| If you're finding value in our Creator Economy newsletter, I encourage you to consider subscribing to The Information. It contains exclusive reporting on the most important stories in tech. Save up to $250 on your first year of access. Hello! Theo here. Amazon is bringing in a new leader to Twitch to boost its advertising business, deepening the ties between the livestreaming service and its powerful parent. In a reorganization of Twitch's ad business, Amazon is forming a new ad sales and product group for Twitch under the leadership of executive Viral Thacker. Thacker's team will work "across all ad products, countries and customer segments," according to a recent memo I viewed. Thacker will report directly to Alan Moss, the vice president who leads Amazon's ad sales globally. The group solidifies a process that's been underway since 2020, when Amazon began folding Twitch's ad teams into its broader advertising division. Thacker played a role combining the two teams when he was on Amazon's corporate development arm in 2020, according to the memo. In 2021, Thacker moved to a new role overseeing Amazon ads' worldwide emerging businesses team, where he worked on new projects including ads sold to local businesses. Thacker is taking on the role as Amazon has been putting a greater emphasis on video ads, emerging as a rival to YouTube and Disney. Amazon now sells video packages that include ads on Twitch alongside ads on its Prime Video, Freevee and FireTV services. The company has been telling advertisers that those services collectively reach 175 million U.S. viewers each month, I've previously reported. At the same time as Amazon has been looking to grow its video ads business, CEO Andy Jassy has been scrutinizing spending across the company. Twitch has been in his crosshairs. The service took in $1.3 billion in commerce revenue and $667 million in ad revenue last year, but still isn't making a profit, according to The Wall Street Journal. Twitch has made two rounds of mass layoffs since last March. Against that backdrop, Thacker will need to prove that Twitch still has a role to play in Amazon's broader advertising ambitions—a mission that couldn't come at a more critical time. Now on to Kaya Yurieff for what else is going on… See The Information's Creator Economy Database for an exclusive list of private companies and their investors. Google Shopping is rolling out a personalized feed of products a user may like, similar in concept to TikTok's For You Page. YouTube announced several new features, including one tied to bedtime where users can set a timer to automatically pause videos after a certain amount of time, as well as more granular playback speeds and ways to vote for videos in playlists, such as which creator's unboxing video was a viewer's favorite. Separately, YouTube also said it's testing a more prominent Save button for bookmarking Shorts, similar to rivals TikTok and Instagram. In the test, the "dislike" button is moved to the menu icon with three dots to save space. Instagram launched profile cards globally, which are like digital business cards through which users and creators can share their accounts, including their Instagram handle, profile picture, links and other information. Separately, Instagram also announced that creators can now give names to their saved drafts. They can also schedule posts from their drafts folder to post at a later date. Amaze, a provider of social commerce software for creators, announced an integration with editing and design tool Adobe Express. Through Amaze's merchandise-making service Spring, creators will be able to use Adobe Express' design features to create and sell their products. Kajabi, a startup best known for online courses, announced several new features for creators including the ability to create newsletters, downloadable content and invoicing tools, as well as a rebrand, including a new logo. The company also put more than 25 creators, including Colin & Samir, Drew Binsky and Jenna Kutcher on billboards in Times Square and downtown Los Angeles as part of a marketing campaign. • TikTok has set aside $1 billion for future fines from regulators in Europe, indicating it's expecting more regulatory headaches in the bloc. One potential hefty fine could be coming soon, as The Information previously reported. Irish regulators are preparing a draft decision related to a 2021 investigation into TikTok's transfers of user data to China. That adds to other open investigations in Europe. • My colleagues Jing and Juro profiled ByteDance CFO Julie Gao, who previously spent more than 20 years as a high-profile IPO lawyer. She is now navigating an environment where a ByteDance IPO is indefinitely on hold, which means coordinating with investors. For instance, when Coatue Management executives told Gao's team about their wishes to sell some of their ByteDance shares, Gao referred them to other investors who might be interested. The firm, which was an early backer of ByteDance, has since shelved its earlier plan to sell part of its stake in the Chinese tech giant, at least for the moment. • Teens as young as 15 were stripping on TikTok's live feature; TikTok's algorithm prioritizes "beautiful" people; and users can get "addicted" to the app in less than 35 minutes. These are some of the main takeaways from internal documents reviewed by NPR and Kentucky Public Radio. • TikTok laid off staffers last week on its content moderation team, though it didn't disclose how many were cut, The Wall Street Journal reported. "Venture is cool now," said Harry Stebbings, host of The Twenty Minute VC podcast. "Ten years ago it was boring and weird like private equity." Stebbings announced on Tuesday that he raised $400 million across two new funds. The 28-year-old started the podcast in 2015 when he was a teenager, and now manages a podcast team of 13 people. In 2020, he founded VC firm 20VC. Thank you for reading the Creator Economy Newsletter! I'd love your feedback, ideas and tips: kaya@theinformation.com. If you think someone else might enjoy this newsletter, please pass it forward or they can sign up here: https://www.theinformation.com/newsletters/creator-economy | 
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