Last week we talked about the end of organic virality on YouTube, and then a few hours later YouTube killed the long-form view metric. Now you get a view increment the moment a video starts playing, not after 30 seconds of watch time.

This has caused a lot of hand-wringing but ultimately means very little. The Partner Program wants engaged views and time spent. Most brands want engagement, some sort of action and ROI. Creators will love it initially, because a bigger number means a bigger squirt of dopamine when you refresh the dashboard.  For brands looking for mind share, the “view” is now aligned with other platforms.  But IMO, the CPM is still a lazy way to measure creator value, even when used to evaluate digital platforms like YouTube with TV equivalents like Tubi and Peacock.

The reality? No one knows what a view means anymore (and frankly, they never did). It’s not a metric with any cross-platform integrity. And YouTube has just admitted it, deciding they might as well adopt the same lazy arithmetic as the other big platforms. It’s the analytics equivalent of “If Joey jumped off the cliff, would you jump off too?” that moms have badgered kids with since time immemorial. YouTube just pushed their views off the same cliff everyone else already blindly stampeded over. (Google)

PODCASTERS NOT HAPPY: One group of creators who aren’t happy with YouTube’s changes are podcasters.  As YouTube becomes more of a podcast-friendly destination, the 30 second play-count metric takes on increasing importance.  That’s because podcasters mostly follow AMP guidelines which stipulate 30 seconds of listening/viewing.  By moving to an opaque “engaged view”, YouTube just officially dropped out of the metric that most of the podcast industry embraces…  including Spotify.  (PodNews)

Now that a view is a play start, essentially, whether it happens on a scroll or on a thumbnail hover, there’s been confusion over what an “engaged view” is.  YouTube’s creator Liaison Rene Ritchie clarified that “an engaged view happens after some number of seconds” without revealing the exact number.  Youtube is deliberately vague because it doesn’t want creators to game the system (which I heartily agree with).  An engaged view, Ritchie went on, also happens after someone clicks on a thumbnail and begins to watch a video. 

But neither views, nor engaged views feed the requirements to join the partner program.  In another video Ritchie explains how that’s influenced, by “qualified views” (for Shorts) and “qualified watch hours (for longs).   But he then says that “Qualified Views” are “Engaged Views.  I pinged Rene for more, and he clarified that, the views ”have to be public and engaged” to count, not on Shorts that have been deleted, set to private, etc.”  And the number of seconds of watch time to create an “engaged view” is still a secret. (Creator Insider)

Want to know more? Rene Ritchie posted a more expanded explainer on Creator Insider over the weekend.

YouTube will start paying creators to stay on YouTube, as Netflix and other streamers ramp up the pressure.  This is yet another example of how the simple calculus between creators and Big Red has changed forever.  

It used to be that creators created, and if they got big enough they got revshare.  And YouTube built an amazing business on rarely paying upfront for content, aside from a few well publicized flops.  But traditional media finally realized that top creators bring storytelling, production, creative and…  an audience.  So Netflix, Tubi and others are swooping in and buying programming YouTube once got for free.   Now YouTube has to compete for its own creators.  (TNW)

From now until Halloween, YouTube is inviting select creators to participate in a $500 bonus program for each Short or long-form video that gets boosted by selected brands and shops.  Those creators will also get to keep their affiliate revenue on boosted sales too.   The program sits inside YouTube Shopping, and the requirements are smaller than the partner program, just 500 subscribers + 3 uploads + either 3,000 qualified watch hours or 3 million qualified Shorts views.  Full disclosure, I’m a gas-station sandwich creator myself. I’ve got the three uploads. Just 385 subscribers and 2,997 watch hours to go.  There are 72 brands participating, including Razer, Zappos, Petco, e.l.f., Fenty and Adidas.  

What it means:  As YouTube continues to segment creators, only the largest will get meaningful revshare, but much smaller active creators can still participate in commerce revenue.  It’s also notable that only videos shorter than 6 minutes are eligible for this bonus.  Now even “gas-station sandwich” creators can make money, if they’re delivering valuable engagement.  And for creators it’s no longer just about viewers.  Even with modest reach you can make content valuable enough for an advertiser to pay to distribute it.  (YouTube)

LinkedIn’s head of product @Hari Srinivasan claims they’re serving 40% less AI slop to users now vs 3 weeks ago, and that their AI Slop flag has been used by more than a million users. They still equivocate, though as to whether it’s used to down-rank content. Creators will also get feedback when that flag is repeatedly mashed. Will I get down-ranked for clicking “Seems Like AI Slop” on Hari’s post? Perhaps, but I did it anyway. (LinkedIn)

The IAB’s new AI Transparency Framework says synthetic humans should be labeled, along with other types of AI-generated ads.  I think this is a good thing, because if platforms and others are requiring AI disclosure for content, the same rules (or perhaps even more stringent ones) should apply to advertising. 

But advertisers aren’t going to like it.  According to a research preview from Gallup and Bentley, Americans are more negative than positive about AI in ads.  And the youngest are the most skeptical.  Turns out nearly two thirds of Americans…  and nearly 3/4s of 18-29-year-olds…  would reject ads using AI-generated voices and actors.  The IAB has the right idea, but their members might not be happy with it. 

This is also why I think “verified human” creators, actors, channels and videos will demand and receive more of a premium going forward.  (IAB, Gallup)

New research from the “Video Advertising Bureau”, a trade association for “Premium Video Platforms” like Tubi, Roku, Paramount and Disney, has an agenda:  creators and their ad dollars belong on those self-same video platforms.

But the data inside tends to undercut their perspective. They cite research forecasting nearly $21B of creator revenue this year coming from social and UGC platforms, which they obviously think should be accruing to their PVPs instead.  And their study shows that expertise and active communities are preferred more than production quality… which presumably PVPs have more of.  But for creators the insight is clear.  Credibility and authentic communities matter more than TV-quality production.  

The study also touts the reach of adults over 50, as they are “nearly half of all adults”.  No coincidence that they also make up the biggest part of the TV audience.  

It’s also interesting that they cite a Tubi survey that found 63% of streaming video users see little difference between creator content and streaming a TV show.

My take: Those PVPs need your audience and credibility more than you need them.  You have leverage, price it accordingly.  Exposure on the big screen is simply not enough.  And if you do end up partnering with a PVP, pay close attention to who owns the audience and the IP.  You go into the negotiation holding both cards in your hand. Don’t sell yourself short!

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100% written by me. AI was used for light editing, grammar, images/thumbnails and spelling mistakes… and challenging my assumptions. AI liberally used for the illustrations and cover art.

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