Articles
The creator economy magazineAnalyses of the European creator economy from primary sources. Pick a topic and read.
Hollywood signs creators to take over their cost model
Sean Atkins, CEO of Dhar Mann Studios, reads major studio deals with creators as a meeting of two content economies. Hollywood budgets never adjusted to fragmented attention. Beast Games drew 50 million viewers on Prime Video.
Roblox launches a creator wallet with daily payouts
Roblox is launching a creator wallet with daily payouts in local currency through partner Airwallex, starting in December 2026 for US creators over 18. A Roblox Card for spending the balance follows in 2027.
Apple turns the iPhone into a production camera, and YouTube is the new TV
Matt Campion jokes that Apple has ‘cracked the future of television’. YouTube reached a record 14.2% of US TV viewing in July, while the iPhone 18 Pro adds a physically adjustable aperture for professional filming.
Arcade invites advertisers to Europe’s first creator upfront
Arcade, the agency for The Sidemen, is becoming a media company with a new CEO and a seven-figure investment from Lumina Media. Next Thursday it hosts over 150 advertisers in London for a creator upfront.
Gary Vee gained a million views in 90 days from old footage
Gary Vaynerchuk’s long YouTube videos used to get five to ten thousand views each. Strategist Jake Trinder repackaged his existing keynote footage into new videos that reached a million views in 90 days.
AI agent prints a personal newspaper, then becomes a shared template
Director Karen X. Cheng connected a Grok bot to her calendar and email, and it prints her personal newspaper overnight. She then published the agent as a template on xAI’s marketplace, where others can install it with one click.
A $425 million holding grew around one podcast
Ghost co-founder Dilawer Hussain ranked five business creators. Four of them built companies around their audiences, from Steven Bartlett’s $425 million holding to bestselling books. The audience came first.
Brands pick creators by volume, but systems win
Many brands rank creators by post count. At London’s CreatorFest, speakers urged creators to think like studios and own their rights, which is where the most creator-economy money is flowing now.
Audiences take news and shopping cues from creators
In the US, social media and video platforms overtook TV as a news source for the first time, reaching 54% of people in 2025. Trust in news holds at 40%, but attention and purchases are shifting to individual creators.
YouTube built a star, but has no claim on her next career
Amelia Dimoldenberg is ending her YouTube show Chicken Shop Date and moving on to an Amazon MGM rom-com and a BBC drama. Analysts say YouTube built her audience but has no claim on what follows.
YouTube lets US creators tag Amazon products in their videos
YouTube has let selected US creators tag Amazon products directly in videos, bypassing the bio link. Tagged products got over 110% more clicks than description links, and TikTok Shop is already live in Poland.
Google makes MrBeast the face of its Gemini ad
Google has signed a multi-year partnership with Beast Industries and made Jimmy Donaldson the face of its Gemini AI assistant. The first video went live on 5 September 2026.