Hello there! Dropping into your inbox a day later this week because I took Monday off to celebrate my 30th birthday woot!
In today's issue, we've got a curation of everything audio creators need to know on the Threads and Twitter front, a "band in a box" invention, why contextual advertising is where it's at, upcoming audio events, and what's been making waves.
Twitter will be sharing ad revenue with verified creators, with the first round of creator payouts to be $5 million.
Let's do a quick round-up of where Twitter and Threads are currently at:
Subscribers of Twitter Blue who have had more than five million monthly tweet impressions for the last three months are eligible to join this program. The payouts will be cumulative from the month of February onward. Creators have already started to receive these payouts. However, a clear CPM is yet to be disclosed.
Meanwhile, Meta's Threads is witnessing a drop in the time users are spending on the app. While the app was recently the fastest-growing app in history, it has experienced a drop in usage time. On July 14, Threads saw 23.6 million daily active users. In contrast, the app had 49 million users on July 7. In terms of time spent, in the U.S., usage fell from 21 minutes per day to over six minutes.
Although paid promotion has not reached Threads yet, Axios reported that Instagram is planning to share its branded content tools with Threads.
Karissa Bell of Endgadget puts things into perspective by detailing the different reasons Threads might currently be “Twitter’s biggest threat.”
On a related note, Spill is a new social media app created by former Twitter employees. It launched in mid-June and is gaining popularity, especially among creators of color, sharesBlkPodNews.
Music gadget manufacturer Artiphon launched Chorda, a new stand-alone instrument that allows creators to produce music from anywhere.
The Chorda allows users to access instruments including guitar, drums, and piano to create music.
The built-in sounds and controls make Chorda sound a lot like the analog version of the instrument.
While the sound design capabilities are limited, there’s an app that allows users to play around with the settings of the sound engine itself.
Non-musicians can also use the Chorda to automatically play chords, letting them play along.
Here’s a video sharing the capabilities and experience of using the Chorda. Interested folks can buy Chorda on Kickstarter for $200.
🎧 Upcoming Audio Events
Upcoming audio events include:
On July 27, the Signal Awards are hosting a panel on The State of Podcasting. The panel welcomes Maurice Cherry, Joni Deutsch, and Deondric Royster.
On August 2, Music Ally SI:X is hosting a free webinar for audio creators on creating the perfect pitch.
On October 12, the winners of the Independent Podcast Awards will be announced. The nominations are set to be announced in early September.
💪 Resources for Brands
Every week, we share an evergreen resource for brands looking to or already investing in audio. This week, we’re sharing a piece titled ‘Why is contextual advertising on the rise?’ from Marketing Brew’s Ryan Barwick.
Barwick dives into what contextual advertising is, why marketers should consider it in this climate of heavy privacy regulation, and what the possible drawbacks could be.
🌊 Making Waves
YouTube Music is set to roll out podcasts internationally. The new tab was introduced to users in the U.S. earlier this year.
In other YouTube news, the platform is testing a new way to watch videos at a 2x playback speed. The new feature will allow users to long-press on the video to increase the speed to 2x.
Catherine Wolf of Digiday shared a paywalled research report on the challenges around podcast ads, from an advertiser perspective.
Descript shared the findings of a survey that focused on how creators are using and benefiting from more AI tools. One of the findings was that creators using AI tools enjoyed “higher average followers and income from their content than those who haven’t used the tools.”
TikTok’s new Elevate program will work directly with and for emerging audio creators on the platform.
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