Party people, I dropped the ball. I overestimated how long it would take to record and edit the first YouTube video of CCTV. It's dropping Monday this time, so keep an eye on your inbox and subscribe here in the meantime.

Recap: The top clicks in the last send were Vee Friends, Startup Cities, and Apple's M&A strategy.

Today's Highlights:

• Protocols and creator DAOs
• Market-making on the internet
• Clubhouse Pilot Program
• In-house
• Navigating Opportunity Cost In Creator Focused Companies

Creator Coin Watch

Top Weekly Bitclout Creators

1. elonmusk ~$67,794.18

2. naval ~$47,081

3. craig ~$33,309.40

4. chamath ~$32,301.19

5. Da5id ~$31,797.68

6. WhaleSharkdotPro ~$31,446.90

7. CreatorFund ~$27,122.56

8. arianagrande ~$24,085.48

9. jakeudell ~$21,749.90

10. dharmann ~$21,167.91

*BitClout data is taken every Friday prior to newsletter send.
Current BitClout Coin price = $177.45 per coin. Up from $143.35 per coin.

Top Weekly Rally Creators

1. PTM Coin ~$49.066

2. Allie Coin ~$46.979

3. KSK Honda Chain ~$43.94

4. Gen.G Strike Coin ~$32.82

6. QuestCrypto ~$29.63

7. Kevin Chou Coin ~$28.62

8. Skot Coin ~$16.37

9. Moon Coin ~$14.794

10. ART Coin ~$14.793

*Rally Coin data is taken every Friday prior to newsletter send. Current RLY Coin price = $.81 per coin. Down from $.98 per coin.

Talking Creators

Protocols and Creator DAOs: Economic Flows and Cultural Products

At this point, it's irresponsible to talk about the creator economy without mentioning DAOs, social tokens, and the rise of Web 3.0 in general. We're slowly reaching the point where the creator economy and the ownership economy will become joined at the hip.

In time, this will give rise to creator DAOs. DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) are decentralized organizations with programmed rules that are automatically applied once certain conditions have been met.

With creator DAOs, supporters that purchase tokens get ownership in a creator's business. That ownership gives supporters the right to do as they please with their tokens.

Note: I'm still learning and diving down the rabbit hole of creator DAOs. If anything is off in the above section or you're knowledgeable on creator DAOs, reply to this email.

More on creators

• Antler released a new market map of the creator economy. I dive into the monetization side of the market map here.

Talking Social & Platforms

Market-Making On The Internet

First Facebook now Twitter. The current state of platforms is a mad dash to acquire, retain, and maximize revenue from creators.

With Twitter's latest acquisition of Scroll, the adding of tip jars, and the upcoming release of Super Follow, Twitter is rebuilding the plane while flying.

As Ben Thompson notes, "Twitter, though, because of its outsized role in driving traffic to sites across the web, is uniquely positioned to bundle everything else together. Moreover, there are, as they say, levels to this: Twitter could offer one price tier for no ads, and another price tier for getting past paywalls, and perhaps even individual site subscriptions above that."

Twitter is the unofficial glue of the creator economy; however, with their new features and acquisitions, they look to finally make that title official.

Note: Subscribe to Ben Thompson and read everything he's written.

Clubhouse Launches Pilot Program

Clubhouse is getting more buzz from its MoM drop-in downloads compared to its ongoing efforts to support creators.

In an attempt to drive engagement, retention, and ultimately more app downloads, Clubhouse announces the $5k three-month stipends to 50 audio shows in its new pilot program.


More on platforms

• Snapchat is the latest to add a marketplace and more original content to their arsenal. This time it's for lens creators with Snapchat taking 0% commission on transactions.
• Twitter finally fixes the cropping of vertical images.

In-house (original essays, thoughts and content)

Over the pandemic, I’ve done more puzzles than I have ever done in my life. Everything from 10,000 piece jigsaw unicorn puzzles, to David Dobrik’s $100k puzzle. I won $0.25 on the latter. If you've ever done a puzzle, you know that oftentimes you can get fixated on a certain piece. Your fixation can lead to you missing out on the bigger picture. Similar to a puzzle, companies are missing the bigger picture. In order to be successful when building for creators, you need to understand the opportunity costs associated with your product.

Navigating Opportunity Costs In Creator Focused Companies

Gems

• The ultimate finesse: make sure you put some respect on Bezos name.
• Meme gawd: Elon Musk is a certified meme legend but NYT is saying think twice.
• No running in the house: It's been a rough week for Peloton. Mostly in part to the voluntary recall of their treadmill and API leak.
• Grandma's an influencer: Alaska Airlines bypasses Gen Z influencers for those doing the most traveling: Boomers.

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