Kaya Yurieff

About 12 years ago, YouTube started sending out physical awards when creators hit certain subscriber milestones. Those silver and gold plaques, known as Play Buttons, have become coveted status symbols for YouTubers and a welcome recognition of their hard work.

If the U.S. forces TikTok to go dark in January—a scenario its lawyers are fighting in federal court—it will fall back on its hundreds of millions of users outside the U.S. who have helped make the short-video app a global phenomenon. But some of those other regions, such as Europe, are becoming more hostile to TikTok.

Ahead of Hurricane Milton’s landfall in Florida, some local creators decided to stay put—and use the natural disaster as an opportunity to capture some prime viewership. These terrifying videos of wind-whipped trees and troubled skies are hard to pass up. But they also show creators playing to the internet’s worst instincts.

Amazon is bringing in a new leader to Twitch to boost its advertising business, deepening the ties between the livestreaming service and its powerful parent.

As TikTok’s U.S. shopping service enters its second year of operation, the ByteDance-owned company has become stingier about wooing online merchants with cash. TikTok has cut back on subsidizing deep discounts for retailers, a tactic it used last year when TikTok Shop launched, and has tripled its cut of sales to 6%.

Last year, TikTok helped woo sellers to TikTok Shop by footing the bill for incredible discounts on its new e-commerce service. These encouraged merchants to sell items at rock-bottom prices, which led to a deluge of sales. But this year, TikTok is taking a different tack to grow its e-commerce sales by encouraging more brands to go live—a lot.

Funding for U.S. creator economy startups fell nearly 16% to $253.1 million during the September quarter compared to a year earlier, according to the latest update to The Information’s Creator Economy Database. Globally, funding for creator-related startups dropped about 20% to $415.8 million year over year.

MrBeast so wishes he had not entered that burger deal! That’s one of the takeaways from a series of angry and regretful messages sent by YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson to a business confidant months before he sued the restaurant operator.

On Thursday, The Information released its annual list of the 50 Most Promising Startups, which included six companies focused on providing services for creators and consumers.We chose companies that we think have the potential to be the most valuable businesses in their sectors based on our ...

After competing on “MasterChef” in 2019, Nick DiGiovanni started posting videos on YouTube, including an elaborate dessert he planned if he’d made it to the finale, and on TikTok where he started going viral for making mini gourmet meals for his pet hamster, Pesto.Now 28, he turned that TV ...