for you.
From Andy Warhol to YouTube Swatting: Copyright in the video/AI age is a vipers nest of contradictions. Our institutions – from government to top platforms – remain woefully behind the times, which creates minefields for creators and artists alike. First up, an awful story about how a vindictive creator uses YouTube’s creaky copyright strike system to attack competing creators. Hey Big Red, why is strike “swatting” still a thing? Next, the US Supreme Court narrowed fair use by slapping Condé Nast for its transformative interpretation of an Andy Warhol painting. Peter Csathy explains why this ruling could have huge implications for generative AI. Copyright needs to be reinvented for the AI and digital age – but we’ve known that for nearly 30 years.
Academics Discover the Creator Economy: When should creators demand reciprocal exclusivity during brand deal negotiations? Now there’s a scientific answer! Researchers from Cornell and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology just released an economic and quantitative model of the influencer economy to explain how it works and divulged some interesting conclusions. In addition to exclusivity optimization, they also predict when long-term hookups are better for both parties and much more. Read the dense and non-peer reviewed paper (or download my free GenAI summary sourced from ChatPDF, Bing and ChatGPT). And expect more academic scrutiny on Creator Econometrics in the months ahead. That’s a good thing.
The “Ad Recession” has definitely arrived, says Simon Owens – who suggests doubling down on subscriptions and other paid revenue. Unfortunately, it also means cutting back, layoffs and fire sales.
Li Jin explores the potential of the Lens Protocol, a creator-friendly open social graph that lets you keep your followers as you change social platforms.
AI ad reads could soon come to your Spotify podcasts.
Thanks for reading and see you around the internet. Send me a note with your feedback, or post in the comments! Feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested, and if someone forwarded this to you, you can sign up and subscribe on LinkedIn for free here!
A comprehensive analysis of the creator economy by global VC firm Antler shows an industry in transition.
May 29, 2023
Traditional Media Companies Aren’t “Computable,” and That’s Where AI Actually Poses a Threat
TL;DR
A new report from studio-funded thinktank ETC, “AI & Competitive Advantage in Media,” authored by the org’s resident data scientist and AI expert, Yves Bergquist, explores the impact of generative AI on the media.
Bergquist argues that generative AI impacts the media industry less by disrupting its traditional content creation process and more by giving social content creators the tools to make large amounts of truly cinematic, studio-like content.
Social media’s strength is its enormous library of content, which allows it to conduct millions of content market-fit experiments per minute.
There’s still a place for deliberate, curated, data-driven development decisions about what audiences want to see, but studio-style content needs to be integrated and immersive.
The single biggest impact of generative AI for large content producers and distributors isn’t about disrupting the media-making process. It’s that it gives its fiercest competitors — content creators on YouTube and TikTok — more tools to eat further into everyone’s daily video consumption that the media industry is battling for.
According to a fresh report by studio-funded thinktank ETC, “AI and Competitive Advantage in Media,” generative AI “potentially disrupts the already unfortunate economics of the media business: stable demand (never more than 24 hours in a day) and exploding supply.”
In the report, Yves Bergquist, ETC’s resident data scientist and AI expert, argues that what’s happening in the media industry is proximate to what already happened in manufacturing: automation of the craft of making a product (i.e., making the product computable).
By computable they mean that content is produced in volume and is “machine readable” in terms of every aspect of its creation to distribution to feedback from audiences being data and therefore available for dissection
Traditional media companies currently are not “computable” in the sense that they produce products linearly, one at a time. It is scarce, whole, long-form (not conducive to being sliced and diced by an online audience) and unstructured (its narrative DNA is not yet machine-readable).
This is going to have to change if studios and streamers want to part of the bigger picture in a few years’ time.
ETC divides the creative process into three parts. Bergquist dubs the ideation part, where creatives “sense” what an audience wants to see, “zeitgeist intelligence.”
Then there’s the core of the creative process, where creatives define their voices and make strategic decisions about what product will be crafted.
Finally, the product is made.
AI’s immediate impact is on that final phase. But by automating production, “Generative AI not only puts more emphasis on Zeitgeist-sensing and creative decision-making, it gives creative decision-makers tools to quickly and cheaply tinker, experiment, and prototype.”
At the same time, traditional media companies “risk losing their monopoly on the craft of high-quality content.”
Generative AI empowers social creatives to quickly and cheaply craft “studio quality” content threatening the status of traditional media. They can do this because their knowledge of what the audience wants is crowdsources by links, likes and recommendation algorithms. The content produced is computable in the sense that it can all be digitally mined. And the scale of content production means there’s enough supply to fit cater for every audience whim.
But ETC spots a weakness. Social media platforms and content creators reliant on those platforms lack any real understanding of their audience, claims ETC. It is just “basic content match-making”.
Instead, studios and especially streamers, can strike back against pure AI content generators by using the data they have at their disposal more intelligently.
“Programmatic content distributors like TikTok match content with audiences without any semantic understanding of why this content resonates. It’s just a programmatic marketplace that computes the content de facto.”
With generative AI bringing high production value tools to social creators, we can expect a new category of “short-form linear content” to emerge on social platforms.
Studios, on the other hand, “have the longest experience and the largest dataset available to not only develop an intelligence go their audiences, but to draw them into a deep relationship with their franchises.”
Media organizations, “especially those with a streaming service,” have both the data and a unique capability to understand the cultural zeitgeist. They can use AI to better “know” what audiences want, Bergquist says.
ETC also suggests that it’s the large media organizations that have the financial backbone “to create highly integrated and replicable AI-driven virtual production workflows.”
It contends that traditional media players will need to differentiate through immersive, multi-platform, world-building franchises, a trend they are already pursuing of course.
This, says ETC, “is the greatest opportunity for large media organizations to leverage virtual production and generative AI together to quicken and cheapen the cost of producing these multi-format immersive pieces. This new form of computable content will run on game engines.”
In so doing, this “revolutionizes the way stories are told,” with integrated narratives spun across linear and immersive media products.
There are warnings, though.
“Media organizations don’t have a software culture, nor can they support large AI R&D assets. They could partner with (or acquire) key AI research organizations to leverage their data to create their own proprietary content and audience intelligence models, but this is a heavy lift.”
ETC also identifies a need for intuitive “human-ready” and “business-ready” interfaces for AI models, which continues to be the greatest bottleneck for AI in enterprise. Too often, says Bergquist, organizations can’t connect models and business needs.
“Whoever can redesign their organizations and workforce needs to best create a ‘culture’ of AI and data will move faster than its competitors.”
Education, insists ETC, is the largest opportunity in AI today.
While everyone seems to agree AI represents a big financial opportunity to automate some production and postproduction workflow it begs a question: Does taking knowledge of the craft out of creative work affect creative decisions and creative output overall? Or, put another way, does knowing the craft make a creative a better decision-maker? ETC has no answers for this, and perhaps we’ll only find out in time.
More globally, what the media industry needs right now is a distinct and actionable AI vision.
As Hollywood studios weigh the creative potential of artificial intelligence, AI could be the most important part of the WGA strike.
May 24, 2023
Posted
May 23, 2023
So What Do Audiences Think About the Use of AI in Hollywood?
TL;DR
A new report titled “Reading Between the [Picket] Lines” from global insights and strategy firm NRG reveals that streaming viewers largely support the WGA strike and are cautiously open to the use of AI in the entertainment industry.
The findings are based on a survey of 3,000 US consumers, aged 13-54, who subscribe to at least one streaming service and consume a minimum of four hours of streaming content per week.
While more than 60% of respondents are aware of the strike, only 13% feel they have a comprehensive understanding of the strike and its underlying reasons.
Among those who feel they understand “a lot” about the strike, a staggering 74% say that they support the WGA’s decision to strike.
When it comes to the role of generative AI in the entertainment industry, viewers are yet to fully make up their minds about where they stand, yet more than two-thirds expressed concern about the use of AI in Hollywood.
As the Writers Guild of America strike continues to unfold, a new report reveals that streaming viewers are both supportive of the writers but also cautiously open to the role of AI in the entertainment industry.
The report, “Reading Between the [Picket] Lines,” from global insights and strategy firm NRG, is based on a study of 3,000 US consumers ages 13-54 who subscribe to at least one streaming service and watch a minimum of four hours of streaming content per week.
While public understanding of the WGA strike remains low, the report found, there is already strong support for the writers. More than 60% of respondents indicated awareness of the strike, but only 13% said they understand “a lot” about the strike and the reasons behind it. However, among those who feel they understand “a lot” about the strike, a staggering 74% say that they support the WGA’s decision to strike. Forty-three percent of viewers say that they either “strongly” or “somewhat” support the decision to strike — more than three times the number who oppose the strike (13%).
As media coverage continues, it’s likely that sympathy for the WGA’s position will grow — especially in the early stages of the strike while studios still have content to release and most viewers don’t yet feel personally affected by the disruption to the industry. The most immediate impact of the strike has been the suspension of late-night shows; however, only 10% of streaming viewers say this is an issue that they personally care about.
Interestingly in these politically divided times, support for the strike appears to transcend political divisions. Consumers who self-identify as liberal are among the most likely to back the strike, with 57% in support and only 10% opposed; but even conservatives say they support the strike by a two-to-one margin (34% support vs. 16% oppose).
Cr: NRG
Cr: NRG
Cr: NRG
When it comes to the role of AI in the entertainment industry — one of the central issues at stake in the strike — viewers are yet to fully make up their minds about where they stand, yet more than two-thirds expressed concern about the use of AI in Hollywood.
“To me that’s an early warning sign of a potential backlash if studios are seen to be using AI specifically for the strike,” Katie Kelley, NRG’s executive vice president of content and strategy and a former vice president of market research at Paramount Pictures, told Lucas Manfredi at TheWrap.
“That would suggest that as the media coverage kind of continues, maybe builds around the strike and those motivations do become maybe a little bit clearer to consumers that they are able to make up their minds,” she continued. “It would suggest that as awareness builds, the same level of support will probably pan out in the long run.”
While there’s a contingent who are strongly opposed to the use of AI to write scripts, most viewers are willing to at least wait and see what AI-supported content looks like before deciding how to feel about it.
More than a quarter (28%) say they’d be less interested in watching a show if they found out it was written with the help of AI, while only 13% say that they would be more interested. Overall, however, a majority of viewers — nearly 6 in 10 — say it would have no impact on their willingness to watch a show. This suggests that, for the most part, consumers are still making up their minds about whether they want to lean in or out of AI-generated content.
Only 12% of those surveyed believe that studios should fully adopt AI to script content with minimal human intervention. In contrast, a third of the respondents (32%) advocate for a complete avoidance of AI in the entertainment industry. Interestingly, a significant 38% see a potential role for AI in the sector, but insist that its use should be responsible and guided by seasoned human screenwriters.
“When you add those together,” Kelly noted, “it means that more than two-thirds either want the industry to avoid using it or only use it under the discretion of humans. “I think that’s a compelling data point.”
For generative AI to successfully carve out a space for itself in the entertainment industry, it’s critical that viewers see it as a tool to support human screenwriters — not as threat to their livelihoods. If studios are seen as turning to AI to replace striking writers, this could create a strong public backlash against the technology, Kelly said.
“If studios are generally interested in exploring this new technology, I think they need to tread a little carefully during the strike period.”
YouTube released its “YouTube impact 2022” report, touting $35 Billion of US economic impact, 390,000 FTE (Full Time Equivalent) jobs in its “creative ecosystem” and over 55,000 US channels with more than 100,000 subscribers (according to Brendan Gahan, it mushrooms to 320k worldwide).
This Week: Updates from YouTube’s Brandcast and NFL Chief Roger Goodell’s surprise appearance, also new unskippable ads and AI for advertisers. Also, a look at the eye-popping “YouTube impact 2022” report, along with various topics related to creators, including new tools from Meta and the psychology of support. Also the decline of the modern internet webpage, the rise of AI replicated creators, TikTok’s Montana mess and developments in the world of NFTs. It’s the fourth week of May 2023 and here’s you need to know.
YouTube Brandcast Focuses on NFL, AI: Although creators were everywhere, NFL Chief Roger Goodell stole the show at YouTube’s advertiser party last week. Big Red spent billions to stream American football this fall, and they clearly need strong advertiser – and viewer – support to make money. Unskippable ads are coming too, which means more money for creators – hopefully – but more blowback from users. And following Meta’s lead, they also leaned into AI for advertisers. Quite the contrast to the dispirited upfronts from traditional TV platforms, reeling from the Hollywood writer’s strike. Creators don’t have a union (yet), thus their star power was prominently displayed. Alas, my invite got lost in the mail, so I can’t share any other fun Brandcast details. Attendees did walk away with a free Sunday Ticket subscription, which will cost regular folks nearly $500. If anyone has a free “Sunday Ticket” invite left over and wants to support this newsletter, send it my way – I’ll give you a shout-out here next week!
YouTube Impact Report 2022 Released: In a related story, YouTube released its “YouTube impact 2022” report, touting $35 Billion of US economic impact, 390,000 FTE (Full Time Equivalent) jobs in its “creative ecosystem” and over 55,000 US channels with more than 100,000 subscribers (according to Brendan Gahan, it mushrooms to 320k worldwide). Yes sub metrics are suspect, but still. Those are killer numbers. If YouTube were a country, their US GDP contribution alone would slot them in between Estonia and Senegal. For all the handwringing about TiKTok, Snap and Instagram, the report paints a picture of a dominant creative and economic force, and one that’s growing 15% or more annually. And unlike the studies we discussed last week, YouTube worked with a legit research firm, Oxford Economics, to conduct its surveys. Want to see what a real methodology statement looks like? Download the whole study and head to page 25. Finally, a study that’s projectible, not just directional.
Ad Blockers Steal from Creators: Do you use an ad-blocker on YouTube? If so, you’re not only docking YouTube, but you’re fleecing creators as well. YouTube is experimenting with blocking access to ad blockers as it tries to right the revenue picture. But because creators get a share of revenue, less ads served means less money for creators. Support your favorite creators. Watch ads on their channels. Otherwise, those creators might have to stop.
Why We Support Creators: There’s more you can do to support your favorite creators though beyond just watching ads – from tipping to buying merch. But why do we do it? It’s not altruism, says Derek Yang, but instead one (or more) of four primary motivators – from status to identity. Yang’s post dives deep into each of these, helping creators and brands refine their monetization strategy and motivate fan support.
Montana Bans TikTok:The proposed ban was signed into law. Although easy to circumvent, the precedent of a state banning TikTok will continue to tarnish Double-T while unleashing a torrent of lawsuits that will likely hit the Supreme Court eventually. First up – five Montana-based creators are suing for first amendment protection. In a related story, the Supreme Court continued to agree that internet platforms are not liable for the content they serve – and their moderation – by ruling for Twitter and dismissing a related case against YouTube. Will the Montana ban hold up? IANAL, so I asked my favorite creator lawyer (and CEO of Creators Legal) Eric Farber:
“Section 230 and the TikTok/Montana ban both deal with digital platform rights, but from different angles; while 230 focuses on user content liability, the TikTok ban brings up questions of national security, data privacy, and the practicalities of enforcing such a ban, all while raising significant constitutional concerns. It is unlikely the Montana ban will hold up on the federal level.”
New Facebook Tools for Creators: Facebook continues to lean into creators by adding new resources for creators to its “Professional Dashboard”. Good to see, but does anyone else think Meta’s creator resources are all over the place? There’s that dashboard, the Meta Business Suite, Adam Mosseri’s Instagram channel, Zuckerberg’s video site on Facebook, Facebook for Creators and much more. I’d love to see everything come together – maybe they need to take a “page” from Linktree?
“The PC revolution, the Internet revolution, and the AI revolution (can be) viewed as three applications of the defining economic feature of digitization — zero marginal costs — to information:
“The PC allowed for zero marginal duplication of information.
“The Internet allows for zero marginal distribution of information…
“AI is zero marginal generation of information.”
Thanks for reading and see you around the internet. Send me a note with your feedback, or post in the comments! Feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested, and if someone forwarded this to you, you can sign up and subscribe on LinkedIn for free here!
A comprehensive analysis of the creator economy by global VC firm Antler shows an industry in transition.
May 21, 2023
Posted
May 16, 2023
Jim Louderback: Get Paid for Views, Not Ads; Meta’s Surprising New Strategy; and Influence Beats Work for Young Adults
BY JIM LOUDERBACK
TL;DR
Meta is taking an interesting approach to paying creators in a new Facebook Reels test. Rather than sharing revenue – as it did with prior tests, it plans on paying for views instead.
The latest IZEA influencer study is out – fielded in December 2022 via 1,200 U.S.-based consumers.
I’m a Creator and I Quit! The latest IZEA influencer study is out – fielded in December 2022 via 1,200 U.S.-based consumers. It found that 61% of 18-29 year-olds in the U.S. would quit their job if they could make a living as an influencer. The study also found that more than 1 in 5 (of that 18-29 group) already consider themselves an influencer. Almost half of those influencers have less than 1000 followers, while 56% are employed full-time.
40% of Users Tip Creators and Most Creators Make Over $50k a Year (say Wut?): IZEA competitor “The Influencer Marketing Factory” released an omnibus overview of the creator economy and research too. Their study talked to 1,000 U.S. users and 660 U.S. creators, and found that more than 40% of users tip, and more than 60% of content creators make over $50k a year. Clearly not a random sample. In addition, their data shows that a whopping 94% of creators have adopted AI into their workflow. There’s a lack of transparency about methodology in both Izea and TIMF’s study – and some of TIMF’s data seem way off base. Given Izea’s track record I find more veracity in their data – but take both as directional, not projectable.
Get Views and Get Paid: Meta is taking an interesting approach to paying creators in a new Facebook Reels test. Rather than sharing revenue – as it did with prior tests, it plans on paying for views instead. Meta will transition some creators into this new model and invite more creators to participate. Instagram will be added in select markets too. Somewhat like Spotter and Jellysmack’s model – where creators get paid today for expected future earnings regardless of platform sales or economic environment – the program aligns even better with a creator’s efforts. Creators don’t sell ads, but they do drive views.
As with most programs like this, success will hinge on revenue per view (RPV), what views are included and how many creators are part of the program. Hopefully it won’t mirror what creators have seen in TikTok’s pulse program, where CPVs range from $3-$20 CPV, but the number of revenue-generating views was abysmal – via Insider ($). I can imagine different RPVs by content type – perhaps beauty and cute animals are more highly valued by advertisers than pranks or DIY. A higher CPV in some categories might drive more creators into that space.
Drive views and get paid – perhaps THIS is the future of creator monetization.
I think there’s a great opportunity to build a “NALLM” – or Network Attached Large Language Model – that sits in your home or office and only includes your personal/corporate data and is protected from the broader internet. PrivateGPT gets us closer to my vision.
Great tips for creators and managers on how to optimize brand deal agreements – from Creators Legal founder (and rockstar entertainment lawyer) Eric Farber.
Thanks for reading and see you around the internet. Send me a note with your feedback, or post in the comments! Feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested, and if someone forwarded this to you, you can sign up and subscribe on LinkedIn for free here!
A comprehensive analysis of the creator economy by global VC firm Antler shows an industry in transition.
May 9, 2023
Posted
May 9, 2023
What To Do If Your IP is Being Stolen By Generative AI
TL;DR
Though generative AI may be new to the market, existing lawshave significant implications for its use. Now courts are sortingout how the laws on the books should be applied.
In many cases it poses legalquestions that are still being resolved. For example, doescopyright, patent, and trademark infringement apply to AI creations?
Lawyers — who perhaps stand most to benefit from the muddied waters — offer advice tailored for creators, AI developers, and business users on what to do.
The meteoric rise of AI applications has left the industry wondering how this technology will interact with copyright law… and whether the law can keep up. This is largely uncharted territory, but here’s legal advice for the developers of AI tools and artists working with them.
There are two primary questions to consider about AI art. The first is, “Can AI art be copyrighted?” The other question surrounds the legal status of artists who claim to have had their art stolen (generously called “sampled”) to supply the data for AI diffusion models.
Thuan Tran, associate at Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig, answers the first question, stating that the US Copyright Office will reject a request to allow an AI to copyright a work of art. This is because it will not register works produced by a machine “or mere mechanical intervention” from a human author.
Courts interpreting the Copyright Act, including the Supreme Court, have consistently restricted copyright protection to “the fruits of intellectual labor” that “are founded in the creative powers of the [human] mind.”
However, this interpretation is being tested. In a case currently before the Supreme Court, artist Kris Kashtanova is contesting a decision by the Copyright Office not to register a copyright for graphic novel that she created using an AI.
Kashtanova is emphasizing in how she “engaged in a creative, iterative process” that involved multiple rounds of composition, selection, arrangement, cropping, and editing for each image in her work, which makes her the author of the work.
“While the outcome of the proceeding is not yet finalized and Kashtanova has a chance to appeal its decision, many are eagerly awaiting what may be very precedential for the future of AI art.”
The second question is also taken up by Tran, and is also being framed in the court of law. There are several cases of artists suing generative AI platforms for unauthorized use of their work
Image licensing service Getty, for example, has filed a suit against the creators of Stable Diffusion alleging the improper use of its photos, both violating copyright and trademark rights it has in its watermarked photograph collection.
The outcome of these cases is expected to hinge on the interpretation of the fair use doctrine. This is the legal concept that allows for the use of copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder, in certain circumstances.
Tran explains that Fair use is determined on a case-by-case basis, and courts consider four factors: (1) the purpose and character of the use; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
“One argument in favor of AI-generated art falling under fair use is that the use of copyrighted material by AI algorithms is transformative,” he says. “Transformative use is a key factor in determining fair use. It refers to the creation of something new and original that is not merely a copy or imitation of the original work.”
AI algorithms create new works by processing and synthesizing existing works, resulting in a product that could be considered distinct from the original. “As a result, AI-generated art can be seen as a form of transformative use, which would weigh in favor of fair use,” Tran says. “On the other hand, this argument is not without its limitations. Many argue that AI-generated art is simply a recombination or manipulation of existing works, without adding significant creative output. “
There is also the larger philosophical debate as to whether a machine can give “creative input” to its work. In such cases, it may be more difficult to argue that the use of copyrighted material is transformative and subsequently falls under fair use.
All this uncertainty presents a slew of challenges for companies that use generative AI. There are risks regarding infringement — direct or unintentional — in contracts that are silent on generative AI usage by their vendors and customers.
“AI developers should ensure that they are in compliance with the law in regards to their acquisition of data being used to train their models,” advise Gil Appel, Assistant Professor of Marketing at the GW School of Business, Juliana Neelbauer, partner at law firm Fox Rothschild LLP, and David A. Schweidel, Professor of Marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. “This should involve licensing and compensating those individuals who own the IP that developers seek to add to their training data, whether by licensing it or sharing in revenue generated by the AI tool.”
Developers should also work on ways to maintain the provenance of AI-generated content, which would increase transparency about the works included in the training data. This would include recording the platform that was used to develop the content, tracking of seed-data’s metadata, and tags to facilitate AI reporting, including the specific prompt that was used to create the content.
“Developing these audit trails would assure companies are prepared when customers start including demands for them in contracts as a form of insurance that the vendor’s works aren’t willfully, or unintentionally, derivative without authorization.
“Looking further into the future, insurance companies may require these reports in order to extend traditional insurance coverages to business users whose assets include AI-generated works.
Creators
When it comes individual content creators and brands, the onus is on them to take steps to protect their IP.
Stable Diffusion developer Stability.AI, for example, announced that artists will be able to opt out of the next generation of the image generator.
“But this puts the onus on content creators to actively protect their IP, rather than requiring the AI developers to secure the IP to the work prior to using it — and even when artists opt out, that decision will only be reflected in the next iteration of the platform. Instead, companies should require the creator’s opt-in rather opt-out.”
According to Appel, Neelbauer and Schweidel, this involves “proactively looking for their work in compiled datasets or large-scale data lakes, including visual elements such as logos and artwork and textual elements, such as image tags.”
Obviously, this could not be done manually through terabytes or petabytes of content data, but they think existing search tools “should allow the cost-effective automation of this task.”
Content creators are also advised to monitor digital and social channels for the appearance of works that may be derived from their own.
Longer term, content creators that have a sufficient library of their own IP on which to draw “may consider building their own datasets to train and mature AI platforms.”
The resulting generative AI models need not be trained from scratch but can build upon open-source generative AI that has used lawfully sourced content. This would enable content creators to produce content in the same style as their own work with an audit trail to their own data lake, or to license the use of such tools to interested parties with cleared title in both the AI’s training data and its outputs.
Customers
Customers of AI tools should ask providers whether their models were trained with any protected content, review the terms of service and privacy policies, “and avoid generative AI tools that cannot confirm that their training data is properly licensed from content creators or subject to open-source licenses with which the AI companies comply.”
Businesses
If a business user is aware that training data might include unlicensed works or that an AI can generate unauthorized derivative works not covered by fair use, a business could be on the hook for willful infringement, which can include damages up to $150,000 for each instance of knowing use.
Consequently, businesses should evaluate their transaction terms to write protections into contracts. As a starting point, they should demand terms of service from generative AI platforms that confirm proper licensure of the training data that feed their AI.
Appel, Neelbauer and Schweidel add that they understand the real threat of generative AI to part of the livelihood of members of the creative class, “at the same time both creatives and corporate interests have a dramatic opportunity to build portfolios of their works and branded materials, meta-tag them, and train their own generative-AI platforms that can produce authorized, proprietary, (paid-up or royalty-bearing) goods as sources of instant revenue streams.”
By keeping the interests of generative AI creator-users in mind, we can better arbitrate between what copyright should allow and prohibit.
May 9, 2023
The Separate Set Ups for XR, MR, and Virtual Production
TL;DR
A new white paper from graphics technology vendor Brainstorm examines the technologies that enable extended and virtual production, and the pros and cons of each approach.
It argues that scenes filmed in a volume using background plates on LED walls will be “baked” in if there are any issues requiring tinkering in post.
“We may have to re-shoot or enter in long and complex postproduction, meaning all the time and cost savings of virtual production disappear,” the paper says.
One of the biggest benefits of virtual production is the reduction of costs in actors’ time, props, setup, travel, and outdoor shooting time. But according to graphics technology vendor Brainstorm, scenes shot in a LED wall environment are fixed and can’t be changed later unless the scene is shot again.
In a white paper that details the various technology set-ups for virtual production, Brainstorm favors virtual production based on chromakeying.
It argues that scenes filmed in a volume using background plates on LED walls in part to light the scene will be “baked” in if there are any issues requiring tinkering in post.
“We may have to re-shoot or enter in long and complex postproduction, meaning all the time and cost savings of virtual production disappear,” it says.
“Using LED-based XR will still maintain some of these benefits, but at the cost of not being able to alter shots easily in post, so if we need changes in the scene, the background needs some adjustments, etc, we will still need to reshoot the scene.”
The paper continues, “Of course, rehearsals in live productions can help with these issues, however, some other changes may not be possible to make because of scheduling, availability or change of minds after production, so they will require going into postproduction.
“On the other hand, chroma keying, when used with tracked cameras and multilayer shooting, can perform any changes in post with total ease.”
For film and drama productions, shooting the background “as is” leads to a “significant loss in flexibility when postproduction is required”, such as compositing, VFX, environmental grading, particles, etc.”
As the image is “fixed” rotoscoping or other techniques may be required to isolate parts of the image prior to apply effects, “which makes no sense in complex productions, whereas using chroma keying will allow VFX operators to easily achieve all that is required, as the elements are already shot separately and stored independently.”
The use of LED walls and LED volumes — a major component of virtual production — can be traced directly back to the front- and rear-projection techniques common throughout much of the 20th century.
May 8, 2023
Jim Louderback: The TikTok-YouTube Ad Battle, Text Comes to AI Images, BlueSky and More
There was a time when I really wanted to get into Clubhouse. And then once I did get in, it quickly succumbed to the Yogi Berra effect.
TikTok is working on a special label for creators to flag whether their videos were AI generated. This is similar to disclosing video sponsors, but I’m less optimistic it will make a difference.
This Week: The latest developments in the short-form video space, where YouTube and TikTok are battling for your attention and money. Plus, a cool new tool that lets you create images with text using AI. Also, thoughts on BlueSky ascending and Clubhouse dropping. It’s the second week of Mayand here’s what you need to know.
Short Form Video Monetization Heats Up: The TikTok/YouTube war for creator hearts and minds is accelerating. YouTube added Shorts to its “Video Reach Campaigns”, which uses AI to help marketers place ads. Big Red also added a new Select option to Shorts ads as well. Both promise to increase Shorts revenue for creators. TikTok announced that its “Creativity Program Beta” is now available to all creators in the U.S. It’s still a fund, not revshare, and will likely not include meaningful payouts – even if they are bigger than the $.04 CPV creator Nicole Marks-Martinez sees today. But if you’re a premium publisher (read old media), TikTok has something new for you – an expansion of Pulse to give brands access to videos from “trusted partners”. In a related story, at least some creators are cashing in over at TikTok’s secret UGC video factory. Looks like TikTok wants to lean into brands and media companies rather than support digital-native creators, but we’ll see how it nets out.
Text Finally Comes to AI Image Generators: So far, it’s been easier to clone a Warhol or Monet than add text to AI-generated images. But now auto thumbnail generation at scale – with text, AB testing and much more – is almost here. Stability AI – parent of image gen tool Stable Diffusion – just released a beta from its partner Deep Floyd called “Deep Floyd IF”, which supports text along with image generation. It’s far from perfect – but offers a glimpse into a fully automated future, one that’s much closer than ever. I created a handful of fun “Inside the Creator Economy” images, but only about 20% were usable. Some of the fails were super intriguing (look for those in the post comments). Give it a try here and post your best images in the comments below.
Skeeting and Tweeting in the Clubhouse: There was a time when I really wanted to get into Clubhouse. And then once I did get in, it quickly succumbed to the Yogi Berra effect: “no one goes there anymore, it’s too crowded”. And now with Clubhouse laying off half its staff, streamed voice-only events seem as quaint as N95 masks, PCR tests and buckets of hand-sanitizer. Now I’m outside the BlueSky velvet ropes, which the cool kids flash-mobbed last week. Yogi Berra’s coming for BlueSky too – but he’s also coming for all the big social platforms. Just as lemony fresh imaginary friends won’t save Snap, BlueSky’s new hotness won’t last. Another templated social network – at least to me – seems as antiquated as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
Sorting Out Deep Fakes: TikTok is working on a special label for creators to flag whether their videos were AI generated. This is similar to disclosing video sponsors, but I’m less optimistic it will make a difference. The technology will likely outpace efforts to rein it in – and it’s unlikely that unprincipled creators will flag their videos this way. Platforms will likely engage in an ultimately fruitless “whack a mole” effort focused on labelling, demonetizing or deleting AI-generated videos. I posted a crazy sci-fi solution to authenticate human-generated video, but in the end I forecast a return to authenticity and the continued rise of IRL creator experiences.
QUIBIS:
Snap launches its own Creator Marketplace called the “Snap Star Collab Studio”. Try saying that three times fast.
After 22 time-zones in two weeks, I share my top tips for beating jetlag.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Viral Traffic Was Always Garbage” – Brian Morrisey in his awesome newsletter The Rebooting.
Thanks for reading and see you around the internet. Send me a note with your feedback, or post in the comments! Feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested, and if someone forwarded this to you, you can sign up and subscribe on LinkedIn for free here!
The Broadcast and Media (B&M) technology market was worth $67 billion in 2021 as the industry continues to rebound from COVID. The market will grow between now and 2026 at 1.6% a year, according to the latest annual survey by the IABM (The International Trade Association for the Broadcast & Media Industry) and research company Caretta Research.
Much of the decline in 2020 and the subsequent rebound in 2021 was driven by the production and post-production services industries as the creation of new content was postponed until after the worst phase of the pandemic.
Many areas of the industry are expected grow at closer to 3-5% CAGR, such as technology used in the production of content. For instance, the report expects rapid adoption of camera-to-cloud tools despite lack of a common interchange format between vendors. Remote collaboration and IP intercom systems are prime examples of the “enormous improvements” to efficiency forced into being across the industry by COVID.
PTZ cameras with more sophisticated optics and automation are being increasingly used for a vast array of events. PTZs with AI, for instance, are being used to assist in flagging and referee reviews of off-sides in sports. Distributing more live feeds from an event is now becoming a requirement yet “there is no prevailing format, metadata or rights management for this presently,” notes the report.
Most concern in the IABM report is placed around the shift to cloud.
“The words ‘cloud’ or ‘the cloud’ raise many different thoughts, prejudices and different meanings among our peers,” writes Lorenzo Zanni, lead research analyst at IABM. “To some, cloud is playout, others distributed computing, and yet some only think of this as offsite public storage within our industry.”
The vision of running everything in an off-prem cloud — whether public or private — still has limitations, the IABM finds. These limitations are typically overcome by using hybrid solutions, and sometimes even by including dedicated hardware. The trend towards object storage is clear, which means this scalable solution is quickly becoming a commodity. However widespread lack of understanding about cloud and cloud economics “has mid-size companies hesitant due to cost models and lack of fully scalable storage across various platforms.”
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Uncertainties also remain over the understanding of public cloud security, meaning not so much concern about hackers stealing content but more about users having the know-how to configure security.
Overall, though, whether the cloud is public, private or hybrid, the IABM finds the infrastructure continuing to move away from dedicated hardware to more virtualized edge computing.
Although AI/ML are considered mature for closed captioning, script and data generation, AI is not widely used yet for QC and surveillance of networks. The use of AI for creating short-form advertising is underway. In sports AI is being used for player and ball tracking, off-side calls, and sound mixing.
“AI chatbots must be factored into new workflows especially on the creative side,” says Zanni. “AI video creation platforms are bleeding edge and many are finding this fascinating yet not ready for prime use yet.”
The creation of deepfakes with the assistance of AI is a worry, the IABM says, citing the use of Respeecher by sound editors without first securing permission from talent.
“ML systems leveraging complex language models will continue to improve interactive chat, and automated creation of editorial content, but also SPAM, Phishing and other security threats, including the building and drop of malicious code.”
LED wall virtual production using game engines for volumetric productions is no longer considered bleeding-edge according to this study, with traditional studios quickly adopting XR within their sets and production.
There are no recent dramatic breakthroughs in image sensors with momentum towards 8K slowed due to the COVID hiatus.
Media companies must learn, understand and respect the video game world, the IABM advises, as this will help them to quickly gain newer viewers, which in turn will give them the all important brand recognition within an interactive space.
Sustainability is starting to move beyond “nice to have” toward becoming a requirement. Companies that are merely greenwashing are being called out, and hard facts are becoming a requirement as carbon footprints are becoming part of the RFP process, along with surcharges, though “there is little balance yet between the costs of sustainability vs. profits.”
Despite already exceeding their budgets in 2022, the majority of organizations will spend more on expanding cloud storage capacity in 2023.
April 30, 2023
Posted
April 26, 2023
NAB Show Names 2023 Product of the Year Award Winners
TL;DR
NAB Show named the winners of the fifth annual Product of the Year Awards during a live awards ceremony April 18 at the 2023 NAB Show in Las Vegas.
Winners were selected by a panel of industry experts across 15 categories, including three Best Overall Awards in the categories of Create, Connect and Capitalize.
To be eligible, companies had to nominate products they were exhibiting at NAB Show. The products also had to be available for delivery within the 2023 calendar year.
The announcement came during a live awards ceremony April 18 at the 2023 NAB Show in Las Vegas.
A panel of industry experts selected winners in 15 categories, including three Best Overall Awards in the categories of Create, Connect and Capitalize. To be eligible, companies had to nominate products they were exhibiting at NAB Show. The products also had to be available for delivery within the 2023 calendar year.
“Every year, NAB Show is excited to see what new, innovative breakthroughs our nominees have made to transform how content is created, connected and capitalized throughout the media and entertainment industry,” said Eric Trabb, senior vice president and chief customer success officer at NAB. “The winners of the 2023 Product of the Year Awards have demonstrated how they can help storytellers face the challenges of the present and future by revolutionizing the content lifecycle at all its stages.”
This year’s winners are:
CREATE CATEGORY
Audio Production, Processing and Networking
Audio Design Desk, Inc
Audio Design Desk 2.0
Calrec Audio
Argo
Clear-Com
Arcadia with HelixNet Integration
DanAds
Audio Ad Creation
Dotterel Technologies Limited
Konos
Cameras
ARRI
ARRI ALEXA 35
DJI
DJI Ronin 4D and the DJI Inspire 3
FUJIFILM North America Corporation
FUJIFILM X-H2 Mirrorless Digital Camera
Insta360
Insta360 ONE RS 1-Inch 360 Edition
Sony
FR7
Camera Support, Control and Accessories
Angenieux
Optimo Primes IOP
Atlas Lens Co.
Mercury Series
Canon
Canon Flex Zoom lenses – CN-E14-35mm T1.7 L S/SP wide-angle zoom lens and the CN-E31.5-95mm T1.7 L S/SP telephoto zoom lens
There is currently a huge push towards ad-basedbusiness models among ad-free subscription-based services. Introducing advertising allowscompanies to maximize revenue while loweringthe cost of entry and thus attracting more users.
More than three-quarters of SVOD streamers plan to introduce ads by 2025, with nearly 60% of those planning to implement a hybrid model that combines an ad-supported tier alongside a premium, subscription-based one.
Adoption of third-party video analytics is well underway. 39% of ad-based services don’t fully trust their ad server data, yet only 25% use third-party ad analytics.
More than three-quarters of SVOD streamers plan to introduce ads by 2025, according to a new global B2B industry survey by video intelligence company NPAW. And nearly 60% of those will implement a hybrid model that combines an ad-supported tier alongside a premium, subscription-based one.
All of the survey respondents agree that the main driver for this shift is to lower the price of subscriptions for their viewers. Of the sample of streaming platforms surveyed for this study, 41% currently have a two-tier business model.
In second place comes free services with ads (23%), also known as the FAST model, and subscription-based with ads (22%). The traditional SVOD model, subscription-based pricing without ads, was the business model with the smallest sample representation (15%).
Overall, 85% of the companies NPAW spoke to are using ads as part of their monetization model.
Since NPAW is a provider of video analytics and business intelligence, it spends most of its survey assessing the use case for analytics.
“One of the key advantages of having full visibility into user behavior and experience is that services can identify users at risk of churn early on and address their perceived shortcomings before it’s too late,” the company explained. “This can be done by monitoring drops in usage and Quality-of-Experience issues such as buffering or latency.”
The monetization models of streaming services. Cr: NPAW
Why SVODs are changing their business model to include advertising. Cr: NPAW
Tracking performance and behavior in the adoption of third-party video analytics. Cr: NPAW
Usage of a third-party analytics tool to identify customers at risk of churn. Cr: NPAW
Top challenges in analytics & measurement. Cr: NPAW
Ad server reliability and accuracy for tracking ad performance and engagement. Cr: NPAW
Methods of measuring ad performance engagement. Cr: NPAW
Plans for using third-party advertising analytics tool in the next 12 months. Cr: NPAW
Breakdown by country, industry and job seniority. Cr: NPAW
With that in mind, the survey asked respondents using third-party analytics if they used it to pinpoint at-risk users. Seventy-four percent of companies use their third-party analytics tool to identify customers at risk of churn. Eleven percent identify such users through other means, while 10% cannot do so with their tool’s information.
The most popular measurement method is with the data received from the ad server (38%) — despite 39% of companies believing that their ad server numbers are not fully reliable and accurate.
Third-party analytics tools were the most popular among a quarter or respondents, and another quarter favor a combination of these methods.
“It’s encouraging to see that more and more companies are taking a data-driven approach to running their video business, especially as the industry’s shift to ads brings a unique set of measurement challenges,” said NPAW CMO Till Sudworth. “To truly make the most of their advertising-based streaming business, video providers will need an advanced, third-party ad analytics tool — one that can help them track ad performance from an end-user perspective and correlate that information with insights about user behavior and content preferences.”
AI is considered an essential new tool in the progress towards future video compression technologies, but the next few years will be dominated by the transition to existing standards, including AV1 and VVC, according to a new InterDigital and Futuresource Consulting report.
“The Evolution of Compression in a Video-First Economy” outlines the development path of video compression codecs that have proven to be critical in reducing bandwidth and improving efficiency in the delivery of the data dense video services.
The report restates the case that video dominates internet traffic today, with more than 3.5 billion internet users streaming or downloading some form of video at least once per month and that, with applications for video expanding, state-of-the-art codecs are needed to not only reduce storage and bandwidth but also use energy more sustainably.
Simplified video and audio coding example. Cr: InterDigital
Timeline of video standards from 2000 to 2030, with possible future publications highlighted. Cr: InterDigital
2022 internet traffic by application. Cr: InterDigital
Viewing time spent by consumers across different forms of media. Cr: InterDigital
Preferred devices for watching SVOD services. Cr: InterDigital
Relative bitrate reduction between video encoders. Cr: InterDigital
Planned video codec deployment. Cr: InterDigital
Comparison of block structures in AVC, HEVC and VVC. Cr: InterDigital
Compression efficiency of H.265/HEVC (HM and x265) and H.266/VVC (VVenC). Cr: InterDigital
Spotlight on VVC
Unsurprisingly given its own stake in the development and licensing, InterDigital makes much of Versatile Video Coding (VVC/H.266) as the standout video codec that will take over much of the work from existing lead standard HEVC.
Based on research by codec specialist Bitmovin, H.264/AVC continues to be a popular choice for live and offline encoding, but InterDigital thinks this is likely to be overtaken by both H.265/HEVC and AOM AV1 within the next two years.
The VVC (H.266) is based on H.265/HEVC and offers up to a 50% bit rate reduction.
Alongside InterDigital, major semiconductor companies including Qualcomm, Broadcom and MediaTek are among the largest contributors of intellectual property into the VVC standard. They will integrate into Android smartphone chipsets, helping to drive VVC adoption into mobile. More widely, hardware decoders are under development to provide support for VVC on TVs, STBs and PCs.
Chinese technology giants Alibaba and Tencent each have their own versions of VVC codec (S266v2 and TenCent266, respectively).
NHK and Spin Digital are also developing real-time software VVC decoders to support UHD live streaming and broadcast applications.
Therefore, InterDigital believes, VVC is likely to become the favored codec as UHD services proliferate with expectations that it will be universally accepted and used from 2026 onward.
However, it says, “VVC may not replace H.264/AVC and H.265/HEVC entirely, but instead the industry is likely to advocate the coexistence of multiple codecs during the transition.”
Looking further ahead though and codecs like VVC, HEVC and AV1 will likely be superseded by technologies based on neural networks.
“The days of static, block-based codecs may be coming to an end,” InterDigital notes. “Traditional coding techniques use hard-coded algorithms and, although these are entirely appropriate for saving bandwidth, their advancement is still based on traditional heuristics.
“New coding methods, notably those exploiting the power of AI, are poised to supplant current wisdom within the next five years.”
Enter AI
Machine learning techniques are being researched by the major video standards organizations worldwide. The MPEG JVET Adhoc Group 11 is working on NNVC (Neural Network Video Coding) in an attempt to create an AI-based codec before the end of the decade.
The paper explains that there are three primary areas of focus: dynamic frame rate encoding, dynamic resolution encoding, and layering.
In dynamic frame rate encoding, the AI aims to encode video at the minimum frame rates necessary to encapsulate the content without sacrificing quality. News broadcasts might be encoded at 30fps, whereas live sports content benefits from 60fps.
“Using ML to train AI to identify the type of content, it is possible to significantly reduce the encode compute requirements, approaching a 30% reduction overall for content with limited movement between frames.”
Dynamic resolution encoding extends existing compression techniques that streaming content providers employ today. Here, the resolution-bit-rate choices are determined on a scene-by-scene basis to optimize file storage requirements and streaming bandwidth using encode ladders. Using AI, however, would remove the requirement for encode ladders.
“Replacing this ‘brute force’ approach not only reduces computation, but also helps improve sustainability by banishing unnecessary energy usage,” says InterDigital.
This applies to offline encoding as well. Netflix, for instance, has been using AI to avoid exhaustive encodes of all the parameter combinations, with neural based methods discovering the optimum selection to reduce file sizes.
The third AI focus on layering is aimed at delivering higher-resolution content. Using scalable techniques, UHD videos are encoded using a base layer at HD resolution along with an enhancement layer that conveys the extra data required to reconstruct UHD frames. HD-only receivers ignore the enhancement data, whereas a 4K-capable product uses the additional layer to decode and reconstruct the entire video stream.
AI-derived methods are also likely to extend beyond these traditional techniques. For example, AI could reconstruct video using low-resolution reference images alongside metadata describing the context, “delivering a credible approximation to the original video with a significant reduction in bandwidth.”
While ML and AI have a place in helping define current and future video coding, InterDigital says that the industry isn’t about to drop its existing tools and models.
“The industry concurs that traditional video coding tools presently outperform AI-based alternatives in most areas today,” it states. “There are over 30 years of engineering effort and hundreds of companies involved in perfecting video compression standards; this isn’t easily replicated or supplanted by introducing AI into the discipline.”
For instance, the complexity of neural networks “is often exceptionally high” which leads to a proportional increase in energy usage.
“This leads to the inevitable questions around the scalability of such solutions, and the impact of media on environmental sustainability,” InterDigital says.
There are other challenges with AI-based video development. One of them is measurement. While the video standard is fully described and verified against agreed metrics, “when using AI, it is sometimes difficult to explain exactly how the implementation operates; there must be an understanding on how AI-based algorithms adhere to the specifications and produce standards-compliant bitstreams.”
Part of the work of the JVET AhG11 is to establish clear rules by which AI methods can be assessed and made reproducible.
Then there’s the sheer pace of development in AI, which has resulted in generation of synthetic media. With synthetic media, instead of transmitting an image for every frame using existing compression techniques, systems can use AI to identify key data points describing the features of a person’s face. A compact representation is then sent across the network, where a second AI engine reconstructs the original image from the point data.
Consequently, InterDigital thinks it may become unnecessary to send video frames, and instead systems might describe scenes using metadata.
The next evolution is data-driven synthetic media, created in near-real time and used in place of traditional media that could see hyper-personalized video advertising created and delivered within seconds.
“Cloud and device AI processing capability will undoubtedly need to develop substantially for this to happen at scale,” says InterDigital, “however the future for video coding and transmission certainly seems destined for significant transformation.”
This Week: Interesting creator economy insight from my visit to the International Journalism Festival (#IJF23) last week. Revealing data from the Shorts team and the TikTok and YouTube creators were surprising. I also spoke about LinkedIn (see tips section below). Also a Snap summit, AI fakes and megatrends too! It’s the last week of April and here’s what you need to know.
Seven Surprisingly Successful Shorts Formats: The YouTube Shorts team shared fascinating insight at #IJF23 about how the algorithm really works – and how different it is from long form. They gave tips on how news and factual creators should build views and audience on Shorts and laid out the seven formats that drive the most views. No surprise – they still won’t commit to longer than 60 seconds. But they did encourage creators to experiment and use analytics. Fifty billion daily views can’t be wrong. Related – Video Creators with more insight on Shorts growth and Paddy Galloway’s more pessimistic research findings.
Could TikTok and YouTube Save Journalism? Dueling panels at #IFJ attempted to pit YouTube vs TikTok but ended up elevating both. Google News brought top YouTube journalists – including Chloe Abraham and Johnny Harris – to talk about how they’re building the creator economy of journalism. Over on the TikTok side, Washington Post’s TikTok star Dave Jorgenson was joined by execs from Brut and The News Movement to explore TikTok. No sparks ensued, as the panelists were more alike than different. Read my story about the sessions and let me know if you agree with my startling conclusion: TikTok, YouTube and other social video platforms might actually save journalism.
AI-Generated Creator-First Media Is Not Going Away: Big dust-up over the AI-generated Drake and Weeknd song released early last week. Everyone loved it – except the two artists and their label. And everyone else who creates authentic media. But this is not going away. Creators and artists can either embrace it and build new business models or put their heads in the sand and sue everyone. Imagine, for example, if Taylor Swift started her own “Swiftify” service that included all her music – but also encouraged fans to develop GenAI Swift songs too. And she promised to share revenue for top creations? Swifties would subscribe for sure and everyone would make money. Is this the end of music as we know it, or a great new opportunity for creators? Share your thoughts in the comments below. For a more far-out think piece, check out Stratechery’s take.
Snap Expands Revenue Sharing: Big news from Snap’s Partner Summit – now more creators can get in on the revenue. It’s a welcome expansion of the monetization options we’ve been talking about here for the last few weeks and could transform Snap into a viable creator economy platform. But it’s also a diffusion of vision, according to Casey Newton, who sees these moves as a hazy way to become just like everyone else. I think Snap can do both, and that this is great news for creators – for now. The hard work comes from expanding the platform and offering more opportunity to creators while still charting a unique course.
Three Megatrends that Will Change Media: Media cartographer Evan Shapiro explores the rise of “Yes, AND” across all forms of media – from broadcast to streaming to creator-first platforms. It’s all about the cults, he insists. Worth a read. Also, he wants to change “Creator Economy” to “Community Economy”. I’ve been calling it community-centric media for years, so of course I agree. Still not changing the name of this newsletter though.
Beware of lazy reporting. This story from Net Influencer highlights a study from 2022 as if it were brand new (I covered it here on 11-28-2022). The data is from May 2022. It’s ancient history.
Newsletter plug: I really likethe “Film Booth” newsletter, great stuff last week about focus, burn-out and thumbnails. Worth subscribing to (scroll to bottom of Ed’s site).
Good essay on “Eventness” from Brad Berens, riffing off the end of TNG. You can skip much of the trekkie stuff at the top, but anyone creating live experiences should read this.
Tip of the Week: I gave a workshop at #IJF23 on how journalists can use LinkedIn to build their personal brand – you can download the slides from that presentation here. It’s relevant to anyone looking to grow on LinkedIn.
Thanks for reading and see you around the internet. Send me a note with your feedback, or post in the comments! Feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested, and if someone forwarded this to you, you can sign up and subscribe on LinkedIn for free here!
Why Streaming Has to Become More Social, Interactive, and Immersive
TL;DR
Deloitte’s latest Digital Media Trends survey says “subscription fatigue” among consumers is getting worse, making it even more challenging for SVOD streamers to retain customers.
Millennials are the most likely to have made changes to digital media subscriptions due to economic pressures.
Americans spend $48 per month on video streaming services — and half of those surveyed say that’s too much.
As streaming video competition continues to intensify, subscription growth rates across the industry have slowed — and churn rates have increased, according to Deloitte’s 17th annual Digital Media Trends report.
On average, US consumers pay $48 per month for SVODs, Deloitte’s survey found. About half of those surveyed agreed that they “pay too much” for SVOD services, while about one-third said they intend to reduce their number of entertainment subscriptions.
Around half of consumers (47%) surveyed said they have made at least one change to their entertainment subscriptions because of their current financial situation, such as canceling a paid service to save money, switching to a free ad-supported version of a service or bundling services together.
Millennials are the most likely to have made changes to digital media subscriptions due to economic pressures. Indeed, millennials spend more than any other generation on paid streaming video services — an average of $54 per month. Nearly 45% of millennials have “churned and returned” with a paid SVOD service, cancelling a paid subscription only to renew that same subscription within six months, according to Deloitte’s study.
The report said that watching TV shows and movies at home is no longer the dominant, “go-to” activity it once was — especially with younger generations that are more evenly dividing their entertainment time across TV shows and movies, user-generated content (UGC) on social media services, and video games. They seek entertainment, connection, immersion and utility.
Deloitte describes millennials using media via a personalized tapestry of immersive, social and vibrant experiences. SVODs, therefore, need to adopt and accelerate new strategies to reduce churn that accounts for this change in consumer behavior.
Kevin Westcott, a vice chair who leads the US Technology, Media & Telecommunications practice at Deloitte, said, “The race to continue to add customers by commissioning and acquiring really high-cost content will not succeed on its own.”
Cr: Deloitte Insights
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The influence of video games is illuminating. More than half of younger gamers decide to play a specific video game after watching a certain TV show or movie. About 45% of gamers said they want to play games based on their favorite movies and TV shows. More than a third of gamers say they feel better about their self-image when they’re playing video games. In addition, Deloitte said, almost half of Gen Z and millennial gamers say they socialize more in video games than in the physical world. A majority of Gen Z and millennial gamers wish more of their favorite movies and TV shows also had video game experiences.
The report said 32% of people surveyed in the US consider online experiences to be meaningful replacements for in-person experiences. For Gen Zs and Millennials, it’s 50%.
Half of consumers say UGC videos help them to discover new products or services to buy, and around 40% of consumers say they are more likely to purchase a product after they watch a creator they follow review it.
Westcott said SVOD services should invest in diversifying the content on their platforms, including considering incorporating user-generated short-form video, music and games.
“Streamers are under pressure to reinforce their core offerings, but they should also be leveraging gaming and social media, especially considering the behaviors we are seeing in younger generations. To stay competitive, SVOD providers should seriously consider how to engage broader audiences, play across diverse media properties that add value, and advance their ad platforms to better support advertisers.”
While shifting rapidly, US consumer streaming behavior is changing somewhat differently at the far ends of the demographic spectrum.
April 19, 2023
Posted
April 18, 2023
Jim Louderback: The Platform Helping Mid-Level Creators Pull Down Six Figures a Week On Snap – Plus Old Media Titans vs. Scrappy Underdogs (Again)
BY JIM LOUDERBACK
TL;DR
Snap has turned super-lucrative, at least for authenticated creators. I sat in on an eye-popping Rich Greenfield-moderated creator panel (free reg) with Savannah Demers, King Bach and Tati Bruening.
This Week: How to make six figures on Snap, Izea’s surprising study on how much we trust creators, and what to do when your creator career wanes. Plus, Montana bans TikTok, new Reels features and much more. It’s the third week of April 2023 and here’s what you need to know.
Grinding For Crystals: Snap has turned super-lucrative, at least for authenticated creators. I sat in on an eye-popping Rich Greenfield-moderated creator panel (free reg) with Savannah Demers, King Bach and Tati Bruening. Bach said creators can make way more on Snap than YouTube and six figures in a week is not uncommon. It’s all about crystals, added Savannah, the more you post, the more crystals you get. Want more crystals? It’s all about “how good is your clickbait”, she added. Crystals mean money, explained Tati, redeemable for ten cents each. Rich and I will be talking about this and more on stage at VidCon – see you there! And in related news Instagram plans to expand Reels revshare with many more creators “soon”.
Established Media – Embrace or Obstruct? Brian Morrissey with a thoughtful essay on how Barry Diller and other traditional media titans are girding for war against AI and Large Language Models. It’s a familiar story that played out repeatedly during the rise of the creator economy, and typically leads to heartbreak for the courtroom crusaders. Remember when Viacom sued YouTube in 2007 and famously shunned the popular platform until a settlement in 2014. Bad strategic move, as the MTV parent lost an entire generation of kids – and subsequently had to buy Awesomeness and VidCon to rebuild relevance. But that won’t stop the old guard from trying – thus accelerating their slide into irrelevance.
We Trust Creators More Than Celebrities: That’s just one of the surprising conclusions from Izea’s new “Trust in Influencer Marketing” study. Fielded in mid-December 2022, it finds that even older consumers are jumping on the “buy from influencers” bandwagon. Best platforms? Still YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, but TikTok is rising – and GenZ leads the way. Good stuff, but directional, not predictive.
Your Trip is Short: Let’s face it, the creator lifecycle is even shorter than an NFL player. Very few YouTubers from 2010 – for instance – are big now. The shelf-life for TikTokers is even more fleeting. What do you do? One option: work for other creators behind the camera. Or get a job and create for the company too (NYT$). Companies are waking up to the unique value that creators can bring – even training their employees to create on the side. Just make sure you don’t sign your rights away when you take the job.
QUIBIS:
Instagram rolls out new Reels features, including a “What’s Trending” section, updated analytics and better editing tools.
New social network for creators – CreatorLand – wants you to sign up. Alas, I could only get on the waitlist and it didn’t recognize my LinkedIn followers.
Where’s Jim: This week I’m hosting Creator Squared at The Nab Show Monday and Tuesday (Vegas baby) and then speaking at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy on April 22. Then hanging out first weekend at Jazzfest NOLA! Hope to see you at one of these awesome events.
Thanks for reading, and see you around the internet. Send me a note with your feedback, or post in the comments! Feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested, and if someone forwarded this to you, you can sign up and subscribe on LinkedIn for free here!
A comprehensive analysis of the creator economy by global VC firm Antler shows an industry in transition.
April 15, 2023
Posted
April 14, 2023
SVOD: Scale and the Curse of the Serial Churner
TL;DR
Market data platform Antenna highlights five factors of importance in the year ahead: pursuing scale, revenue optimization, dual revenue streams, owning the customer relationship, and customer segmentation.
Perhaps the most important battle is now around owning the customer relationship, but customer segmentation could be the defining topic going forward.
With an increased focus on profitable growth, SVODs are becoming more aggressive in their efforts to maximize revenue, even at the expense of some topline subscriber growth.
SVODs are experiencing tremendous volatility and we should expect more targeted acquisition strategies from the major streamers, an increased focus on pricing and packaging, and numerous moves to mitigate churn.
According to market data platform Antenna in its latest report, “The State of Subscriptions,” last year represented a turning point for premium SVODs. While total subscriptions grew substantially at 14.1% over the prior year, that rate of growth was significantly slower than 2021’s 28.9%. Worryingly, Antenna observed 117 million cancels across Premium SVODs in 2022, up 49% from the prior year.
NBCU, Paramount, and WBD were especially successful at growing their subs in 2022 taking share from Netflix and Disney although the latter two still lead the pack.
“With an increased focus on profitable growth, SVODs are becoming more aggressive in their efforts to maximize revenue, even at the expense of some topline subscriber growth,” Antenna reports.
Price increases are the most obvious example of this: Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, and Hulu all raised fees in 2022, and HBO Max did so this January. Paramount and NBCU also announced pricing moves in the opening months of 2023.
Intra-company bundles are another strategy to drive increased Average Revenue Per User (ARPU).
Antenna estimates that the Disney Bundle now accounts for 22% of subscriptions for Disney+, 18% for Hulu, and 60% for ESPN+. The Apple One bundle accounts for 31% of Apple TV+ subscriptions, and subscribers to the Paramount+ and Showtime bundle grew 251% in 2022.
The role of advertising continues to grow in importance to premium SVODs, as a part of their profitable growth strategies. In 2020, only one in five new sign-ups were to ad-supported plans; last year, it was nearly one in three.
The four services that have had ad-supported plans since their inception — Peacock, Hulu, Paramount+, and Discovery+ — each have at least 43% of Subscribers on the ad-supported option.
And ads are gaining ground. The proportion of 2022 Gross Adds (i.e., new customers) who selected the ad-supported option is higher than the existing subscriber base for six of the seven premium SVODs.
Owning the Customer Relationship
An increasingly important battle is the competition for the customer relationship. 53% of Gross Adds that Antenna observed in 2022 came through a distribution platform — Apple, Amazon, Roku or Google — not directly with the services themselves.
“D2C models are great for brands because they do not share margin with retailers or wholesalers, and they fully control the customer relationship. When an SVOD service wins a customer through a distribution partner, they typically share the economics, and the distribution partner controls portions of the customer data and communication (sometimes, a lot of it).”
These distribution arrangements can potentially deliver substantial incremental customers. And in environments like Amazon channels which load the services’ programming directly into their app, SVODs can save product development and upkeep costs because they do not have to operate their own proprietary app.
Antenna says, “Balancing the benefits and challenges of distributing in third-party environments is a key issue that Services will consider as they manage to profitable growth in the coming years.”
Cr: Antenna
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The final theme is one that Antenna think will be a defining topic for subscription marketers for years to come: customer segmentation.
There are many different approaches for segmenting consumers, but two which it believe are especially important for subscription marketers are re-subscribers and serial churners.
Re-subscribers are consumers who sign up for a service after previously cancelling it and made up 23% of all gross additions in 2022.
“Netflix has a high re-subscriber number simply because so many Americans have already subscribed to the service at some point in the past. Put another way, Netflix is running out of Americans who have never tried Netflix!“
On the other end of the spectrum, Peacock had almost no re-subscribers in 2020 because it launched in April of that year, but already by 2022, 20% of their Gross Adds were observed by Antenna to be re-subscribers.
Serial churners are those individuals frequently moving in and out of services — often to chase hit shows they want to watch at that moment.
Antenna measures them as individuals who have at least three cancels in the past two years among the 10 premium SVOD services it measures.
So by that definition, one in five Americans is a serial churner and accounted for 29% of sign-ups in 2022, up from 15% in 2020.
Netflix is seeing a particularly pronounced growth, with serial churners making up 32% of sign-ups in 2022, versus 13% in 2020.
Per Antenna, “It is crucial that services segment out these serial churners. For one thing, their survival curves are much steeper than the rest of subscribers, resulting in lower customer lifetime values. If a service is not distinguishing between these two segments, then their analysis of cost of acquisition will be misleading.”
While changing macroeconomic conditions have played a factor in all these changes, the adjustment is also suitable in the context of a more mature market and a more fickle – or more sophisticated — consumer.
How streamers can use the lessons learned from the past year in 2023 to help rebound from recent subscriber losses and stock price declines.
April 14, 2023
Posted
April 14, 2023
How Connected TV Can/Should Enable Content Discovery
TL;DR
LG Ad Solutions study highlights the importance of TV homepages as the focal point for content discovery amid increasing amount of content available on CTV.
Consumers reported spending an average of 5.7 minutes between the time they turned on the TV and when they started watching content.
A fifth of viewers say they are watching less linear cable and satellite TV than 12 months ago.
Viewers take almost six minutes on average to select a piece of content to watch after turning on the TV, according to new research.
The results show that, even when viewers do know what they want to watch, 40% are still confused about where to find it because of the number of different streaming TV options available.
The new findings are from LG Ad Solutions, based on a survey of more than 750 US consumers in March 2023, seeking to determine consumer perceptions and behavior related to CTV.
Being a CTV ad sales company, LG Ad Solutions turns this into an opportunity. With an average 5.7 minutes spent between turning on the TV and watching content this represents a chance for service providers to advertise new programming in a contextually relevant environment, the company says.
Tony Marlow, CMO of LG Ad Solutions, commented, “Our data indicates that 39% of viewers have used recommendations from their TV’s homepage when they’re looking for something new to watch — and we anticipate that number to increase as Smart TV adoption continues to climb. The home screen is the new center of the CTV experience where consumers can search for specific content, and find recommendations when they aren’t sure what they want to watch.”
Being a CTV solutions company, the report naturally underlines the drift from linear TV and subscription streamers towards free and ad-supported on-demand content.
Per the survey, a fifth of viewers say they are watching less linear cable and satellite TV than 12 months ago. The reasons being: exclusive content only available on streaming; ability to watch major network shows on demand; alternative free ad-supported channels with curated content focused on specific genres; and major sports events like the Super Bowl and March Madness now available via streaming.
TV vs. mobile preference by content type. Cr: LG Ad Solutions
Percentage of respondents indicating cost concerns. Cr: LG Ad Solutions
Amount of linear TV watched: less, same or more. Cr: LG Ad Solutions
Time spent watching free, ad-supported TV apps. Cr: LG Ad Solutions
Fifty-nine percent of respondents are willing to cancel a subscription after watching the desired content. Cr: LG Ad Solutions
Barriers to selecting streaming content. Cr: LG Ad Solutions
Recommendation sources for new content. Cr: LG Ad Solutions
Preference and perception of TV ads. Cr: LG Ad Solutions
With 46% of respondents (extrapolated to approximately half of the US TV viewing audience) reporting they had cancelled a streaming service citing economic concerns, more and more are turning to free streaming services.
What’s more those free services are overwhelmingly likely to be watched on the main Connected TV. LG states that 93% of US internet users are reachable by CTV. “Any advertising plan that doesn’t include CTV is missing out on valuable opportunities to connect with consumers,” it says.
After rapid adoption of streaming content on CTV, fueled in-part by stay-at-home guidance at the onset of the pandemic, a second “big shift” is now underway.
“Consumers are drifting away from some of their CTV subscriptions and increasingly preferring free content that is supported by ads,” Marlow said.
The survey reinforces several trends from other recent studies. This includes SVOD starting to offer free and reduced subscription options as a way to entice viewers to stay on the platform and viewer confusion about where to find content given the multiplicity of choice (nearly half of US TV viewers feel overwhelmed by the amount of content choices available to them). The survey repeats the suggestion that viewers share a stronger affinity towards specific content rather than the streaming platform itself.
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A new report from TiVo finds that discovering video content is a bigger issue than what we pay each month for the programs we want to watch.
April 25, 2023
Posted
April 13, 2023
Live Video: How Broadcasters Can Meaningfully Engage with 5G, Cloud, and IP
TL;DR
Haivision’s latest Broadcast Transformation Report analyzes technology trends in live video contribution, 5G, cloud, IP and sustainability.
The results indicate that adoption of network technologies including cloud, IP and 5G continues to evolve, while on-premise operations remain absolutely critical in the broadcast industry.
In addition, the findings highlight that broadcasters recognize the important benefits that 5G cellular networks offer for broadcast applications.
Enabling remote production and transitioning to IP are the top investment priorities for broadcasters, this year, according to Haivision’s latest Broadcast Transformation Report.
The report was culled from 700 broadcast and media professionals around the world.
More than half of respondents put remote and IP transition at the top of their agenda and over half of those surveyed already use IP infrastructure.
Also of note is that 45% of broadcast professionals work for organizations that are actively working on developing sustainability strategies or already have sustainability plans in place.
To our minds that doesn’t seem nearly enough for what should be the issue driving all technology and organizational policies in any media company.
Cloud has become an integral element to broadcast workflows, but it is clear that on-premise technology remains critical. Haivision found that despite 84% of broadcasters stating their use of at least some cloud-based technology in their workflows, 60% rely on cloud for less than a quarter of their workflows.
Meanwhile 5G is a key enabler for the vast majority (73%) of those surveyed although the degree of its actual or planned use is not teased out by this survey.
“After diving into this year’s survey findings, it’s clear that in order to deliver engaging, high-quality content for audiences around the world, broadcasters must meaningfully engage with new technologies such as 5G, cloud, and IP,” said Marcus Schioler, VP of Marketing at Haivision.
“Next-gen technology offers true potential for production teams to effectively achieve broadcast objectives through faster and more efficient means. And, as cloud and 5G innovation continues, we anticipate the many benefits these technologies will bring to live broadcast workflows.”
That said the use of the internet to transport live video for contribution is booming. That would hardly be a surprise in a report from a vendor of encoding solutions and leader of the SRT pack. In fact, 86% use internet, with 3G/4G/LTE taking second place.
“As the internet becomes more popular in its use for video contribution, other elements of the broadcast workflow must follow suit. As a result, 68% of respondents use SRT for live video transport, overtaking RTMP.”
SMPTE teams with Portland company Port 9 on the development of live production workflows that give broadcasters all the benefits of cloud.
August 22, 2023
Posted
April 12, 2023
Evan Shapiro: Streaming Habits Have Shifted (Again)… Here’s How and Why
TL;DR
Nearly four years deep into the streaming wars and emerging from post-lockdown subscription hangover, the state of streaming TV is best described as “in flux.”
US consumer streaming behavior is shifting rapidly and is doing so somewhat differently at the far ends of the demographic spectrum.
Life experience — how we were raised to watch TV — still seems to influence how we consume TV now.
The report finds a substantial bifurcation of TV consumption along generational lines. Life experience — how we were raised to watch TV — still seems to influence how we consume TV now.
“For those under 45, streaming culture — bingeing, cancelling after a binge, streaming content for free — are TV norms,” Shapiro says. “Those over 45 years of age maintain many of the habits they had when choice and viewer control were not so abundant.”
Digging deeper: 40% of viewers under 45 say bingeing is their preferred way to watch series. Consumers older than 45 are most likely to choose their viewing method based on the show.
These habits seem to correlate to the number of services each group has: the younger a subscriber, the more services they subscribe to.
Forty-three per cent of Americans under 45 have three or more streaming TV subscriptions, while more Americans over 45 have zero premium paid streaming services (32%) than have three (31%).
Sixty-eight percent of consumers over 45 and 78% of those under 45 have one or more paid streaming services, leading Shapiro to conclude, “Paying for streaming TV is now normal entertainment behavior at all ends of the demographic spectrum.”
However, so is churning.
Forty percent of younger streamers say they occasionally or regularly sign up for a service for a specific show or movie, watch that content, and cancel before the next billing cycle. More than a quarter of older Americans also say they also participate in serial churning.
Cr: Publishers Clearing House Consumer Insights
Cr: Publishers Clearing House Consumer Insights
Cr: Publishers Clearing House Consumer Insights
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Cr: Publishers Clearing House Consumer Insights
Cr: Publishers Clearing House Consumer Insights
Movies remain the content genre subscribers value most. Together with premium episodic shows, these two content genres determine a large portion of subscription decisions.
That’s not to say that kids programming and live sports aren’t important, with around 15% of subscribers to each genre likely to be more loyal to their service provider.
According to this survey, Disney tops the chart of domestic streaming popularity, largely helped by Hulu, beating both Netflix and YouTube to take the crown.
Warner Brothers Discovery is in the elite tier, right on Amazon’s heels, and the combined Paramount+/Pluto TV is another streaming giant.
When it comes to free streaming services, this survey suggests that Tubi, Roku Channel and Pluto TV “appear to be reaching critical mass among younger viewers,” yet all are more popular than notable paid services like AppleTV+, ESPN+ and Discovery+.
Free streaming is now the top TV choice with consumers under 45, and second only to cable TV among viewers over 45. It is YouTube which is far and away the leading free video platform “quickly becoming the go-to channel on CTV for all ages.”
Shapiro writes, “What this data does makes clear is that subscribers are getting pickier, and nimbler in their leaps from one service to another. Bingeing has generated a growing wave serial churn, and the changing economics of entertainment have given consumers a vast content smorgasbord, which they are actively sampling.
“It is also clear that older audiences and younger see their content consumption and platform choices quite differently — at least for now. To keep customers from serial churning, platforms and publishers should respond with pricing and packaging flexible enough to serve all ages.”
Media analyst Evan Shapiro says no one knows exactly where the industry is headed… but here are some possibilities.
April 11, 2023
Posted
April 11, 2023
Jim Louderback: Twitter vs. Substack, More Meta Missteps and Amazing New AI Tools to Auto-Convert Long-Form to TikTok, Shorts and Reels
BY JIM LOUDERBACK
TL;DR
Auto cutting, clipping and reposting video is about to be democratized. Tubebuddy just released its “Suggested Shorts” tool, which combs through YouTube videos, evaluates viewership data and then suggests which sections would make great shorts.
Matt Gielen from Little Monster shares his home-grown process to value a YouTube back catalog to help you value your videos fairly.
Looks like the road to efficiency means less support for creators. By thinning the ranks of the creator partnership team, Meta yet again shows how little it cares for the creators that make it successful.
Twitter and Substack are now at war. If you have a Substack newsletter, you can no longer use Twitter to promote it.
This Week: Exciting new AI tools to auto-cut, clip and reformat your videos. A new way to value your back catalog and make more money. Meta lays off much of its creator partnership team leaving creators without support. Meanwhile, Twitter and Substack are at war, and TikTok was fined $16M for exposing children. Plus, genAI ads are in the works from Meta, and Li Jin shares why most NFT projects fail. It’s the second week of April and here’s what you need to know.
Pooping Shorts: Auto cutting, clipping and reposting video is about to be democratized. Tubebuddy just released its “Suggested Shorts” tool, which combs through YouTube videos, evaluates viewership data and then suggests which sections would make great shorts. That’s a good first step, but what we really want is a tool that gobbles up long-form and poops out short-form. Enter Bigroom.tv and Opus Clip. Still in beta, but you can try ‘em today. 2 year-old Munch is another contender here, and Jellysmack will soon join the party with a product that presumably expands the auto resizing technology they acquired from Kamua. DM Paul Robert Cary if you want early access. It’s just the beginning of how GenAI will help you pinch every last penny from your videos. Related: the curious tale of short form clips with no long form parents from Garbage Day.
Valuing Your Back Catalog: Speaking of Jellysmack, they – along with Spotter – are aggressively renting back catalogs from YouTubers to create monetization scale. But how do you know you’re getting a good deal? Matt Gielen from Little Monster shares his home-grown process to value a YouTube back catalog to help you value your videos fairly. Remember, once you have your expected revenue over time you need to apply a “Net Present Value” to come up with today’s value (which you can do in Excel or Google Sheets).
Meta Lays off Creator Partnership Staff: Looks like the road to efficiency means less support for creators. By thinning the ranks of the creator partnership team, Meta yet again shows how little it cares for the creators that make it successful. Let me remind you once again – the platforms are not in business to support creators. They are beholden only to their shareholders. Oh, but apparently there is a way for creators to get timely support. Pay for it. Creators screwed yet again.
Twitter Declares War! That’s right, Twitter and Substack are now at war. If you have a Substack newsletter, you can no longer use Twitter to promote it. Why the vitriol? Substack created a similar service to Twitter, called Substack Notes, and that made Musk madder than a wampus cat in a rainstorm. Matt Taibbi – who actually WROTE the Twitter files – was just one of the ostracized authors. Ryan Broderick was too. Maybe it was just a “bug”? Whatever it was, there’s one thing for sure. Creators got screwed again.
Piper Sandler releases spring edition of its semi-annual “Taking Stock With Teens” – although absent a methodology consider it directional not projectable.
Tip of the Week: I made a few fun “Animai” videos of my dogs. Designed for people, it’s a neat way to get a wacky video of yourself for a profile picture or something else.
Thanks so much for reading and see you around the internet. Send me a note with your feedback, or post in the comments! Feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested, and if someone forwarded this to you, you can sign up and subscribe on LinkedIn for free here!
The burgeoning creator economy — of content creators monetizing their content directly with fans — is estimated to be worth $75 billion by next year and has caught the attention of big finance.
The findings of banking group Citi may not be revelatory but the fact that conventional finance has charted the market lends weight to arguments made by Web3 exponents that change in the distribution of labor and reward is afoot.
Estimating the figure is challenging due to platform overlap. For example, a gamer that creates a live stream on Twitch may also have a YouTube channel and a Patreon account. And some YouTube channels are associated with traditional media firms (like a film or a blockbuster video game).
However, even with these complexities, there are stark differences between platforms. Citi estimates YouTube has nearly 100 million channels (excluding traditional media). Roblox has about 10 million developers. Etsy has about four million sellers. There are currently more than four million podcasts. At the other end of the spectrum, Substack only has a few thousand writers.
Around half of the revenue stems from ad-based video platforms, like YouTube. The other half is spread across a wide array of industries: publishing, education and podcasting, among others. Platforms charge fees that can vary from less than 10% of creator’s revenues (Patreon, Spotify and Unity) to as high as 85% (Roblox). Citi thinks the variance often depends on the value the platform provides across five functions, which it identifies as creation, hosting, distribution/promotion, and monetization. The more functions these platforms perform, the higher the fees.
The lion’s share of the revenue is captured by a very small portion of the content creators. Far more than 80% of the revenue is created by far less than 20% of the creators.
Cr: Citi GPS
Cr: Citi GPS
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Cr: Citi GPS
How much can a creator make in net revenue after paying fees to the various platforms varies considerably. The report suggests that a writer for Substack generates, on average, $25,000 per year. The average creator that uses Patreon generates $6,000 per year. At the other end of the spectrum, a developer that creates items for Roblox generates, on average, just $50 per year.
Citi concludes that a creator’s average net revenue is inversely proportional to the number of creators that use the platform. That is, while Substack writers generate the most net revenue, the platform has very few writers. YouTube is at the other extreme. While there are many creators on YouTube, the average net revenue per creator is quite modest. Revenue per creator on the other platforms — Etsy, Twitch or Roblox — falls in between.
Going forward, the bank highlights three areas worth watching.
First, traditional social media firms may begin to share some of the spoils with content creators. That is, platforms like Twitter may begin to emulate YouTube’s business model. Or, as Instagram and Facebook push further into e-commerce, they will create opportunities for content creators to share in the economic spoils.
Second, Web3 tools — like blockchain and crypto — will allow consumers to finance, own, and trade content rather than simply paying creators to consume it.
Digital wallets are one way that new Web3 tools can help creators with monetization. Using a subscription model linked to a digital wallet, readers can access creator content stored on a decentralized storage layer. The subscription paves the way for creators to build a wallet-based community that enables far richer engagement than passive consumption more common with Web2 tools.
“Whether these new tools will be embraced by legacy creator economy platforms or new platforms remains to be seen. But, Web 3.0 tools will certainly result in new innovations that are apt to benefit creators and consumers alike.”
Third, artificial intelligence may alter the creator economy in several ways including by helping with content creation, helping brands find the right influencer or helping consumers find the right content.
“We expect AI to be used to help bring some order to the highly fragmented creator economy ecosystem. For example, AI will likely be used to help consumers find the right content and can also be used to help brands find the right influencer.”
The cultural impact a creator has is already surpassing that of traditional media, but there’s still a stark imbalance of power between proprietary platforms and the creators who use them. Discover what it takes to stay ahead of the game with these fresh insights hand-picked from the NAB Amplify archives:
More than half of non-professional creators are now monetizing their work within the creator economy, according to a new survey from Adobe.
April 9, 2023
Posted
April 4, 2023
Jim Louderback: A Creator Economy in Transition + Pew TikTok Survey Finds Broad Support for Ban
BY JIM LOUDERBACK
TL;DR
One of the top global early-stage VC firms just updated their Creator Economy forecast, and it’s a must read.
Pew’s latest research – released Friday – shows that more than half of Americans are in favor of a TikTok ban, and more than a quarter aren’t sure.
Substack is only the most recent company to ask its users to pay to play. But instead of verified check marks, Substack re-opened its 2021 investment round.
This Week: A comprehensive analysis of the creator economy by global VC firm Antler shows an industry in transition, a new Pew report finds that only 22% of Americans oppose a TikTok ban, while 40% aged 18-29 didn’t know TikTok was owned by a Chinese company. Also, Substack’s head-scratching investment round, Wired’s takedown of live-streamed shopping, and the rise of video podcasts. It’s the first week of April and here’s what you need to know.
Fascinating Look at the Creator Economy in 2023: One of the top global early-stage VC firms just updated their Creator Economy forecast, and it’s a must read. With a mix of quantitative data and directional interviews, Antler concludes that “we see the industry moving toward consolidation rather than rapid growth—for now.” But “It is not failing—it is evolving and changing direction.” The report makes 6 salient predictions about platform trends and predicts creators will focus on building closer relationships with fans, diversify revenue streams, launch their own branded product lines and use Generative AI to go global. Author Ollie Forsyth and I chatted on stage at Creator World in Singapore last November, and he continues to deliver salient insights for all of us. Also I’m honored to be one of Antler’s 50 creators to watch this year.
Only 22% of Americans Oppose a TikTok Ban: That’s what Pew’s latest research – released Friday – shows. More than half are in favor, and more than a quarter aren’t sure. Other interesting nuggets: over 40% of Americans 18-29 didn’t know TikTok was owned by a Chinese company, while 88% across all ages don’t trust Chinese social companies. However, 75% also had misgivings about American social platforms too. How do teens and tweens feel? Unknown, as they weren’t included in the study.
Beware Social Platforms Begging for Money: Substack is only the most recent company to ask its users to pay to play. But instead of verified check marks, Substack re-opened its 2021 investment round, specifically for newsletter authors. More than 4,700 newsletter writers committed to invest over $5M for the not-yet profitable venture. Brian Morrissey put it best – and put it in context – when he wrote, “this is Willie Sutton skipping the bank to head to the library.” I appreciate the aligning of incentives here, but it should have been at either a substantial discount, or an outright grant based on standard metrics and vesting timelines.
Live-streamed Shopping Is a Dud in the West:That’s what Wired just concluded. “I haven’t seen one success case,” says an expert in the story. She might not be looking hard enough. Last week at Shoptalk, Max Benator and Orca showed off a pop-up live shopping experience with TikTok that mirrored a similar effort at SXSW. I’ve seen his rodeo and it’s impressive. There’s a difference, though, between China and the U.S. In the U.S. we want to be entertained, while in China they are OK with being sold to. Smart marketers are also using live shopping as part of broader awareness and conversion campaigns – and seeing $2 CPMs and $.10 cost per click from those live streams. The truth is out there if you only look for it.
The Rise of Video Podcasts: Looking for a long-form way to engage audiences and drive revenue? Perhaps a video podcast is the right approach. Both YouTube and Spotify are investing to build video-based conversational formats into their platforms. Spotify announced a new white-glove service with select Creative Juice creators, while YouTube expands via a new lockup with Slate. Video podcasting is nothing new, it started in 2003 and was popular on iTunes before YouTube was a thing. But up until five years ago it was relatively dormant. Not anymore. Riverside has a good overview of video podcasting – and now might be the time for more video creators and brands to dive in.
AI Is Bad, Mkay: In an open letter to, well, everyone, a who’s who of the AI industry called