Welcome to Issue #12 of the Means of Creation weekly news roundup where we break down the latest news on the passion economy, including the happenings related to platforms, creators, startups, and trends.

This Week’s Interview: Eugene Wei 

This week we interviewed Eugene Wei, a former product executive and one of the best technology bloggers online today. Eugene has been publishing a blog and newsletter called Remains of the Day — distilling complicated consumer tech trends not just from a product design standpoint, but also from a user psychology perspective.

Find it as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Breaker or wherever you listen to podcasts, or as a video on YouTube here. Or subscribe to the Means of Creation YouTube Channel.

New Project: Side Hustle Stack!

Last week Li Jin (with the help of Brandon Handoko and Lila Shroff) launched a new product called Side Hustle Stack! 

Side Hustle Stack is a resource to find platform-based work, ranging from gig work and side hustles to platforms that help you start a small business. There’s been an explosion of platforms that help people make money and SHS is an organized resource that unites and aggregates data all in one spot. Check it out here → Link.

And now, onto the news.

YouTube Revamps Its Premieres Feature

What happened?

• YouTube Premieres, which is used for live streaming pre-recorded videos, added new features which will let streamers have a live stream before their pre-recorded video airs, simulating a ‘virtual red carpet’. 
• Premiers has seen an 85% growth in daily use from 8 million channels as the pandemic has prompted creators to live stream as a way to connect with fans. 
• YouTube also added a feature that lets creators set 15 second to 3 minute looping videos as trailers to promote upcoming shows.

👧 Li’s Take:

• This is really cool! 2020 seems to be the year of live video. I’m really interested in how live video is conducive to monetization — creators are more able to leverage social clout, interactivity, and affirmation to drive monetization of fans (like on Twitch). Perhaps this is the next step for YouTube, beyond AdSense and its Patreon competitor? It could also be a way of charging fans for meet-and-greets (like Looped or Cameo) or VIP meetups pre or post-premiere. 
• Side note — when Taylor Swift premiered her song “Cardigan” on YouTube this summer, it truly felt like participating in a shared experience with all of her fans worldwide. Maybe I’ve been deprived of IRL interaction for too long, but there was something magical about seeing the volume of comments flying by (and participating myself), and seeing a work of art unveiled for the first time with everyone else. I was skeptical about whether that feeling of collective wonder could be replicated digitally, but that moment did it!

👦 Nathan’s Take

• When you premier a video, there’s inevitably a group of people who wait on the platform beforehand. With all other kinds of content, there are pre-shows: whether it’s the talking heads in politics, trailers before movies, opening acts before concerts, and so on. It’s a valuable piece of media real estate and I think this is an awesome move for YouTube. 
• It will also be interesting to see if there are innovations in this pre-show space. I can also imagine a VIP section and perhaps a way to tip the creators for call-outs or certain actions. 
• Additionally, I could see YouTube getting into commerce soon. People who show up early to live streamed events are often superfans. It opens up opportunities for new forms of virtual merch. 
• Perhaps a thesis for a Shopify short would be that commerce moves into top-of-funnel. Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest and others really drive demand and would want to capture more of the value that the demand creates. Merchants just want a platform with the best conversation rate, flexibility, and lowest take rate. Shopify might not go away, but it could be commoditized.

Patch Labs — A New Platform That Powers Hyperlocal Newsletters

What happened?

• Patch, a 12-year-old digital media company with a hyperlocal focus, has launched Patch Labs, a platform that lets local journalists publish their own newsletters and websites. 
• The platform enables them to sell ads and offer subscriptions directly through the platform. The take rate varies from 3 to 10 percent.

👧 Li’s Take:

• From a writer perspective, this is reminiscent of what Forbes is doing — offering writers to come onto their platform, benefit from their wider distribution, while keeping a bigger share of the upside (not sure if this is announced but I’ve heard murmurs of this).
• This basically pushes down responsibility for the P&L down to the level of each individual writer, instead of the publication. In the traditional news model…

What Readers Are Saying

These news roundups are awesome! Love the iterating on different formats to see what clicks - keep it up!

The Li's take and Nathan's take columns very amazing.

This is great! I love all the news about the Passion Economy, thanks for pulling it together. As a curator myself and someone who wants to be "in the know" about what creators, curators and builders are doing, I really appreciate this. Thank you!

Looking forward to more news from means of creation. More power to you guys :)

When you subscribe to Means of Creation, you also get:

1. The Means of Creation talk show every Friday at 11:00am PST / 2:00pm EST featuring founders and investors in the passion economy. Recent guests include Ankur Nagpal, Joseph Cohen, and Blake Robbins.
2. Passion Economy News (you’re reading it now!) where we break down the latest news on the passion economy — platforms, creators, startups, and trends.
3. Everything else in the bundle, including great stuff from all our other paid newsletters: Divinations, Superorganizers, Praxis, Napkin Math, Ask Jerry, The Long Conversation, Free Radicals, and Almanack. And we’re adding new stuff all the time!