Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI TECH SCROLL: Patreon creator economy insights, Skype to close, Twitch expands monetisation + new Reels app

Transcript

MINI TECH SCROLL: Patreon creator economy insights, Skype to close, Twitch expands monetisation + new Reels app · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  This week of Mini scroll is sponsored by Qatar Airways
• 0:03
  Student Club loyalty program. As you all know, last week one
• 0:07
  of my founder dreams came to fruition when I spoke at Web
• 0:10
  Summit in Doha, and Qatar Airways helped make that dream
• 0:14
  happen for me. But it's not just me.
• 0:16
  I'm sure you have all scrolled past travel videos on TikTok and
• 0:20
  dreamed about actually going. And now with Qatar Airways
• 0:23
  Student Club, those travel dreams are more attainable than
• 0:27
  ever. Qatar Airways Student Club,
• 0:29
  powered by Privilege Club, where members earn and redeem Avios,
• 0:33
  offers students extra perks when traveling, whether it's heading
• 0:36
  home for the holidays or just taking a well earned break.
• 0:39
  You can even earn points through One World Alliance Airlines and
• 0:43
  Virgin Australia's Velocity frequent flyer program when you
• 0:47
  fly from Australia. Students can get savings on
• 0:50
  flights as well as an extra 10 kilograms of baggage allowance,
• 0:53
  which is perfect for chronic overspenders and over Packers
• 0:57
  like me. The best part?
• 0:59
  It's free. To join, visit
• 1:01
  qatarairways.com/student Club A big thank you to Qatar Airways
• 1:06
  Student Club for supporting Mini Scroll and helping make our
• 1:09
  dreams a reality. Hey everyone, and welcome to
• 1:12
  Mini Scroll, the daily Internet culture podcast bring you the
• 1:15
  biggest stories from social media, the creator economy and
• 1:18
  the digital space every Monday through Thursday.
• 1:21
  My name is Annabelle and I'm your Wednesday Mini Scroll host
• 1:24
  and also the deputy editor of the youth digital media brand
• 1:27
  Centennial World. OK, so welcome back to Mini Tech
• 1:31
  Scroll everyone. I can't believe we only had one
• 1:34
  week off. It feels like weeks since I have
• 1:37
  last recorded an episode for you guys.
• 1:39
  That might partially be because last week was a big week for
• 1:42
  everyone. I mean, Lauren was at the
• 1:44
  conference. I actually ended up moving
• 1:46
  houses and also saw Billie Eilish last week, so it was
• 1:50
  definitely quite hectic. But if you guys have the
• 1:54
  opportunity to go to the Hit Me Hard and Soft tour, you
• 1:57
  definitely should. It was amazing and I am jealous
• 2:00
  of anyone who has tickets and has yet to go.
• 2:03
  But anyway, I am very happy to be back after Lauren's
• 2:07
  conference. And Speaking of the conference,
• 2:09
  I hope you guys enjoyed the surprise content that Lauren
• 2:11
  posted from Web Summit that felt very mini text scroll
• 2:15
  appropriate. So if you haven't watched that
• 2:17
  episode, you should definitely go check it out.
• 2:18
  I thought it was super interesting.
• 2:20
  Otherwise, please, Please remember to rate, review, and
• 2:23
  subscribe to Infinite Scroll. We are on the journey to 1K
• 2:27
  Spotify Star reviews, so please help us out there if you can.
• 2:30
  My first story for today is a little bit of a different one to
• 2:33
  what I've previously covered on Mini Scroll.
• 2:36
  I recently came across a report from Patreon that had some
• 2:40
  interesting findings that I wanted to share with you guys.
• 2:43
  I'm sure we've all heard of Patreon before, but for those of
• 2:46
  you who are unfamiliar with it, Patreon is a platform that many
• 2:50
  creators use to monetize their content.
• 2:53
  It essentially operates like a subscription service where
• 2:55
  creators tend to use it to publish bonus content or even
• 2:59
  not safe for work content. In the report published by the
• 3:03
  platform titled State of Create, it looked into how the creator
• 3:06
  economy is changing. Before we get into the most
• 3:09
  interesting findings, I just wanted to quickly give you some
• 3:12
  insight into the methodology of the research.
• 3:14
  Through August 2024, the company surveyed 1000 creators and 2000
• 3:19
  fans to gain insight into their experience of the digital world.
• 3:23
  And for context, a majority of both the fans and the creators
• 3:26
  were millennial. Anyway, let's get into some of
• 3:29
  the most interesting findings. The first point that I found to
• 3:32
  be quite telling was that over half of the polled creators said
• 3:35
  that it is harder to reach their followers today than it was five
• 3:38
  years ago. This isn't totally unsurprising.
• 3:41
  I mean, I'm sure we all find ourselves getting more and more
• 3:44
  content from people that we don't necessarily follow on
• 3:46
  social media, mostly because of the way algorithms are set up
• 3:49
  today. And this obviously has its pros
• 3:51
  and cons. Some of the positives is that it
• 3:54
  can introduce you to outside perspectives on certain topics.
• 3:57
  But of course, for people who just want to see content from
• 4:00
  their friends or favorite creators, this structure is
• 4:02
  becoming increasingly frustrating for many of us.
• 4:05
  While this is definitely annoying for the average social
• 4:07
  media user and consumer, it is especially frustrating for
• 4:11
  creators, 60% of whom say that platforms like Instagram failed
• 4:15
  to show their fans some of their quote most important work.
• 4:18
  Some other interesting findings from the report were around
• 4:21
  short and long form content. We have definitely been saying
• 4:24
  for years that long form content is making a comeback, especially
• 4:27
  with the rise of video essays and of course podcasting.
• 4:30
  And the report shows the value of this kind of content, with
• 4:33
  52% of fans saying that long form content offers more value,
• 4:37
  even though 61% said that they tend to engage with its short
• 4:41
  form counterpart more frequently.
• 4:43
  This also isn't entirely surprising to me, but I think it
• 4:46
  is validating to see it shown in data, especially because long
• 4:50
  form content definitely allowed for more nuance, context, and
• 4:53
  the opportunity to build a rapport with the creator in
• 4:56
  question. So I actually came across this
• 4:58
  report last week when I was reading the Posting Nexus sub
• 5:01
  stack written by Julia Alexander while I was prepping the
• 5:04
  newsletter. So if you are subscribed to the
• 5:06
  newsletter, you might have seen some drips and drabs of this
• 5:08
  story already. But she had some really
• 5:11
  interesting insights about the findings that I included in the
• 5:14
  newsletter, but I also wanted to reiterate them here.
• 5:17
  She made the point that the goal of platforms these days is to,
• 5:20
  quote, provide everything people need within one space.
• 5:23
  And I'm sure we've all seen this shift with virtually every
• 5:26
  platform incorporating short form video and AI in one way or
• 5:30
  another. I think LinkedIn is the most
• 5:33
  egregious. The fact that LinkedIn now has
• 5:35
  short form video feels kind of insane to me, but I guess here
• 5:39
  we are. This is the era we're living in
• 5:41
  anyway. With this, she adds that
• 5:43
  platforms are essentially in a battle for people's attention,
• 5:46
  which is a conversation that we are always having around the
• 5:48
  attention economy. But she says to keep people's
• 5:52
  attention, platforms are designed to remove unnecessary
• 5:55
  steps to find something to watch.
• 5:57
  Noting the consequences, she says, quote, not only does this
• 6:00
  make creators more reliant on the whims of dominant platforms
• 6:03
  to earn revenue, but those same platforms are no longer
• 6:06
  prioritizing creators so much as content.
• 6:08
  Even though content is king, building a loyal core fanbase,
• 6:13
  quote UN quote, remains central to the influencer experience and
• 6:16
  ensuring longevity. But it's also becoming harder to
• 6:19
  achieve because platforms are fastly designed to discourage
• 6:22
  users from leaving the app and also showing users people that
• 6:26
  they aren't necessarily familiar.
• 6:27
  If the Instagrams, Youtubes, and Tik Toks of the world want
• 6:31
  creators to continue putting in the effort of full time labor to
• 6:34
  produce videos, they need to make it easier for those
• 6:37
  creators to survive off smaller audiences.
• 6:40
  That only happens by encouraging core fans to follow their
• 6:43
  absolutely favorite creators to 3rd party websites where those
• 6:47
  creators can maintain a stronger direct to fan relationship
• 6:50
  rather than a simple direct to consumer 1.
• 6:52
  So her analysis was definitely pulled from the Patreon
• 6:55
  reporting. And I will just say, given that
• 6:58
  these findings are coming from Patreon, I don't think it's a
• 7:01
  surprise that they would have data backing that platforms need
• 7:05
  to foster a direct to fan relationship, because that is
• 7:08
  what Patreon does best. But even though this may be
• 7:11
  biased, I don't disagree with its premise.
• 7:13
  Because if you're a loyal fan of one creator, it's definitely
• 7:16
  becoming more and more difficult to follow them and keep up with
• 7:20
  their lives. And in turn, it's becoming
• 7:22
  harder for creators to build a loyal fan base.
• 7:24
  We all know the power of fandom, so it makes total sense to me
• 7:28
  that the creator economy should be capitalizing on this and
• 7:31
  moving in this direction for the sake of creators and users
• 7:34
  alike. In terms of money, this is
• 7:37
  obviously super lucrative. As the report reads quote,
• 7:40
  according to internal Patreon research, over half of the $290
• 7:44
  billion that encompasses today's creator economy comes from
• 7:47
  direct to fan value like ticket sales, courses, live streams,
• 7:51
  and paid memberships. So let's move on to the next
• 7:54
  story. This one is a short one, but I
• 7:57
  felt the need to share this out of nostalgia and that is that
• 8:00
  Skype is officially shutting down.
• 8:03
  Launched in 2003, Skype was one of, if not the most popular
• 8:07
  calling platform throughout the early 2000s.
• 8:10
  It was used by many because of the way it ensured quote highly
• 8:13
  secure calls with end to end encryption, meaning it was
• 8:16
  virtually impossible for Internet hackers or spies to
• 8:19
  listen in on calls and conversations.
• 8:22
  This sort of functionality is now very common online and is
• 8:26
  used on messaging apps arranging from Messenger to WhatsApp to
• 8:29
  iMessage. But as recent reporting from
• 8:31
  TechCrunch notes quote, Skype's encryption was a revolutionary
• 8:35
  and groundbreaking feature at the time.
• 8:37
  Even though Skype definitely wasn't as secure as it was made
• 8:40
  out to be, it was clear that it set a precedent for platforms to
• 8:44
  come. At this point, Skype is not
• 8:46
  necessarily the platform that many of us will go to if we want
• 8:49
  to call someone online. I remember when I was like 7 or
• 8:52
  8 how prolific this platform was.
• 8:55
  Everyone in my E group would use the platform to call all and
• 8:57
  message one another. But now Skype's role in the
• 9:00
  digital landscape has essentially been usurped by Zoom
• 9:04
  and other video calling services.
• 9:06
  With that being said, Microsoft, which is Skype's parent company
• 9:09
  since 2009, announced last week that it will be shutting down
• 9:13
  the application on May 5th. Even though Skype is being
• 9:16
  closed, it seems like Microsoft is kind of pushing Skype users
• 9:19
  to Teams because users will soon be able to log into Teams using
• 9:23
  their Skype log in, where their contacts and chat histories will
• 9:26
  also migrate to the platform. From researching this episode, I
• 9:30
  found that there are around 30 million people who continue to
• 9:33
  use Skype, and for further context, Skype once had around
• 9:37
  300 million users, so that has definitely dropped
• 9:40
  significantly. I think this just goes to show
• 9:42
  how much the social media landscape is really constantly
• 9:46
  changing and how there are perceived fixtures in the space
• 9:50
  that might not have the longevity that we think they do.
• 9:54
  And I think Skype is a really interesting example because of
• 9:56
  the way it really set a precedent for chat platforms to
• 10:00
  come. I really liked how kind of this
• 10:02
  point was expressed in a Tech Crunch article, so I'll just
• 10:05
  read you the quote now. While Skype is largely a relic
• 10:08
  of yesteryear and will soon stop operating, Skype's legacy lives
• 10:11
  on in the technology that secures the communications of
• 10:14
  all the world's most popular chat apps.
• 10:16
  And the world is a safer, freer place thanks to Skype's original
• 10:19
  developers groundbreaking ideas about privacy.
• 10:22
  So the next story I have for you today is a little Twitch update,
• 10:26
  in that the platform has opened up its monetization policies to
• 10:29
  more creators. On February 27th, Twitch CEO Dan
• 10:33
  Clancy shared the priorities the platform is pursuing for this
• 10:36
  year, one of them being for more users to access monetization
• 10:40
  tools. As Clancy wrote in the Twitch
• 10:42
  blog quote, in 2025, we're excited to open up monetization
• 10:46
  tools being subscriptions and bids to most streamers from day
• 10:50
  one. This will allow creators,
• 10:52
  regardless of their status, to grow their communities and start
• 10:54
  building earnings through direct patronage.
• 10:57
  We're also introducing an option which will allow all streamers
• 11:00
  to use their earnings on purchases within Twitch.
• 11:03
  The blog post also announced, among other things, shared hype
• 11:07
  trains that will allow streamers who are using stream together or
• 11:11
  shared chat to explore, quote, other monetization features that
• 11:14
  can be used when you are collaborating to drive more
• 11:16
  revenue like shared sub goals. I mean, Twitch has long been
• 11:20
  criticized for the way it treats its creators and streamers, so I
• 11:23
  think it's positive that it is opening up opportunities for
• 11:25
  monetization. Over the years we have seen many
• 11:28
  creator boycotts over how Twitch treats the streamers and also
• 11:32
  monetization problems. 1 notable one was in 2023 I think, where
• 11:36
  Twitch revealed it would start acting as the middleman for
• 11:39
  sponsorship deals between creators and brands.
• 11:42
  And obviously many streamers did go on to voice their concerns
• 11:45
  over this new structure, claiming that it would take a
• 11:48
  large chunk of sponsorship money away from streamers.
• 11:51
  On top of this, it is important to note that Twitch already
• 11:54
  takes quite a significant cut from streamer revenue.
• 11:57
  From what I've seen, Twitch typically takes around a 50% cut
• 12:01
  of subscriber revenue, but does reduce its share between 30 to
• 12:06
  40% for some of its top creators.
• 12:08
  Nonetheless, while Twitch may be hoping to support creators with
• 12:12
  this move, opening up these monetization opportunities is
• 12:15
  also a clear benefit for them. But I fear that is just also how
• 12:19
  the creator economy works sometimes, unfortunately.
• 12:22
  And the last story for today is that Instagram is reportedly
• 12:25
  considering launching a separate Reels app as a competitor to
• 12:28
  TikTok. This isn't confirmed by any
• 12:31
  means, but I've seen a few reports, so I wanted to flag it
• 12:33
  in case something does come of this.
• 12:36
  According to the BBC, Instagram is debating launching Reels as a
• 12:39
  standalone app with Tik Tok's future on Saturn in the US.
• 12:43
  This came from The Information with the BBC citing a source Who
• 12:47
  hard remarks when Instagram chief Adam Masseri informed
• 12:51
  staff about the potential move. I don't really know how I feel
• 12:53
  about this potential decision from Instagram, especially after
• 12:57
  Meta's mixed success with Threads.
• 13:00
  While many Instagram users immediately signed up to
• 13:02
  Threads, it has definitely been a challenge keeping users
• 13:05
  engaged on Threads and creating a culture of its own.
• 13:09
  That said, I do think a shift to a real standalone app might be
• 13:13
  easier than Threads because Reels already has an audience
• 13:16
  creating video content on Instagram, and video content
• 13:19
  feels much more natural to Instagram than text posts do.
• 13:22
  Still, getting people to adjust to a new app isn't exactly so
• 13:27
  easy. First of all, I think we are all
• 13:29
  overwhelmed by the amount of apps that are on the market
• 13:31
  right now, but also because I think people just use Reels for
• 13:35
  the convenience and the fact that it's just there.
• 13:38
  As much as I love the brain rot on Reels, it is literally insane
• 13:43
  I don't find myself actively seeking out reels.
• 13:46
  If I want short form video I will go to TikTok and I just
• 13:49
  happen to come across reels when I'm on Instagram.
• 13:52
  On top of this, Instagrams community aspect is a big draw
• 13:55
  for reels for me personally because I obviously like to see
• 13:59
  what my friends send me, but also now that you can see which
• 14:02
  reels your friends have liked, I do feel like that is very
• 14:06
  telling. Even though it has exposed I
• 14:08
  feel like a lot of people. I do think that this community
• 14:11
  aspect would carry across to be fair, in the same way that
• 14:15
  threads will send you a notification anytime your friend
• 14:19
  or someone you follow posts on the platform.
• 14:21
  So I don't think that will entirely go away.
• 14:23
  Anyway, that is everything from me today.
• 14:26
  I hope you enjoyed this week's episode.
• 14:29
  I'm feeling a bit rusty so hopefully it was fine, but I
• 14:32
  will see you next Wednesday and Lauren will speak to you
• 14:35
  tomorrow. Thanks.
• 14:36
  Bye.