YouTube Is A TV Star

PRESENTED BY SHOPIFY

We’re almost through the week, fam. How many of you are watching YouTube on TV these days? The company is betting that a lot of you do, leading to a fancy new redesign. It could make YouTube the new cable TV — the thing just on in the background at all times. AKA comfort media.

DAILY TOP TRENDS

YouTube Wants To Feel More Like TV

YouTube is rolling out a major redesign of its app over the next six months that caters to the way people are increasingly watching content on the platform now — on their smart TVs.

Why It Hits: As user-generated content becomes more cinematic and mainstream, YouTube’s glow-up feels like a blurring of the line between the “premium” movies and shows of the professional entertainment industry and content made by digital creators.

Behind the Curtain: YouTube wants to feel a little more like Netflix.

• On the YouTube TV app, the platform will soon roll out “immersive previews,” which generate a cinematic trailer of videos that will automatically play on a creator’s page.

• Channels will also get a more prominent “subscribe” button, and content will now be organized by episodes and seasons so that they feel like TV shows.

• The app will automatically generate QR codes for links in video descriptions so viewers can easily navigate to them (a feature that could make ecommerce skyrocket).

The Future: YouTube clearly has dreams of dominating a bigger screen, especially after Nielsen reported that YouTube accounts for 10.6% of all TV viewing last month (Netflix accounted for 7.9%). Additionally, revenue tied to TV viewership has jumped 30% for creators over the past year and 400% over three years… making a redesign a winning combo for creators and advertisers. With so much focus on TV, maybe YouTube will even try to relaunch its Originals program… but this time, starring popular creators.

Go Deeper: YouTube didn’t forget about its community-building — introducing a Discord-like chatroom on creator pages and a fresh promotional tool for smaller creators.

Together with Shopify

From Failure to Fortune: How Setbacks Spark Success

23% of US entrepreneurs have failed at at least one business.

Take, for example, Wil Yeung and his hugely successful company, Yeung Man Cooking. You wouldn’t know it from his 4.1 million YouTube followers, but he spent 10 years living off survival money after several of his ideas face-planted.

He tried it all — dropshipping violins, developing his own coconut milk product, and even working as a wedding photographer. If you ask him, he’ll tell you, “It’s not my first rodeo.”

As he builds his channel and brand, he doesn’t forget what it took to get here: a lot of setbacks. His perspective is inspiring. He says, “If you can take something away that's transferable, it isn’t really a failure.” We agree, Wil.

Yeung Man Cooking was bringing in less than $100 a month when he decided to treat it like a serious production.

It wasn’t easy, but with the help of Shopify, he pulled it off.

Lionsgate Gives Its Library To AI

Lionsgate has struck a deal with AI firm Runway to develop a generative AI tool that’s specifically built on the studio’s vast film and TV library of 20,000 titles.

The Big Picture: Despite every Hollywood studio flirting with the idea,  Lionsgate is the first to publicly partner with an AI company — a move that could conjure some very mixed feelings within the creative community.

Behind the Scenes: Training its system on Lionsgate’s library, Runway can generate “cinematic video” that can be customized by filmmakers and other crew.

• The studio plans first to use the AI model to help with pre-production tasks like storyboarding and, eventually, for creating backgrounds and special effects during post-production.

• But the tech can’t be used for production because it simply isn’t at that level yet — the AI doesn’t have “the ability to precisely direct the cinematography of generated scenes,” per WSJ.

• Additionally, Lionsgate may license the tech to other entertainment companies, which is certainly a novel way to monetize the library.

The Future: Lionsgate vice chairman Michael Burns believes that the partnership with Runway will help the studio save “millions and millions of dollars.” Allegedly, several filmmakers are already excited to try out the tool. And by ensuring that the system is only trained on Lionsgate-owned titles, the studio will be able to bypass the copyright issues inherent in the tech. But expect filmmakers to ask for a cut of revenues in the next cycle of contract negotiations.

Go Deeper: There’s one thing that Runway definitely won’t be able to mine data from — the performances of living and deceased actors.

Together with Masterworks

A Harvard Data Scientist Upends the Finance Community With Returns In This Market

A Harvard data scientist and his team have figured out a way to allow everyday people to benefit from a previously “off-limits” investment with Masterworks, the platform for investing in blue-chip art for a fraction of the cost.

You don’t need art expertise, or millions of dollars, because Masterworks’ proprietary database of art-market returns provides an unrivaled quantitative edge in analyzing the art market for your benefit. And with all 16 exits to date, they’ve achieved a profit, delivering +10.4%, +17.8%, and +35.0% annualized net returns — among others.

Some new offerings have sold out in minutes, but our readers can skip the waitlists with this exclusive link.

^{*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Investing involves risk. See important Regulation A disclosures at masterworks.com/cd.}

DEEP DIVES

• Listen: Fresh off their Emmy win for Outstanding Comedy Series, Puck chats with Hacks creators Jen Statsky, Lucia Aniello, and Paul W. Downs about the state of TV comedy.

• Read: Bloomberg details how Major League Soccer, currently enjoying skyrocketing popularity and team valuations, may have an existential crisis when Lionel Messi eventually leaves Inter Miami.

• Watch: WSJ explores how Xbox is starting to ditch… well… the Xbox.

62.6% of you voted No in yesterday’s poll: Would you ever buy hotel merch?

“Aren’t you supposed to steal it?”

“If a hotel wants me to walk around promoting its brand, it damn well better be giving the merch for free!”

“Certainly no Holiday Inn but definitely for the right hotel in the right location. Already do it with resort logo golf shirts.”

“I’ve bought Hard Rock Hotel merch in the past.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

QUICK HITS

→ Entertainment / Media

🤑 Kind Snacks founder Daniel Lubetzky is joining the ranks of Shark Tank as its first new regular investor in 10 years.

🎶 Grammy-winning artist Lauryn Hill is getting a starring role in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s new Warriors concept album.

🧮 Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos is challenging rival streamers to be as transparent as Netflix is about viewership. Savvy play, Ted.

→ Technology

🍓 OpenAI really doesn’t want people digging into its “Strawberry” data patch.

🤖 LinkedIn apparently scraped all your user data before telling you to train its AI model.

👎 23andMe may not have much of a future after its entire board resigned.

→ Fashion / E-commerce

🙌 Hallelujah! The Fed has cut interest rates by a half-percentage point.

🧢 Retro rope hats are back in fashion on the field… and, soon, off it.

👟 MSCHF has released a shoe that can be worn as a sneaker one way and a slide the other way. Wild.