YouTube, Instagram, SoundCloud, and other online platforms are changing the way people create and consume media. The Verge’s Creators section covers the people using these platforms, what they’re making, and how those platforms are changing (for better and worse) in response to the vloggers, influencers, podcasters, photographers, musicians, educators, designers, and more who are using them.
The Verge’s Creators section also looks at the way creators are able to turn their projects into careers — from Patreons and merch sales, to ads and Kickstarters — and the ways they’re forced to adapt to changing circumstances as platforms crack down on bad actors and respond to pressure from users and advertisers. New platforms are constantly emerging, and existing ones are ever-changing — what creators have to do to succeed is always going to look different from one year to the next.
The ‘Manage Topics’ settings let you control how often you see TikTok videos related to sports, travel, humor, dance, and other categories.
A high-profile copyright lawsuit between two rival lifestyle and shopping influencers could have changed the creator industry.
Angelo Sotira’s display, called Layer, is designed to house a kind of “generative AI art,” which TechCrunch explains involves artists writing their “own software to create digital AI artworks that change over time.” The display comes with a dedicated GPU capable of rendering “infinite variations” of generative art in full resolution.
The head of the AI video platform on Hollywood, copyright, and the future of filmmaking.
CEO Chris Best drops that fact onstage at The Information’s “Future of Influence” event in Los Angeles. He also says Substack was “accidentally cash flow positive” in the first quarter of this year, but isn’t planning to be profitable soon. “We’re focused on growth,” he says. “It turns out that when you do that, it makes the business grow really well, too.”
The platform is globally releasing a self-service “Pre-Release” feature for Artist accounts that allows musicians to easily promote forthcoming album releases. Fans can automatically save unreleased albums to their Spotify or Apple Music libraries so that they don’t miss the album drop and can listen to them instantly upon release.
After launching Photoshop for iPhone in February, a beta Android app is now available to download via Google Play. Much like its iOS counterpart, Photoshop for Android includes many features from the desktop version, including layers, masks, brushes, and Firefly generative AI tools, but with a UI optimized for mobile devices.
Adobe says all features are free to use while the app is in beta, and that more are “coming soon.”
ICYMI, the livestream of a bald eagle nest in California’s Big Bear Valley is mesmerizing. Eagle-eyed viewers are anxiously waiting for the two twelve-week-old eaglets to fledge the nest, where they’ve been carefully raised by parents Jackie and Shadow since hatching in March.
The nest is perched about 145 feet above Big Bear Lake, so it’s a hair-raising prospect. But just yesterday, Sunny caught some serious air. Will this weekend bring the big day?
If you’re a celebrity promoting a new movie or your latest album, you used to follow a standard playbook of late night shows, magazine cover stories, or daytime talk shows. Now you have to do all that and eat chicken wings with YouTubers or give your hottest take while riding the subway. The New Media Circuit is a powerful driver of views, likes, and comments — but does it actually sell anything?
[vulture.com]
That’s according to Nielsen’s media distributor Gauge report, which tracks how much time viewers spend watching TV across the networks and streaming platforms owned by different media companies each month.
In April 2025, Nielsen found that YouTube once again earned the top spot by capturing 12.4 percent of viewers’ total time watching TV. It’s followed by Disney (10.7 percent), Paramount (8.9 percent), and NBCUniversal (8.2 percent).
Recently, the comedian behind Adam Ruins Everything made a promotional video for World that he’s since taken down. Now, he’s addressing blowback he received by calling his ad for the eyeball-scanning crypto company “one of the dumbest things I have ever done” and saying what he “honestly” thinks about the company.
One the highest-profile callouts of Conover’s video came from Rebecca Watson, aka Skepchick, who briefly summarizes World’s problematic exploits in her critique.
Six months after the coupon hunting extension Honey was accused of cheating shoppers and influencers, it appears the PayPal-owned tool is still losing users. According to 9to5Google, the number of Chrome extension users continues to drop — at one point 20 million people used the extension. Now, that number is down to 15 million.
Unionized workers at Politico allege the company violated its contract by using AI-generated content in a live blog — and are escalating their complaint to arbitration this summer. The union says the AI-generated summaries contained factual errors and language that’s off-limits for writers. The result of arbitration could set an important precedent for an industry that’s seen countless AI disputes in recent years.
The cheaper subscription, which cuts ads on “most” videos, but not music, is expanding to Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil too, after launching in the US in March. It’s rolling out gradually, so check the Premium Lite site to see if you’re eligible to sign up — I’m still not, but my colleague Tom apparently is.
Premium Lite costs CAD$7.99 / £7.99 per month, compared to CAD$12.99 / £12.99 for YouTube Premium.
[support.google.com]
The company is paying a group of creators to refer people to Instagram, Business Insider reports. Influencers can earn $100 for every new user or 1,000 visits to the Instagram app, with a $20,000 limit.
Instagram regularly tests monetization bonuses in an effort to juice engagement: they’ve paid people to post Reels and ditch TikTok, for example. But the Reels bonuses were touch and go for creators, with Instagram killing the program in 2023.
[businessinsider.com]
As reported by The New York Times:
The Mexican authorities threatened legal action this week over a video featuring the YouTube sensation MrBeast at ancient Maya ruins, suggesting that a production company had violated an agreement for filming at the site.
Here’s a link to the video, if you’re curious.
Luke Nichols, who runs the nearly 15-million-subscriber-strong YouTube channel, partly blames fame:
...Because of people stealing my content and posting it on other platforms, my family and I have been viewed about 4 billion times, in addition to the 2.8 billion views on YouTube. The sheer volume of fans trying to contact me, trying to take pictures with me, or just trying to come up and talk to me in public can be overwhelming ... The time to stop is before this problem gets so out of hand that my family and I can’t live normal lives.
The preliminary finding in an investigation opened last year says TikTok breached the Digital Services Act’s requirements to publish information about the content of ads, which users are targeted, and who paid for them. Now it’s TikTok’s turn to respond and try to avoid a potential fine worth up to 6 percent of its annual turnover, just weeks after it was fined $600 million for breaking the bloc’s GDPR regulations.
The company says its new ad system will use AI to place ads in videos at “contextually relevant” moments where viewers are most likely to be engaged. YouTube announced the feature on Wednesday at its annual Brandcast event for advertisers.
The government’s case could come down to whether the judge thinks MeWe is a closer competitor to Instagram than TikTok.
This wildlife filmmaker documents the unseen beauty of freshwater ecosystems.
