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 comedian, podcast host, and, yes, YouTuber on the state of media today.
Content creators say their videos are fair use, but one controversial company begs to differ.
As part of a few new podcast-focused features for Threads, there are new podcast cards that will show up in posts and profiles that make the podcast stand out. Could be useful for creators trying to promote their show.
The AI coaching feature is only available to a small group of streamers right now. Unlike Twitch’s generative AI training toggle, which is opt out, the company says this feature would be opt-in if it’s ever expanded beyond this test.
A 2025 lawsuit claiming TikTok violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act will now go to trial after Judge Cory Liu granted the state’s request for a partial summary judgment on Thursday.
The state had argued that TikTok said it would remove content with drugs, gambling, or graphic injuries but instead designated it “hard to find,” and said a Restricted Mode setting filtered out content that was inappropriate for minors while employees internally acknowledged it didn’t work as well as advertised.
That’s a 13 percent increase from the same time last year, according to Adobe’s Q3 earnings report released on Thursday. The company also reached more than one billion monthly active users across its suite of software, as it fills out Photoshop, Premiere, Express, Acrobat, Lightroom, and other apps with new AI tools.
Tagged posts will appear in reverse-chronological order on your grid, but you can also reorder them if you want.
Crooked Ideas, the nonprofit arm of Crooked Media, is tapping Chaotic Era author Kyle Tharp to head up the iniative, which will support existing political influencers and focus on creating content related to issues like AI safety, climate change, healthcare, and “enshittification,” according to a report from Semafor.
Recent US Open shenanigans and YouTubers’ disastrous golf ad show a risky relationship between brands and influencers.
If you liked the pilot animatic for Kiana Khansmith’s Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to Be a Magical Girl, you’re going to love the Mercury Filmworks-produced, fully animated version of the first episode that just hit YouTube.
As reported by Wired, more than 200 US-based workers at the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia, will join Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 9415 after management declined to voluntarily recognize the union in July.
Organizing committee member Bryan Davis called it a “huge milestone” and said:
We continue our petition for recognition in the U.K. and hope to see more jurisdiction-specific units call for voluntary recognition in the coming weeks and months. Solidarity will continue to drive our discussions, planning, and actions as we begin working on our collective goals for contract bargaining to support all WMF workers regardless of legal jurisdiction, job duty, or hours of employment.
More than three years after Tate and his brother were arrested and indicted in Romania on charges of human trafficking, Reuters reports the DIICOT prosecuting unit has indicted Tate again. They’ve charged Tate for “trafficking minors, money laundering, sex with a minor and witness tampering and his brother Tristan for complicity.”
Both Tates were arrested in Miami in July after British authorities requested their extradition, and they are currently in jail in the US.
A new feature rolling out “over the next month” lets you leave comments by recording a 60-second voice memo. TikTok is also bringing polls, Live Photos, and photo carousels with up to nine images to the comments section.
Charming celeb interviewer Amelia Dimoldenberg announced today that she’ll be wrapping her viral Chicken Shop Date video series with a few final dates. Will Andrew Garfield swoop in to sweep her off her feet before the shop closes for good? We can only hope.
Adobe for Slack is available starting today for Slack Business Plus and Enterprise Plus teams, allowing users to make or edit images, videos, and documents directly in Slack. It works like Adobe’s chatbot — describe the outcome you want to Slackbot, and it’ll call on more than 70 tools from Creative Cloud apps and Firefly to complete the task.
A selection of Binsky’s videos will appear on Netflix starting September 19th, similar to the streamer’s deals with Kevin Langue, Nick DiGiovanni, and Mythical Entertainment, as reported by Variety. YouTube has reportedly offered creators millions not to cross-post their videos to Netflix.
HarperCollins probably dropped a pretty penny to get Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson and James Patterson to collaborate on their newly released novel, The Most Dangerous Games. But Semafor reports that the publisher might have a hard time making that money back due to the book’s very, very low pre-sales.
Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly highlighted the book’s pre-sale numbers rather than post-launch sales.
He admitted to being “scared” but excited about his new YouTube channel in his first video, but said that after 30 years making movies, he wants to “undo whatever stigmas are in my head or in anybody’s head.” Shyamalan dives into his Signs filmmaking diary in his second video on the channel.
His latest book, The Nudge, tells the tale of a man who can’t seem to outrun a mysterious evil.
As AI infiltrates the electronic dance music scene, a callout culture is brewing.
It’s planning to run full-page ads in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and New York Times on Thursday, according to NYT reporter Mike Isaac, on the heels of Meta’s $17 billion settlement with state AGs. Meta is using the settlement to urge its top competitors to take on similar restrictions.
It would have been the next bellwether in the group of cases tried in a Los Angeles state court. In the first, Meta and YouTube were ordered to pay $6 million total. After settling with TikTok, the teen’s lawyer told The New York Times, she wanted to “resume her life.”
[The New York Times]
The Generate Music, Speech, and Sound effects tools are generally available in Adobe Firefly following their beta launches last year. Adobe is also trying to attract more users for its Firefly AI Assistant, so now it has a “free experience with daily generations,” instead of limiting the feature to Firefly subscribers.
Public-facing workers are being filmed, harassed, and creeped out by AI-powered smart glasses.
A few years ago, Leo Mastrolia started a gadget repair shop. Little did he know he’d eventually become known across the internet as The Digital Doctor, and would learn to fix practically every gadget you can think of. On this episode, which is part one of our conversation with Leo, he tells us about his journey as a gadget fixer, the growth of his social channels, and how right-to-repair fights and upgrade cycles are affecting life in his store.
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According to Twitch chief product officer Mike Minton, that’s the “honest answer” as to why the streaming platform has started training Amazon’s generative AI models on users’ content by default. Twitch users can choose to opt out, but Minton defends the default setting because “almost every content service in the world” is also doing it.
After initially being tested by “select creators,” Creator Studio is now available for iOS users in the US and Canada. The original Creator Studio page manager experience was shut down in 2023, but Meta describes this revived version as an “AI-powered companion app” that helps creators to grow and engage with their audience.
[How creators are using Creator Studio to experiment and grow]
Nearly two years after the YouTuber’s first video accusing PayPal’s Honey browser extension of ripping off customers, affiliated creators, and even retailers, he’s back.
This time, there are updates about how others like Rakuten have (belatedly) ended relationships with Honey, and the current state of the legal proceedings, while Austin Evans’ recent video examines how this scandal has both shaped and changed YouTuber sponsorships.
