Dec 23
The weather, it’s just like us. As Omicron rages across the U.S. and people are forced to decide whether to travel amidst murky public health guidance, the weather also seems to have thrown its hands in a collective atmospheric “fuck it.”
Dec 23
Flexible screens are now used in smartphones and even laptops, but LG thinks they should be the centerpiece of your home and it’s hauling two wacky concepts to the CES 2022 show floor to convince you.
Dec 23
Houston area residents were startled awake early this morning by a thunderous boom followed up by smoke-filled, orange-tinted skies. The boom, felt at least 20 miles (32 kilometers) away by residents in the Clear Lake suburb, originated from Exxon’s Baytown refining and petrochemical facilities.
Dec 23
Regulators have authorized an antiviral drug from Merck known as molnupiravir that may help blunt the wave of infections driven by the omicron variant.
Dec 23
About 5,500 children were forcibly removed from their parents under former President Donald Trump.
Dec 23
Don’t worry if you’re scrambling for a last-minute audio gift or IOU — you have good timing. Best Buy is selling the Jabra Elite 85t true wireless earbuds for an all-time low price of $140, a sizeable $90 below the usual price. You’ll have to be happy with one color to get that price, and the deal is only available for today (December 23rd), but it’s difficult to object when this undercuts even the Black Friday pricing from a month earlier.
Buy Elite 85t at Best Buy – $140
The Elite 85t might be your choice if you prize active noise cancelling first and foremost. The earbuds do a superb job of blocking outside noises, whether it’s a busy city or a raucous household, and you can customize the ANC levels to filter just enough sounds. They’re also comfortable for extended periods and offer wireless charging you don’t always get at this sale price.
There are limitations. The audio quality is good but not stunning, and you won’t find special tricks like spatial audio or tight integration with specific phones. At $140, though, you probably won’t mind — this is a viable alternative to AirPods, Galaxy Buds and other go-tos for portable listening.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
Dec 23
The multibillion dollar industry of game streamers, beauty vloggers, podcast producers, fitness influencers, newsletter writers and other social media stars who make up the “creator economy,” began long before 2021. Yet 2021 saw more platforms throw more money and resources at independent content creators than ever before.
This year, companies that had previously shown little interest in courting “influencers” or building relationships with creators began to invest in building monetization tools for them. And even more established, creator-friendly companies significantly ramped up their investments with new funds and tools.
Twitter, which had previously only ever had a single monetization feature — a video centric tool used by publishers — opted to reorient its entire platform around creators. It built Super Follows, a Patreon-esque subscription service for influencers. It launched Ticketed Spaces, so people could make money from its burgeoning live audio feature. It launched in-app tripping, and started building a newsletter platform.
Snapchat, which at one time actively shunned the idea of influencers, just announced that it had funneled more than $250 million to creators via its Spotlight feature, which launched at the end of 2020. Some of the app’s biggest stars are even getting their own shows in Snapchat Discover.
Facebook also took a renewed interest in the influencers and content creators who had long asked for more opportunities from the platform. Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly labeled creators as one of the company’s top priorities and announced a plan to invest $1 billion into tools for them by the end of 2022. Since then, Facebook and Instagram have launched a dizzying number of creator-focused updates and monetization features.
Platforms not traditionally associated with influencers also began throwing money at creators and monetization features. Pinterest launched a $500,000 creator fund and built its first monetization tools. LinkedIn — yes, that LinkedIn — announced a $25 million fund. Clubhouse added tipping. Tumblr, meanwhile, launched a subscription service for its bloggers.
Even YouTube, the most established platform for creators to make money, identified “growing the creator economy” as its top 2021 priority. It launched an all-new $100 million fund just for Shorts, its TikTok-like feature. TikTok itself, which started a $200 million fund in 2020, also launched new monetization features.
With all that money flowing in, it’s no surprise that the number of individual creators also boomed. One report from payments company Stripe, which powers payments for dozens of influencer platforms, found that the number of creators was up 48 percent in 2021, compared with 2020. And that’s just a “fraction” of the total ecosystem, according to the company.
“If the recent exponential growth of the creator economy keeps up, these 50 platforms could be supporting more than 15.5 million creators in five years,” the company wrote.
Stripe
Growth wasn’t limited just to the major platforms, either. Startups catering to content makers and their needs also surged, with more than $3.7 billion in funding going toward “startups focused on creators,” according to a report in The Information.
One of the main drivers of this surge in activity was the pandemic. While creators were making money long before the pandemic, the industry was almost perfectly primed to absorb many of the changes brought on by it.
“I think the pandemic definitely turbocharged the creator economy through both necessity and through choice,” Li Jin, founder of Atelier Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in the creator economy, said in an interview earlier this year.
“Necessity meaning a lot of people were left without offline alternatives for work and income and had to turn to online platforms in order to continue their creative careers. And choice in the sense that obviously we had a lot of free time during the pandemic where we were just kind of stuck at home. I think a lot of people took that time and they started creating content.”
At the same time, the pandemic also seems to have shifted the way that many people think about work itself. While this year was full of hand-wringing about labor shortages and whether or not people want to go back to work, it’s not difficult to understand why some, particularly younger people, might opt for a different path. Zuckerberg described the shift as “people being able to make a living by expressing their creativity and by doing things they want to do, rather than things they have to.” Creators, he has said, deserve to be “rewarded” for their work,
But as Jin and others have pointed out, major platforms aren’t suddenly embracing creators just because they care about helping them create sustainable independent businesses. The economics are ultimately weighted in their favor as well.
Creators are responsible for a significant amount of engagement on their platforms of choice. If enough of an app’s biggest stars leave, they could take large chunks of users with them. Revenue from creators could also one day help Facebook generate income beyond advertising. Zuckerberg has pledged not to take a cut of their earnings until 2023, but even a relatively small commission could eventually add up to a significant amount. Likewise, Twitter has said it plans to take a 20 percent cut of Super Follow subscriptions from its highest-earning creators, though it could still be some time before the feature makes serious cash for anyone.
Creators are also crucial to drawing in new users and keeping platforms’ existing ones entertained. For Facebook, they could help the company avoid, or at least dampen, the “existential threat” of declining teen users. Snapchat has touted Spotlight as a key source of growth. Even LinkedIn has said creators can help their users get “better at what they do.”
Ultimately, though, it’s the platforms that will benefit most from creators, according to Jin. “Nothing is done purely altruistically,” she said. “It’s to strengthen the company and their profitability.”
Dec 23
Bryan Fuller promises maximum horny for his Christine remake. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 asks you to pick between the red quill and the blue quill. HBO Max’s 2022 glimpse offers new looks at the Gremlins TV show and House of the Dragon. Plus, what’s coming on Legends of Tomorrow and Naomi. Spoilers, away!
Dec 23
Pharma-Friendly Democrat Kurt Schrader Has A Progressive Primary Challenger
Posted in: Today's ChiliJamie McLeod-Skinner, a school board member and attorney, said Schrader is “out of touch.”
Dec 23
“I was discharged after an eight-day admission for detox, and my first priority was getting through my upcoming holiday without any alcohol.”
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