How would you spend 1 trillion dollars?

Hey creator,

This time last year, I escaped the Aussie winter for some LA sun to learn more about what was going on in the US creator landscape.

I traipsed down to VidCon, a 3 day-creator focused conference (initially launched by brothers John and Hank Green BTW ((The Fault In Our Stars)), and couldn’t help but wish we had something of a similar kind back home.

Yet, despite feeling like I was at the centre of the creator economy, it didn’t take me long to realise that a lot of the key players weren’t there.

Turns out they were at a Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity over in France, which was happening the same week as VidCon.

(VidCon’s new parent company, Informa, also owns Cannes, so they have the power to change the dates.)

Fast forward to this week, and there was a lot of people picking Cannes over VidCon.

And If this is anything to go by, here are some of the names the 4 day festival attracted:

• Alix Earle

• Jason and Travis Kelsey

• Jaimee Lee Curtis

• Amelia Dimoldenberg

• Kai Cenat

• Campbell 'Pookie' Puckett

• Bethenny Frankel

• Grace Beverley

So what went down at the festival? Let’s discuss in this week’s Worth The Read.

Let’s get into it 👇

If you want a more in depth experience, I hold 1:1 strategy sessions, which you can schedule here: https://calendly.com/smalleyjess/powerhour 

This issue will bring you up to speed on what’s happening in the creator economy:

• Quick Fire news headlines

• Worth The Read news stories

• Social Media Updates that you need to know about

• Check out my READ, LISTEN + WATCH recommendations for this week

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Quick Fire 🧨

• Forbes shares the Top 50 Creators of 2025

• Sam Altman says Meta is offering $100 million to poach his employees. 

• Meta warns users to 'avoid sharing personal or sensitive information' in its AI app

• Trump extends TikTok ban deadline by another 90 days (again…ha.ha.ha)

• Meta advises page managers to include links in Post comments

Worth The Read

Cannes Lions Creators

Cannes Lions didn’t just double down on creators, they put them front and centre at this year’s 4-day event.

Why is this important? Cannes is the place where the global ad industry visits once a year to decide where to put $1 trillion of spend.

Signals that a shift in attention are happening more frequently, and it seems this event blew the wind behind the sails of the creator economy.

Here’s what people on the ground have been reporting as some of the major discussion points (notice the lack of AI chat):

1. The way we measure audience data is a problem.

It’s the industry’s bottleneck, nor is there an agreed-upon metric system. Until we resolve this, brands will continue to find it hard to measure impact and reach.

Are we any closer to achieving the simple mathematics of the good ol’ days like 1 TV = 1 household?

Not quite.

One view on TikTok is not equal to one view on YouTube or a podcast download and definitely not equal to a comment, a share, or a repeat visitor. Until the industry agrees on how to meaningfully quantify these interactions, creator campaigns will be harder to benchmark against traditional media buys.

Clearly it’s a complex task that we’ve been toying with since we realised you can make money off the internet. But I don’t see the creator economy taking over legacy media until this is accomplished.

2. YouTube is determined to take over Hollywood…and all the other streaming platforms.

I don’t think people realise just how much YouTube is investing in the next era of creators. This will be illustrated by the massive shift in viewer behaviour, creator budgets for the platform steep decline in interest for Hollywood. There’s even talk that YouTube will appear on the same level as Netflix.

3. Audiences are not all built the same so they need to be treated as such.

Online world is because more fractured by the day, which adds more layers to the meaning of an audience. While you might be good at gaming the algorithm and catching the attention of viewers, connection is where the real value lies. Brands are catching up to this.

4. Creators are more than just a paid hire; they’re a strategic partner.

Creators also understand that career longevity relies on audience trust, which means partnerships need to make sense and be authentic.

Socially Updated

Facebook 

• announces all videos shared on the platform will now be categorized as Reels

Instagram

• will soon roll out Shared Access, which lets you invite up to 3 people to help manage your account.

• added a shortcut to help you jump easily from IG to Edits.

The Dig

READ: Meta, Google, TikTok are all on trial in the same courthouse in Washington, DC, with rulings that could reshape the internet for the next decade. If you care about the future of platforms, distribution, or how creators make a living online then check out this article from The Verge.

LISTEN: I have to recommend you this week’s Diary Of A CEO episode with Nobel Prize computer scientist and ex-Google employee, Geoffrey Hinton. I can’t say this interview warmed me to Hinton, who has been dubbed ‘the Godfather of AI’, but it pushed my brain in all sorts of directions when it comes to the future of our world. You won’t get any answers from this episode, but it does tell you that we need to be constantly educating ourselves about the technology and the social impact it will have. There’s no way I’m going to be left behind by AI.

WATCH: Watch this video if you want to learn the ‘cheat code’ for cinemagraphic videos on YouTube. You see a lot of these types of videos on the platform, but the way Creator Andrew Paul tells the story makes the learning accessible and easily applicable.