Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI TECH SCROLL: YouTube launches podcast chart, celebrity mobile game ads flood TikTok + Google AI Mode

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MINI TECH SCROLL: YouTube launches podcast chart, celebrity mobile game ads flood TikTok + Google AI Mode · Mini Scroll

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  Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Tech Scroll, the daily Internet
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  culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
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  media, the creator economy and the digital space every Monday
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  through Thursday and sometimes Friday.
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  I'm your host, Lauren Meissner, the founder of the youth digital
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  media brand Centennial World. Welcome back to mini scroll,
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  everyone, mini tech scroll. All right, let's just get
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  straight into the stories for today, because again, I don't
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  have an update for you guys. O the first story that I have
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  for you guys is that YouTube has launched a podcast charts.
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  The podcast wars continue as YouTube has taken a big step in
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  trying to assert its dominance in the podcasting sphere against
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  some of the other platforms. YouTube has launched a top
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  podcast chart and it has also made some updates to its podcast
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  homepage. So I'll tell you about those as
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  well. The podcast chart is the top 100
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  podcasts on YouTube and it's updated every Wednesday.
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  It's only available in the US for now, but they will expand
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  two different regions. And this chart is based off of
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  watch time, which is such tea because the other platforms, the
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  way that they choose podcast ranking is really unclear.
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  I don't know, maybe they have changed things since I last
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  looked into it. But as far as I know, if
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  somebody's like, oh, we're number one in this category in
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  this country, that does not mean that that podcast has the most
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  listens in that country for that category.
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  I mean, this is like what we were talking about.
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  Was it last week when we were talking about Spotify?
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  Really racing plays, it's like podcasting as an industry.
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  The metrics, the analytics are so murky.
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  It's so hard to actually like, there's just like no standard.
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  So I guess for YouTube to come out and say this is how we are
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  going to judge the ranking, I think that makes sense.
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  And I like that it's based on watch time as opposed to number
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  of subscribers or even like number of listeners per episode.
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  I like that it's based on like how long people are actually
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  consuming that content, because that is one of the weirdest
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  things about all of these platforms is, you know, what
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  constitutes a view? Like if 60 seconds is a view
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  slash listen on a podcast or a video, like can you really say
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  that somebody has actually watched that content?
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  No, of course not 60 seconds is nothing, especially when you
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  think about how long podcast can be.
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  So yes, like does that mean that many will ever chart?
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  Like probably not because our episodes are so short.
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  The top podcast has continuously since they started tracking this
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  on YouTube is Joe Rogan. Unsurprising, but you know his
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  episodes are also so long now when it comes to the podcast
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  homepage, this is from podnews.net quote.
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  YouTube has also quietly updated the YouTube podcast homepage in
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  the US to be editorially curated.
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  It highlights podcast as square podcast artwork and editorially
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  curates them into different rails.
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  So award-winning, music minded in conversation with gaming and
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  sport, etcetera. Viewers in other countries get
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  the older algorithmic page that contains 16 by 9 video
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  thumbnails, including many things that aren't really
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  podcasts. This change appears to only have
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  affected the US for now. So this also makes sense because
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  a lot of the platforms have kind of an editorial team that's
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  working on curating like the different lists and like, you
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  know, kind of the different home pages, the different categories
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  and where podcasts kind of slot into that.
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  So yeah, I think it makes sense as opposed to being fully
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  algorithmically driven. This will help with
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  discoverability for smaller podcasts, niche podcasts, that
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  kind of stuff. In theory, I love this because
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  YouTube absolutely dominates podcasting for young audiences.
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  I know when we talked about podcast casting last week, so
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  many of you guys messaged me saying that YouTube like is your
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  number one by far for podcasting.
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  And since we started posting on YouTube, it has absolutely
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  changed our podcast, like transformed our brand.
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  So yeah, I think it's exciting to see that YouTube is like
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  throwing their hat even further into the ring, being like, no,
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  no, no, no, don't come and cut our grass.
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  We still want to dominate because YouTube is also so
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  rarely considered as a valid platform to look at within the
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  industry. But we do know that YouTube
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  first podcasts tend to be cultier.
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  They tend to have so much more longevity.
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  They also are more self-sustaining than, you know,
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  podcasts that aren't posted on YouTube and require advertisers
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  fully to back them. So yeah, it it's, it's exciting.
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  It's a very interesting time in the podcasting world right now
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  with all of these platforms. All right, the next story that I
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  have for you guys is that celebrity ads for mobile games
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  are taking over TikTok. So there is this interesting new
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  trend taking over the celebrity ad space where they're
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  contracting out their likeness to promote mobile games all over
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  TikTok. I'm sure you guys have seen
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  this, but everyone from Simon Cowell to Kylie Jenner to
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  Courtney Cox and Lisa Kudrow to Pedro Pascal to LeBron James to
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  Kevin Hart, so many celebrities have been doing this.
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  And sometimes it appears to be the real celebrity and then
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  other times I swear it is AI. And I was looking more into this
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  and there are definitely posts on Reddit and stuff about people
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  being like, why are there all these like AI celebrity ads
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  everywhere? But then all of the legitimate
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  news sites and publishers that have covered anything close to
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  this are not really referencing that these are like AI generated
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  ads. And I think the vast majority of
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  them are, but I guess there's maybe no way to fully tell.
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  So they're not going to put that in writing.
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  I don't know. But just know my opinion is that
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  the vast majority of what we're seeing is AI generated
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  regardless. Royal Kingdom is the biggest
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  mobile game that does these ads. There are others, but that's
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  like the number one that you guys have probably seen.
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  So for context, Royal Kingdom is a Turkish game by developer
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  Dream Games that test launched in 2020 in just three countries
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  and then officially launched in March of 2021.
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  That same month, Dream Games raised $57.5 million in funding,
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  which was the largest Series A for a Turkish startup company
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  ever. They then raised a Series B and
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  a Series C, securing $155,000,000 and 200 and $55
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  million, respectively. So they have some cash to
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  splash. And I was reading this article
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  and the journalist was saying, like, once the games developed,
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  it is kind of like a low overhead business.
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  So really, like tons of that money can just go to marketing.
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  OK. So the question is, why are they
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  doing this? Like, surely it's not working,
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  right? Their strategy has been to use
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  celebrities, and the concept of a celebrity endorsement, similar
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  to influencer marketing, is that fans of that celebrity
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  inherently trust them more. And so it drives connection
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  between the consumer and the product or the brand that the
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  celebrity is promoting, right? But Kylie Jenner promoting a
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  mobile game is so obviously a cash grab.
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  There's no alignment there at all.
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  And so does that not cheapen the experience or does that not
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  almost make the company look like scammy or something like
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  that? I actually saw a journalist say
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  that Simon Cowell famously talked about not very long ago
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  about how he doesn't have a mobile phone.
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  So the fact that he is out here promoting mobile app games makes
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  literally no sense. Writer Kaylee Donaldson for
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  Pajiba suggests this quote. So when we see a familiar face
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  doing an obvious cash grab for something we don't expect or
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  associate them with, it sets off alarm bells.
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  The ad loses some of its potency.
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  How do you balance that out? Well, when it comes to these
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  mobile games, sheer quantity seems to be the strategy.
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  More ads everywhere? Just bloody unavoidable.
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  If nothing else, it does reveal that some celebrities probably
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  aren't as cash rich as they would like you to believe.
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  Kylie Jenner and her mother spent months trying to wrangle
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  good headlines to, quote UN quote, prove that she was a real
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  billionaire, but she still has to do stuff like this.
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  OK. That is absolutely the strategy.
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  I mean, the celebrity strategy is interesting in general
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  because it's like Kylie Jenner showing up on your for you page
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  promoting a game. You are probably going to hover
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  on that, right? You are probably going to pause
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  and be like, what the fuck is this?
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  Like, it feels so unusual that you're like, huh, OK.
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  And I mean, I'm here talking about it.
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  I'm amplifying this. So it's clearly working to an
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  extent. People are writing articles
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  about this strategy because it's so bizarre.
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  And a lot of the ads are getting more and more funny.
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  Like, they're becoming, like, skits.
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  And I don't know, they're, like, quite entertaining the ads that
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  we've been seeing from celebrities for this game.
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  So, yeah, there's definitely an interesting strategy here.
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  But part of that strategy is for sure just to like spam the
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  market with like nonstop ads for this game by different
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  celebrities. The payday must be so insane,
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  But I still stand by the fact that I do believe a lot of these
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  are AII do not think it is always a celebrity that is like
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  full on doing the ad. I think they are using AI
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  generated depictions of these celebrities.
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  All right, and the last word that I have for you guys is
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  during Google's developer conference yesterday, the
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  company made it clear that it is going all in on AI search.
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  So all Google users in the US will soon have access to Google
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  AI mode, which is where the company will focus its search
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  efforts. Now, this will obviously roll
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  out to other regions as well. So this is from The Verge quote.
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  The new features coming to AI mode are mostly things that you
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  simply can't do with a normal Google query.
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  There's Deep Search, Google's take on the deep research trend
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  that AI models, which turns your prompt into lots of searches and
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  spends time looking up and synthesizing information for you
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  to give a hopefully broad and coherent summary of even a very
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  large topic. Project Mariner, the previously
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  experimental feature that can actually click around the web
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  and do stuff for you. Google likes to show Mariner.
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  Booking vacation travel for you, or hunting around the web for
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  its best concert ticket prices and then buying the best deal
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  all on its own is now all also built into AI mode.
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  And with Search Live, you can interact with the search engine
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  by having a conversation with it and by pointing your camera at
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  whatever you're looking for. They say it will also eventually
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  be able to connect to your inbox.
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  Like your e-mail inbox so the system can learn more about who
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  you are, what you're interested in.
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  I feel like the future has come too fast.
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  I'm scared. I don't want Google AI to be
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  like booking my vacations for me.
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  I feel like that is so crazy. I know that like eventually it's
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  going to just feel normal and I need to just get around it, but
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  I don't know. This is just happening so fast.
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  I swear to God if you asked half of us like 3 years ago if we
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  even knew what AI was, we probably would say no.
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  What are you talking about? At least in this capacity, it's
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  all happened so fast. And I understand that's
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  literally how technology happens.
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  I know that the consumer technology space was quite
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  stagnant for a long time. We were very stuck in like Web
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  2.0. But I'm not ready for Web 3.0.
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  Like I'm not ready for the rate of how quickly everything is
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  changing. It's like we're not going to
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  have brain cells anymore. It freaks me out that there's
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  going to just be so many people in the world who won't be able
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  to, to put like writing together, arguments together,
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  even, you know, necessarily like respond to emails and stuff.
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  Without generative AI, it's going to change how future
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  generations interact with information, how they learn, how
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  they produce work. And it freaks me out thinking
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  about how much they're going to be missing in terms of knowledge
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  and research. And I don't know, even just like
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  writing content, like writing an essay or something without the
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  help of this and critical thinking and like all of these
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  skills that are so important. And I fear it's going to make
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  the population as a whole much stupider.
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  And then of course, we're all going to rely on AI, then
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  generative AI to produce quality work because everyone's going to
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  be too dumb to write their own emails.
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  They keep causing the problem and then solving the problem and
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  we're just stuck in this like capitalist, like hell hole
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  cyclone. I also think there's not enough
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  conversation about how implementing these tools and
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  this technology into workplaces is.
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  I mean, I know everybody's like it's taking jobs and it has
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  started to take some jobs. Like don't get me wrong, I think
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  that was a bit of fear mongering early on and we didn't see kind
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  of the repercussions of that or the results of that.
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  I think we are starting to see that a little bit more now, but
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  I think the bigger impact will be implementing this into
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  workplaces and how much our productivity is going to expect
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  to just absolutely skyrocket. Like people are already
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  struggling for their lives basically working like for
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  people's jobs in corporations without ever getting a pay rise,
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  recognition, a title change. You know, we talked recently
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  about how like people leave corporations and they never
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  replace their role and then that job just gets like put on to
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  somebody else and they get nothing for it.
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  Everyone is so burnt out all the time and making like no money.
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  And I fear this is all going to make that like 20 times worse
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  because why else would you need to use generative AI in a
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  workplace? It's to be more productive, it's
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  to work faster. It's to put more pressure on the
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  teams to just produce more. So a good way to push back
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  against generative AI and what's happening right now kind of
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  while we're on the like, the precipice of all of this is to
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  implement or prioritize slow work, meaningful work,
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  meaningful output, quantity over quality.
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  And I know that's kind of ironic for me to say because I do a
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  podcast literally five days a week.
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  And a huge part of kind of my working philosophy while I build
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  the business is like, we do have to do many different things all
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  the time and we have to be churning and churning and
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  churning. But I do think now we found kind
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  of a good happy medium like quantity and quality.
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  But yeah, if there is a way to push back on it, I'm going to
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  say prioritizing slow, meaningful quality work will
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  probably be more impactful than we can imagine if we want to
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  kind of, I guess, maintain some control as Web 3.0 absolutely
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  explodes. All right, guys, that's it for
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  Mini Tech Scroll today. Thank you so much for listening.
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  I love you guys. Please remember to rate, review
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  and subscribe. Subscribe to us on YouTube and
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  star rate US on Spotify. I love you guys.
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  And I will be back tomorrow with a regular mini scroll.
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  Bye.