Mediagazer: Ex-Guardian Media Editor Jim Waterson launches London Centric, a Substack for “in-depth journalism” covering London, charging £7.95 per month or £79.50 per year (Charlotte Tobitt/Press Gazette)

David Pierce / The Verge:

YouTube launches Communities, a mix of old-school forums, subreddit, and Facebook group, and a new Community Hub to help creators use Communities — Many creators post videos on YouTube but take to other platforms to actually interact with their fans and viewers.

Discussion: Variety, Business Insider, 9to5Google, Deadline and The Keyword, more at Techmeme »

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:

YouTube plans a major connected TV app revamp, with a new UI and features like immersive previews for creator pages and an updated subscribe functionality — The platform will let creators organize their videos around episodes and seasons, while adding cinematic “immersive previews” and other functionality.

more at Techmeme »

David Pierce / The Verge:

YouTube adds an Inspiration tab in the YouTube Studio app for creators to use AI to generate video concepts, create titles and thumbnails, and write videos — Artificial intelligence is running rampant across Google's entire product portfolio, and YouTube is adopting some of the company's newest tech …

Discussion: TechCrunch, @baekdal, @Faintdreams@dice.camp and Fast Company, more at Techmeme »

David Pierce / The Verge:
YouTube unveils Hype, a new promotional system inside of YouTube to help boost smaller creators; the most-hyped videos appear on a platform-wide leaderboard

Discussion: TechCrunch and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
YouTube integrates Google DeepMind's AI video generation model Veo into Shorts, letting creators generate high-quality backgrounds and six-second clips

Discussion: The Wrap, Wired and Google DeepMind, more at Techmeme »

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Memos: Spotify VP and Head of Content Business Sahar Elhabashi plans to leave at the end of 2024; Roman Wasenmüller will become interim podcast head — Sahar Elhabashi, VP and head of the podcast business at Spotify, will leave the streaming giant at the end of 2024 after six years at the company.

Discussion: Podnews

Podnews:

WARC forecasts Spotify's global advertising revenue to grow 13% YoY to $2.1B in 2024; podcast ad revenue growth outpaced increases in music ad monetization — Spotify, the world's most popular audio streaming subscription service, is now turning to opportunities in the video advertising space whilst making …

Doric Sam / Bleacher Report:

ESPN's NBA reporter Adrian Wojnarowski is leaving after seven years to become general manager of the men's basketball program at his alma mater St. Bonaventure — In a stunning turn of events, ESPN lost arguably the best basketball insider in media on Wednesday.

Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:

Patreon adds Autopilot, which predicts free members that are most likely to upgrade and offers discounts, after finding upgrade rates grew by ~19% in testing — Patreon is rolling out new automated features for creators to convert free members to paid ones.

Discussion: Patreon and Tubefilter

Jessica Toonkel / Wall Street Journal:

Lionsgate, the studio behind The Hunger Games, John Wick, and Twilight, signs a deal with Runway to use generative AI in its movies and TV shows — Hollywood studio will give the tech company access to its library of movies and shows in exchange for a custom-built AI model

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, The Wrap, The Hollywood Reporter, TechCrunch, Runway, Engadget, Quartz, 404 Media, Cole Garry on LinkedIn, Media Play News, VentureBeat, Runway and WORLD SCREEN, more at Techmeme »

Gregory P. Perreault / Nieman Lab:

Interviews with 20 journalists focused on why they stayed in the profession: emotional ties with audiences, chances to learn for a living, camaraderie, and more — “The day-to-day work of news, journalists reminded us, was the opportunity to learn for a living.”

Discussion: @mbalter, Karly Cox on LinkedIn, @gregperreault and @niemanlab

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

Ex-Guardian Media Editor Jim Waterson launches London Centric, a Substack for “in-depth journalism” covering London, charging £7.95 per month or £79.50 per year — London Centric will charge £79.50 per year for original reporting on the capital.

Discussion: @jimwaterson, @jimwaterson, @jimwaterson and London Centric

Anna Washenko / Engadget:

Substack now lets creators with its Bestsellers badges start live videos within its app, and plans to roll out the feature to all users in the coming months — It's just for top users at the start, but will the general audience tune in? — Substack is adding a live video component to its newsletter service.

Discussion: On Substack

Nathan J. Robinson / Current Affairs:

The Atlantic poses as a magazine of thoughtful ideas, but its writers get away with sloppy, unsupported arguments, and its errors are long-lasting and insidious — Regular Current Affairs readers know that I have a tendency to make grumbling remarks about a magazine called The Atlantic.

Discussion: @marsinra, @nathanjrobinson, @tenuredradical, @tenuredradical, @nathanjrobinson, @dave@social.masto.land, @seeshespeak, @nathanjrobinson, @rafat, @briallenhopper, @mcelarier, @rafat, @anschmidtlebuhn, @speechboy71, @remixtures@tldr.nettime.org and @FAIR@mastodon.world

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:

Snap debuts a tool that lets select creators generate AI videos from text prompts and, soon, from image prompts, powered by Snap's own foundation video models — At its annual Snap Partner Summit on Tuesday, Snapchat announced that it's introducing a new AI video-generation tool for creators.

Discussion: The Drum, WORLD SCREEN, MIT Technology Review, TVNewsCheck and Business Insider, more at Techmeme »

Discussion: The Hollywood Reporter, The Information, Deadline, Tubefilter, Axios, 9to5Mac, Bloomberg, Engadget, TechCrunch, TechCrunch and 9to5Google