First, They Came for the YouTube Thumbnail Designers…

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In This Issue:

🎨 AI challenges YouTube's lucrative thumbnail design industry

📊 Survey reveals mixed feelings among marketers about AI

📺 CTV ad buyers face challenges tracking where their ads appear

🤖 Should you protect your brand’s web site from GPTBot?

❤️ Threads now displays likes, similar to X

📱 New social app offers payment for watching ads; promotes “hate-free” space

🎤 TikTok announces a new live-stream competition, but payment is murky

Thumbnail War: AI vs. Human Designers

Image: AlphaCTR

Thumbnails mean big business for YouTubers, with creators like MrBeast dishing out up to $10K for a single video thumbnail design. But now the landscape is changing as AI steps in.

Among the 2,000+ job postings on YouTube Jobs in May, thumbnail designer ranked second in demand, accounting for a fifth of the listings.

🤖 AI's Intrusion

CTRHero, dubbed as an "AI to replace thumbnail artists," recently entered the design scene and could create graphics within minutes based on the data of millions of thumbnails from social media sites.

However, its launch upset designers who felt their livelihoods were jeopardized [more].

CTRHero's new owner, who acquired the tech and relaunched it as AlphaCTR in June says that whether graphic creators like it or not, AI is coming for their industry. The platform currently has 30,000 sign-ups.

In response, several artists reported they have already adopted, or will soon incorporate, AI tools such as Midjourney or Photoshop’s Generative Fill into their creative workflows.

💼 Business Efficiency through AI

From the business side, a YouTube consultant shared how AI tools, like ChatGPT, have effectively cut operating costs for his five-member team. The team uses GPT Plus for scripting YouTube videos and drafting thumbnail descriptions, and Midjourney for generating illustrations.

On the other hand, an industry expert noted that the most well-resourced YouTube creators still work with human thumbnail designers, but he sees an opportunity for AI to analyze, predict, and specify what thumbnails will work best.

Images: AlphaCTR / X

Marketers Can’t Get Behind the AI Hype Train

It's not just designers feeling the uncertainty — marketers are also navigating the AI wave sweeping through the industry.

According to a new report, 90% of marketing professionals have used or experimented with AI tools. The majority have already incorporated AI into their daily workflows and expect further adoption to increase productivity.

The top applications of AI for marketers include:

• Summarizing content

• Doing legwork or inspiring thinking

• Personalizing customer and user content

However, marketers have mixed opinions about the technology's impact:

• 4 in 10 expect AI to boost work quality and creativity

• 3 in 10 anticipate a decline

Marketers also have concerns about the tech's effect on jobs, as 40% foresee AI causing a reduction in employment. More than a fifth expect negative effects on team culture, along with issues around misinformation, inaccuracy, and legal uncertainties.

(Data has been provided by The Conference Board’s survey of more than 280 respondents.)

Image: The Conference Board

Oh, Where Oh Where Can My CTV Ad Buy Be? 🎶

As viewers shift to streaming, CTV buyers are still struggling to know where their ads are being shown.

But Adweek reported yesterday that a slow upfront season might finally give advertisers the chance to get what's missing from their buys: content-level transparency or knowing what shows their ads are running against. While this is common in traditional TV, it remains largely unknown in connected TV due to limited inventory, letting publishers withhold information.

🚀 Progress in 2023

The report notes there has been some progress this year. Paramount has been a leader in providing post-campaign show-level data, multiple buyers said. While NBCUniversal is working toward providing more content-level granularity, and several equipment manufacturers like Samsung and Roku are making progress toward passing full genre-level data into the bidstream.

But not all buyers are optimistic that content data sharing will improve. As a result, some are resorting to ad-tech intermediaries for solutions as they await more robust content data from publishers. While others prefer buying CTV programmatically because they can use verification firms like Integral Ad Science to gain assurance on their buys.

🔮 The Future of Content Transparency

The question looms: Will buyers eventually get complete content transparency? A spokesperson for Omnicom Media Group sees it as likely, as streaming platforms face more competition from each other and other platforms.

"These platforms are distinct from YouTube and TikTok… They should indeed capitalize on the value of their content, and that can only be achieved through transparency in their operations."

Is Your Brand’s Site Safe from GPTBot?

Should you protect your brand’s site from GPTBot?

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has published information on its web crawler GPTBot. You can now monitor if GPTBot is crawling your brand's site and control its access using the robots.txt protocol.

According to the company, GPTBot scours web pages to potentially improve future models. The content it collects is carefully filtered to exclude paywalled sources, personally identifiable information, and text that violates its policies. Adding that granting GPTBot entry to your site can help AI models become more accurate and improve their general capabilities.

The company also shared how to disable GPTBot from accessing your site.

Search Engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz recently spotted a thread on WebmasterWorld with complaints about the bot's activity. The webmaster said:

"Just had over 1000 hits from this bot, hitting individual pages. As it happens my site automatically served a 403 for each hit because the bot is not in my whitelist, nor did it pass the 'human' test."

Until now, only ChatGPT plugins could be restricted.

Images: Canva / WebmasterWorld

Meta’s Threads Pushes New Twitter-inspired Features

Meta's Threads is getting some new Twitter-like features amidst a huge user slump, including one that lets users see what posts they've liked. The feature was tested on Android last week but is now available to all users who update the app.

The platform also introduced new updates that let users upload high-quality images and videos, and sort follower lists based on "latest first" or "earliest first."

And some welcome news for desktop marketers, Mark Zuckerberg hinted at more upcoming features in a Threads post over the weekend, including search and a web version of the app.

Images: Canva / Threads

New Social Platform Lets Users Earn While Doomscrolling

Mobile app WeAre8, a social media platform that pays users for watching ads, launched in the U.S. today.

WeAre8 has been active in the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand for the past year. The platform is backed by publishers like The Independent, LADbible, and Pink News, and excludes advertising from tobacco, big oil, and gambling companies.

💰 Earning While Scrolling

Revenue is generated through ads and half of it is shared with people via micropayments:

• 5% with charity and climate change solutions

• 5% with its creators and publishers

The app currently has just under one million users, with big plans to reach at least 80 million users for at least eight minutes per day within two years.

WeAre8 users have two content feeds:

1. The first is called 8Stage, featuring eight pieces of content daily from creators and publishers

2. The second feed shows content from friends

Both feeds are free of algorithms and ads until a user opts in to see them.

Then, they'll see video ads spanning from 15 seconds to 2 minutes, followed by feedback questions. Every time a user watches a brand ad, they receive a share of the ad money in their 8wallet.

According to the company, the app has seen 90% of people opt-in for ads, and 80% can recall an ad they saw on WeAre8.

Images: WeAre8

And finally…

Look out, Simon Cowell – TikTok announced a music contest called 'Gimme the Mic' yesterday, which is similar to talent shows like The Voice. The U.S. competition will be held on TikTok livestreams, which will include live voting from fans.

The winner will receive 50,000 “Diamonds,” TikTok’s in-app currency that can be exchanged and withdrawn for actual money. The catch? TikTok won't share how much 50,000 Diamonds are actually worth in U.S. dollars. Are they worth a yacht? Your eternal dignity? Pennies?

Based on previous estimates on influencer websites, Diamonds are worth about $0.05, meaning TikTok's grand prize would be about $2,500.

Image: TikTok

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