Noise, a marketing platform that lets anyone with a smartphone create sponsored content for brands and get paid per view, has raised a $5.5 million seed round led by Capital Midwest, M25, and Grishin Robotics, bringing total funding to $7.2 million. The app connects brands seeking scalable content campaigns with a pool of over 1.5 million creators across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, handling briefs, payments, and sourcing automatically. Founded in 2025 by Diego Kafie, Stu Feldt, and Nic Weber, the company says its top creators earn six figures annually.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-16
Meta announced new Threads features aimed at podcast creators, including profile cards and banners showing podcast info, tappable episode link cards, transcript posting, guest tagging, episode-drop reminders, and audience engagement analytics. The update builds on tools introduced last year that linked creator profiles to podcasts and improved link cards for discussion.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-16
Instagram creators report losing significant income after scammers filed fraudulent copyright claims against their accounts, then demanded payment to retract them. One creator with 1.5 million followers paid $50 to a scammer to avoid weeks of lost income while waiting for Meta's official appeal process. Meta says it has restored affected content and added new protections after reviewing the reports.
bbc.co.uk
· 2026-09-08
The US Open expanded credentials for social media influencers and content creators this year, giving them greater access to matches and players than in previous tournaments. While these creators have driven higher engagement on platforms by sharing behind-the-scenes content, their presence has also drawn complaints from traditional tennis fans and attendees who feel disrupted.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-04
An Entrepreneur analysis of long-running content creators finds that those who avoid burnout share one trait: they build support systems before they're overwhelmed, not after. Most creators start by handling every role themselves—ideation, filming, editing, writing and community management—which works only until channel growth adds new demands faster than one person can absorb them.
entrepreneur.com
· 2026-09-01
Companies are increasingly turning to subject-matter expert creators to shape brand perception, moving beyond the traditional binary of pitching journalists for earned media or buying advertising for guaranteed reach. This shift challenges the long-standing assumption that institutional newsrooms alone control audience trust.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-08-31
Across decades of reboots, films and animated series, Peter Cullen has consistently returned as the voice of Optimus Prime, providing continuity to the Transformers franchise regardless of who else is involved in a given production. His presence has become a defining thread linking the many different creative visions the property has cycled through.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-08-29
YouTube announced eligible U.S. creators can now tag Amazon products directly within shorts, long-form videos, and livestreams to earn a share of resulting sales. The feature integrates Amazon's catalog natively into YouTube's Shopping Affiliate Program, replacing the older method of pasting Associates links in video descriptions. Creators can also enable auto-tagging, letting YouTube's systems scan past uploads to identify and tag eligible products automatically.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-08-27
YouTube is broadening its 24/7 Stations feature, which launched earlier this year with continuous music streams, to now include podcasts, media channels, and general creator videos. The rollout is limited to a small group of creators for now, and Stations will surface intermittently in Home and Search feeds rather than through a dedicated section.
androidauthority.com
· 2026-08-24
Connecticut-based streamer Warren Pandiscia has filed a class action lawsuit against Twitch and Amazon, alleging the companies used his streams and videos to train AI models without licensing or consent. The suit follows Twitch's recent rollout of an opt-out (rather than opt-in) setting for AI training use of channel content, with a Twitch executive admitting few users would opt in if given the choice upfront.
engadget.com
· 2026-08-23
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