
YouTube Looks to Creators (and Their Data) to Win in the AI Era
Bloomberg News reporter Mark Bergen charted YouTube's turbulent journey to become the sleeping giant of modern media in his book Like, Comment, Subscribe (Viking, 2022). Since then, a boom in artificial intelligence has presented the video giant with one of the biggest challenges and opportunities in its 20-year lifespan. In this Next Chapter, Bergen looks at what's ahead for YouTube in the era of AI.
Amjad Hanif, a YouTube vice president, recently met with Egyptian influencer Farah Medhat, who has a huge following overseas. Medhat's second-largest audience on YouTube is in South Korea, where fans watch her Arabic videos with subtitles. Hanif believes his company's artificial intelligence will soon make Medhat a fluent Korean speaker onscreen, letting her reach even more viewers.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Analyst Says Alphabet (GOOG) Trading at ‘Huge Discount' – Believes It Can ‘Absolutely' Compete with ChatGPT
Ted Thatcher, president of Bright Lake Wealth Management, explained in a recent program on Schwab Network why he is bullish on Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and mentioned some of the key growth catalysts for the stock: "At least from a price to earnings ratio, you know, Google's trading around 18 times earnings. If you look at that compared to the other mega caps, it's like at a huge discount. And I understand we've had these concerns about whether Gemini versus Chat GPT usage is competitive or not. But we have to remember, you know, look at Google's revenue. Look at what happened out of their earnings calls. Even their blue link search revenue was up 10%. And then you look at Google more broadly, they have 270 million users, paid subscribers, between their YouTube platform and their Google One platforms. And so when you look at that level of user control that Google has and then you pair that with everything that they just announced at I/O with all these essentially AI apps, some of them authentic, some of them are AI mode with Google Search, you know, I think Google is going to be able to absolutely cram down Gemini through those users' throats, essentially, and absolutely compete with the Chat GPT user growth." Alphabet posted strong quarterly results, but the market remains reluctant about the stock amid threats to its search business due to the onslaught of AI tools like ChatGPT. However, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) bulls believe these concerns are overstated. Google has an edge over competitors because it's easier for the billions of users of its search engine to switch to Gemini instead of opting for a completely new model. Google has over 1.5 billion monthly users interacting with its AI-powered Search overviews. OpenAI, Alphabet's biggest competitor now when it comes to AI search, has less than 5% of its users paying, and its business model is still developing. Google's first-quarter results showed continued strength in its cloud unit, with revenue up 28% year over year and solid operating income growth. This supports Google's broader AI strategy and underscores the scale advantages of its cloud business. RiverPark Large Growth Fund stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its Q1 2025 investor letter: 'Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares declined in the first quarter despite solid business fundamentals. Investors reacted negatively to the company's AI product rollout relative to peers, expressing concern about potential market share loss in core search and cloud segments. Nevertheless, Alphabet continues to deliver strong cash flow from its dominant search and YouTube platforms while investing aggressively in its next-generation AI and cloud infrastructure. Trading at a valuation discount to many of its peers, we view Alphabet as a core holding with compelling upside as monetization of its newer initiatives accelerates.' READ NEXT: and . Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data


Android Authority
an hour ago
- Android Authority
YouTube has once again figured out how to stop some of your favorite ways to block ads
Joe Maring / Android Authority TL;DR YouTube has strengthened its defence against ad blockers. Free users are in uproar that their ad blockers are no longer working on the site. YouTube has long been cracking down on viewers who use ad blockers on its site. If you try to watch a video with an ad blocker on, playback won't be enabled until you turn the extension off. Although the platform is pretty effective at stopping most ad blockers, there are a few options that do still work. However, it appears YouTube has found a way to close some of those remaining gaps in its defense. In the latest chapter of this long-running ad blocker saga, a growing number of free users are showing frustration over not being able to use YouTube's service without having to sit through ads. Reports on Reddit claim that some previous workarounds, like uBlock Origin and AdBlock, are no longer working. As a result, these users are starting to see warnings, like the one in the image below. In other cases, the home page on YouTube is completely blank. As you can probably imagine, this development has led to the creation of various threads bashing Google for its stance against ad blockers. To play devil's advocate for a second, it's important to note that the revenue drawn from ads also helps the creators of the videos you're trying to watch. A new solution will likely pop up at some point to replace these previous workarounds. At the same time, YouTube will also probably find a way to further improve its defense. It seems like YouTube is just as stubborn about its anti-ad blocker stance as users are about refusing to pay for Premium or Premium Lite. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.


San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
How the Giants' social-media team, online sports space trailblazers, keep and grow audience
Always on the go, bouncing from platform to platform, the San Francisco Giants ' social-media department is a little bit of everything, a creative whirl constantly keeping fans informed and entertained. For a discipline so relatively new, though, the Giants' social-media team is borderline venerable. It was among the first in pro sports to jump into interactive spaces on the internet and has a trail of defunct or obsolete sites to prove it: Giants Tumblr. Vine. Foursquare check-ins. 'We put Lou Seal on MySpace as a rogue,' Giants vice president of brand development and digital media Bryan Srabian said. 'MLB quickly shut that down.' Srabian started off as a one-man online band in 2010 after the team realized that several departments had social media accounts but nothing that represented the Giants as a team. MLB signed off on a test run. 'We knew we needed to be on social media because Twitter is down the street and our fans were maybe more tech-savvy than some,' Srabian said. 'We really were the first team, so I was tasked with kind of figuring out: what does that mean? 'It was a fun period of people making their brands seem fun. I felt like, 'Well, this is the next generation of connection to the team — and maybe their first connection is through social media.'' The Giants joined Twitter, then Facebook and Instagram. 'I think there were five people working at Instagram at the time,' Srabian said. 'It was a lot of trial and error, but there was this feeling of you don't want to miss out because the early adopters saw a lot more success.' It didn't hurt that the Giants were beginning their run of three titles in five years at the same time. With fan engagement skyrocketing — Twitter's Jack Dorsey attended the Giants' first tweetup — and sponsors requesting cross-promotions on the team's official accounts, the social-media department doubled in size by 2013 — to two people. Now Srabian runs a department of seven that flourishes on a dozen platforms, including X, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and SnapChat. The Giants' social-media team is behind the scenes at every home game and almost every road game, providing video snippets and packages, interviews, news, the occasional meme and — now and then — ticket discounts. View this post on Instagram A post shared by San Francisco Giants (@sfgiants) 'We've moved beyond the point where it's a luxury — it's beyond that,' Srabian said. 'It's a necessity.' Teams don't just generate interest and resulting ticket and merchandise sales via social media, they also collect valuable data that helps to tailor ads and offers to individual fans, and the reach is international. For Spanish-speaking fans, the Giants have three Gigantes accounts, and Jung Hoo Lee 's interpreter, Justin Han, helps with social media posts for the Korean audience. @sfgiants Follow Jung Hoo Lee around for a day in the life at Spring Training #MLB #Baseball #DITL ♬ original sound - San Francisco Giants The department's work spans marketing, community relations and public relations and weaves in aspects of journalism, history, comedy and visual arts. Social media might be the most creative and most adaptable department in the organization as well as the most collaborative, working with the Giants' team photographers, Suzanna Mitchell and Andy Kuno, graphics, design and SFG Productions. Dreams the way we planned 'em If we work in tandem — SFGiants (@SFGiants) May 21, 2025 Across a dozen platforms, the Giants strive for a consistent voice, which can be tricky given the many accounts and the larger staff size. There are some guidelines — keep things positive, light, conversational — but nothing is too onerous. 'We're always trying to find the balance between super funny, cutting-edge stuff and staying true to the Giants' brand, which is very classy,' said Travis Hall, the team's senior social-media coordinator and TikTok authority. Unlike some teams, the Giants prefer not to tweak or antagonize their opponents much. When they do, it tends to be subtle. After the Dodgers took the lead in the NL West in 2021, for instance, MLB posted a fireworks graphic and 'we pocketed that one,' social media director Jen Eisenmann said. 'Once we won the NL West at the end of the season, we copied the graphic pretty much exactly and posted it.' 'It was one of those 'if you know, you know' moments,' Srabian said. Even with less snark than many other sports social-media accounts, the Giants' team must deal with the negative aspects of the internet. Official team accounts make obvious targets for rival fans, or, in the case of the A's, the team's own former fans. The Giants never have turned off comments, as the A's did after announcing their planned move to Las Vegas, but there is still enough ugliness among the responses that it can take a toll. 'The first few years, that bugged me, but there's nothing we can do to change it no matter how nice or friendly we are,' Hall said. 'Even when you're winning, you'll still have people who are negative — but the good thing is you'll see in comment sections that fans will police themselves.' 'We don't feel that every negative comment or troll has to be acknowledged,' Srabian said. 'The joke in social media is when someone doesn't like something, it used to be 'fire the intern' and now it's 'fire the admin! ' So there's a lot of that, but the fans always come first and you want to make sure you're listening to your fans if they have legitimate concerns.' One thing that the social-media department strives for is invisibility, trying to glide through the dugout and around the field without getting in anyone's way or in any camera shots. They keep joshing tabs on co-workers' inadvertent appearances on postgame shows or newspaper photos. Hall heard about it the most when a reddit forum confused him for Buster Posey after a game ('That was bad,' Hall said, 'but at least I was dressed nice.') Chris Bowersox, the team's social-media manager and YouTube ace, used to be mistaken for former GM Scott Harris. Giants players quickly grow to trust the social-media staff, who spend time with the team during the spring and go on the road during the season. Patrick Bailey OK'd a 'Day in the Life' segment with Hall for TikTok and Instagram. Lee, Mike Yastrzemski and Luis Matos went out for Korean barbecue together — with Han interpreting — for a YouTube feature. Players and coaches played a 'Flip Cup' game on TikTok for Hall this spring, 'and that's the hardest I've ever laughed behind a camera,' he said. @sfgiants No matter how many failed flip cups life throws at you, keep flipping until you succeed #LifeLessons #FlipCup #Determination ♬ original sound - San Francisco Giants For inspiration, the department keeps an eye on what other pro teams are doing with their accounts, especially if something goes viral, but the Giants just as likely to draw ideas and references from pop culture or fashion, art or food trends — or social influencers, many of whom the team welcomes to the park during the season. 'I think the best, most well-rounded social media people aren't only baseball fans,' Eisenmann said. 'If you have other interests, that's a great way to attract a different audience. 'The baseball fan is already going to follow the Giants and is engaging with our content. We want people who might not otherwise be coming to games to see our posts and say, 'Oh, that looks like fun! ''