After nine years as CEO of the world’s largest video-sharing platform, Susan Wojcicki announced last week that she was stepping down from YouTube, to be replaced by the company’s chief product officer Neal Mohan. The move comes after nearly 25 years of working for parent company Google, where she started as its first marketing manager (founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin famously set up Google’s early office space in Wojcicki’s Menlo Park garage). Wojcicki is known for leading the charge to acquire YouTube, co-creating Google Image Search and helping to launch AdSense, among numerous other accomplishments. YouTube’s number of average daily users has more than doubled under her leadership and content has expanded with new services such as YouTube TV, YouTube Premium and YouTube Music. Continue reading YouTube CEO Wojcicki Steps Down After 25 Years at Google

Regulatory pressure continues to build against TikTok and the company’s Beijing-based owner. Another state has joined the federal fight to ban the short-form video app, with Virginia this month passing legislation prohibiting TikTok and WeChat from use on state government devices. Meanwhile, on Thursday Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) and Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) wrote Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen — who also chairs the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. — advising CFIUS  to “impose strict structural restrictions between TikTok’s American operations and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, including potentially separating the companies.” Continue reading National Security Pressure Continues to Build Against TikTok

YouTube’s Creator Music marketplace is officially rolling out to U.S. Partner Program participants starting this week. Creator Music offers a sizable song catalog whose license and use terms are clearly spelled out. Some music is offered on a revenue-sharing basis, allowing creators and rights holders to earn from the end use. In announcing the service in September, YouTube pointed out its creators identified music rights as problematic. Due to the high cost associated with pop tunes, users often opted for unknown music. Creator Music aims to make licensing more recognizable music easy and affordable. Continue reading YouTube Launches Creator Music for Its Partner Participants

TikTok is launching new targeting and boosting features for Promote, a tool designed to drive traffic to a profile or brand home page. First launched in 2021, Promote is touted as a way to turn viewers into potential leads. TikTok says Promote improves audience targeting while letting small businesses and creators strengthen ties with communities by customizing how users interact with their ads. A recent study shows that positioning an “organic” TikTok video before a paid ad “increases aided brand recall by 27 percent” and holds attention to the ad “12 percent longer,” according to the social platform. Continue reading TikTok Adding New Traffic and Audience Targeting Features

Netflix is expanding its paid sharing program to Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain. The program, which was tested last year in several Latin American markets, is the company’s attempt to crackdown on the unauthorized password sharing that deprives the company of what one analyst estimates is billions of dollars per year. Where the program is live, subscribers can pay to add non-household members to their account at the rate of an extra CAD$7.99 a month per person in Canada, NZD$7.99 in New Zealand, Euro 3.99 in Portugal, and Euro 5.99 in Spain. Continue reading Netflix Password Sharing Plan Added in Four Global Markets

GlossAi can turn full-length videos — or even whole libraries of video and podcast content —into an array of short clips and posts suitable for dissemination across a wide swathe of outlets. The Israel-based firm has raised $8 million in a seed round as it enters an emerging market in which Adobe and AI startup QuickVid are already playing, but no single app has definitely taken hold. GlossAi has the ability to take a video and automatically generate not only a highlight reel, but also things like 15-second snippets, blog posts (from a transcript), slide decks and more. Continue reading GlossAi Content Propagation App Raises $8M in Seed Round

Pinterest grew Q4 year-over-year revenue by 4 percent, to $877 million, while full year sales jumped 9 percent in 2022 totaling $2.8 billion. The company said that global monthly active users also grew by 4 percent in the three month period ending December 31, to a total of 450 million. CEO Bill Ready emphasized on the earnings call the intent to eventually “make every pin shoppable.” Similar to how it is monetizing still images Pinterest is focusing on making videos “more actionable” by applying what it calls “our computer vision technology.” Continue reading Pinterest Grows Its Active Users, Focuses on Video Shopping

TikTok toured journalists through its new Transparency and Accountability Center last week. Located in Culver City, the facility features monitors displaying infographics that show how TikTok’s recommendation engine and content moderation affect the short-form videos that are the basis of its viral app. Computer workstations running a “code simulator” were made available so visitors could explore firsthand how the app’s algorithms influence video propagation. TikTok COO Vanessa Pappas told attendees that the new center, in development since 2020, aims to give lawmakers and others a more personal experience than the virtual tours previously offered. Continue reading TikTok Ups Transparency Efforts as Government Heat Builds

Alphabet is touting artificial intelligence advances as it faces disappointing Q4 earnings, with CEO Sundar Pichai, who is also CEO of Google, telling analysts the company will soon share its own generative AI system with the public, competing head-on with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E. “In the coming weeks and months, we’ll make these language models available, starting with LaMDA, so that people can engage directly with them,” Pichai said. Google’s parent company reported a 3.6 percent decline in core ad revenue, at $59 billion in Q4, while overall revenue was up 1 percent to $76 billion. Continue reading Alphabet Reveals Major AI Push, Plans to Take On ChatGPT

Belt-tightening has paid off in a big way at Meta Platforms, whose stock rocketed by as much as 19 percent due to a combination of “improving conditions” and news of a $40 billion buyback plan. The company forecast Q1 revenue of as much as $28.5 billion — which is more than first quarter earnings in 2021, right before a change in Apple’s privacy rules detrimentally impacted ad-reliant social platforms. In Q4, Meta reported its third consecutive quarter of declining sales but still amassed a net profit of $4.7 billion on revenue of $32.2 billion, down 4.5 percent year-over-year. Continue reading Zuckerberg Reveals 2023 ‘Year of Efficiency’ Mantra for Meta

The Roku and Tubi streaming platforms are the first partners for Warner Bros. Discovery’s new FAST channels, helping WBD CEO David Zaslav’s promise that the company would be “aggressively attacking” the free, ad-supported streaming TV market in 2023. This spring the WBD FAST channels will launch on the Roku Channel, which will additionally add another 2,000 hours of WBD on-demand programming, via more than 225 ad-supported titles. Tubi, which is owned by Fox Corporation, began introducing WBD content this week, with plans to add three new FAST channels — WB TV Family, WB TV Reality and WB TV Series. Continue reading Warner Bros. Discovery to Debut Roku, Tubi FAST Channels

TikTok is taking a proactive stance to quash U.S. government concerns that user data might be collected and exploited by China, where the viral video platform’s parent, ByteDance, is based. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew made the rounds in Washington last week, sharing with think tanks and public interest groups his plan to prevent data on Americans from being transmitted out of the country. The strategy marks a shift for TikTok, which kept a low profile during attacks by the Trump administration and continuing pressure under President Biden. Chew is now scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about security and privacy. Continue reading TikTok On the Offense in Battle to Protect Its U.S. Operations

The algorithm powering TikTok’s vaunted For You page is reportedly getting help from human collaborators. Although the personalized feed was said to be based on user interests and selections, “employees regularly engage in ‘heating,’ a manual push that ensures specific videos ‘achieve a certain number of video views,’ according to six sources and documents reviewed by Forbes.” What’s more, while the algorithm does have a say in what goes viral, staff at TikTok and ByteDance are also hand-picking specific videos to give preferential treatment, saturating their distribution throughout the user base. Continue reading TikTok Is Accused of Manually ‘Heating’ Personalization Feed

Reed Hastings is transitioning from co-chief executive to executive chairman of Netflix, with Greg Peters, who was instrumental in launching the platform’s new ad-supported tier, stepping up from COO and chief product officer to serve as co-CEO with Ted Sarandos. Hastings co-founded Netflix in 1997 and has run it ever since, transforming the company from a DVD-by-mail rental outfit to the world’s dominant streaming service. The C-suite shift comes as Netflix announced it beat its forecast for subscriber gains, ending Q4 with 230.8 million paid subscribers globally, news that spiked Netflix shares nearly 7 percent. Continue reading Reed Hastings Transitioning to Executive Chairman of Netflix

YouTube TV has unveiled redesigns of its Live guide and Library feature. The new Live guide touts a more traditional timeline-based grid presentation, topped by curated recommendations. Overall, YouTube says the grid layout is condensed yet provides more information. It also makes it easier to record. The updated Library has added content management features, including a “catch up on your favorites” shelf. Instead of side-navigation, a row of filters invites content categories exploration. YouTube says “Live and Library are the most used pages by YouTube TV watchers, so we decided to focus on improving those areas.” Continue reading YouTube TV Upgrades Are Designed to Streamline Navigation