Party people, the last issue of Creator Crew most likely ended up in your promotions folder. To avoid the agony and disappointment of potentially missing a weekly send, so move this email into your primary inbox.

Today's Highlights:

• CodeMiko, aka The Technician, aka the Virtual YouTube legend.
• Clubhouse announces direct payments to creators.
• Patreon triples in valuation with a new round of funding.
• In-house
• The partial metaverse: rise of the full-stack creator & omni-world activations

Creator Coin Watch

Top Weekly Bitclout Creators

1. elonmusk ~$67,339.16

2. naval ~$46,578.57

3. chamath ~$30,998.06

4. mrbeastyt ~$30,839.46

5. arianagrande ~$24,655.91

6. craig ~$23,351.89

7. loganpaul ~$23,045.08

8. WhaleSharkdotPro ~$21,646.27

9. diamondhands ~$19,752.90

10. jakepaul ~$19,136.99


*BitClout data is taken every Friday prior to newsletter send.
Current BitClout Coin price = $161.48 per coin. Up from $156 per coin.

Top Weekly Rally Creators

1. Chewie Coin ~$4.64

2. StanzCoin ~$6.03

3. Pastel Coin ~$2.88

4. Doa Coin ~$3.70

5. Yokai Coin ~$2.13

6. MIND Coin ~$2.09

7. Roffle Coin ~$4.59

8. Piggycoin ~$4.09

9. MOON Coin ~$6.18

10. QuestCrypto ~$17.53

*Rally Coin data is taken every Friday prior to newsletter send.
Current Rally Coin price = $1.067 per coin.

Talking Creators

CodeMiko the virtual influencer

Virtual influencers are here to stay. They first appeared as Lil Miquela, Guggimon and imma. Now they're developing into fully fleshed-out characters with their own universe and supporting cast (e.g. do you even watch Marvel movies bro?).

One of the most popular vtubers, aka Virtual YouTubers, is CodeMiko, aka The Technician.

Background: CodeMiko is a failed video game character whose goal was to be in a triple A-video game; however, due to her glitchy design, she's unable to do so. In her own words, she's like a NPC (nonplayable character) in the digital world.

It sounds crazy that people would spend hours watching a Virtual Youtuber and Twitch streamer for hours on end, but virtual YouTubers are growing in popularity and pulling in serious numbers.

• YouTube views grew by 1.5B views
• Virtual YouTuber subreddit has 81.7k members
• Some creators are generating $10k days

When you dig into the concept of virtual influencers, you realize it's akin to anime or comic book characters. CodeMiko is a virtual character and with a digital-first advantage, she's able to create a universe of characters, designs, and worlds that all fit into her narrative.

Editors note: Virtual Influencers will keep the up and to the right trend as they become more commonplace. More brands will see their potential from an ROI and PR safety perspective.

Creators will benefit as these characters can become the digital celebrity version of themselves that exist solely in the metaverse (e.g., Decentraland) giving rise to the omni-world activations.

More on creators

• a16z on the creator economy - NFTs and beyond. A company tethered to the creator economy talking about the creator economy.
• From blog to a behemoth. The success story of Glossier.
• Lil Nas X wants you to twerk in his new game.

Talking Social

Clubhouse rolls out payments for creators

Few platforms have supported creators right out of the gate like Clubhouse. This week, Clubhouse announced their monetization feature with announcement of tipping or director payments to creators.

The kicker? Clubhouse doesn't take a percentage of revenue. Seriously, creators keep 100% of revenue they receive.

It's one part solid PR angle to avoid paying Apple's 30% cut and the other part a change in how companies that rely on creators will acquire and retain top talent.

From CH:

1. To send a payment in Clubhouse, just tap on the profile of a creator (who has the feature enabled) and tap "Send Money".
2. Enter the amount you would like to send them. The first time you do this, you’ll be asked to register a credit or debit card.
3. 100% of the payment will go to the creator. The person sending the money will also be charged a small card processing fee, which will go directly to our payment processing partner, Stripe. Clubhouse will take nothing.

Time will tell how this plays out. Especially since Clubhouse needs to find ways too monetize.

Patreon triples valuation

Within six months, Patreon managed to triple its valuation as the creator economy continues to be hotter than New Orleans crawfish boil on a summer day.

As an early pioneer in the creator economy, Patreon was one of the few solutions to allow creators to manage the relationship with their super fans and monetize their content.

With help from the pandemic, the number of users and transactions on the platform doubled and led to Patreon earning $100M a month with an estimated 7M users on the platform.

Jumping forward: It'll be interesting to see Patreon's longevity as they now have to complete with platforms (e.g. Twitter's Super Followers) that look to roll out their own Patreon-like solutions.

More on social

• Pinterest rolls out a $500k creator program, aka mom bloggers are about to make even more money.
• Twitter almost bought Clubhouse for $4B. Why build when you can buy?
• TikTok wants you to spend more ad dollars on the platform with the announcement of its partnership with LiveRamp.

In-house (original essays, thoughts and content)

The acceleration of the creator and ownership economy is giving birth to a new type of creator. One that is well versed in viral campaigns, exclusive drops, and multi-world brand activations.

The partial metaverse: rise of the full-stack creator & omni-world activations

Drafts

• The Winklevoss twins and their rise to decentralized cyptomonger stardom.
• Warner Bros films are going back to theater releases starting in 2022.
• Bentley Motors (yes, like the cars) is getting in the luxury real estate game with a focus on Miami.
• Mark Cuban wants you to pitch him, Ashton Kutcher and Snoop Dogg on NFTs. Snoop is for 10/10 on his investments. No, I'm not punking you.

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