| 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! Any creator who relies on Google search to drive readers to their websites is used to changes in the search engine's powerful algorithm. But some recent updates have been so disruptive that Google made a rare overture to these small publishers: In late October, it invited several to its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters to hear their complaints. Google paid for flights and hotels of several website creators for a meeting in which Google staff gave some insights on how its search algorithm works, according to four creators who attended. The web publishers explained how recent changes to the search algorithm have upended their businesses. "Google, to me as a creator, has always been a little bit of a black box," said Will Tang, who runs travel website Going Awesome Places and attended the meeting. "And so just to have direct face time with many of [Google's] people and engineers especially, is a very rare occurrence." Updates to the search algorithm starting in September 2023, which have continued through this week, have been unusually difficult for publishers like Tang. He said traffic to his site for the first 10 months of this year has fallen 78% from full year 2023 and revenue, which he mostly gets from advertising, affiliate links and sponsorships, has fallen 60%. Joshua Tyler, who also attended the meeting, said his website Giant Freaking Robot has lost nearly all of its traffic since August, when Google announced another update, and had to lay off all its 40 employees and contractors. Tyler said the site had previously drawn 20 million readers a month. Two other website creators said they all seen double-digit declines in traffic after the September 2023 changes. These were part of a series of changes starting in 2022 that Google introduced to reduce the number of low-quality and unoriginal sites, which Google said would prioritize unique information over aggregation. The updates followed several articles that came out in early 2022 that said Google search was "dying" and was no longer a useful source to look up information. In March, Google introduced more changes to deprioritize sites "created for search engines instead of people." It made yet more changes earlier this week. The updates were designed to "send valuable traffic to a range of sites and support a healthy web," said a Google spokesperson. "This event provided an opportunity for an open dialogue with creators, and we're grateful for their participation and ongoing feedback as we improve Search," the spokesperson added. The small publishers that attended the meeting are also anxious about changes sparked by advances in generative AI, particularly that Google's May introduction of AI-powered overviews that sit atop search results could potentially limit traffic to websites. Google told reporters in October that the new design of AI Overviews, which includes more prominent hyperlinks to sources, increased publisher traffic compared to the old design. The scale of the increase and how it compares to pre-AI Overview traffic is unclear. Aside from AI, small publishers are mostly focused on whether the giant will ever unwind the search algorithm changes they say has undercut their business. Here, the message seemed to be: there is no going back. "Google basically said, 'Look, you will never see the same amount of traffic you saw prior to September of 2023, part of that is because Google has changed," said Mike Hardaker, a website creator who attended the event. "The way that Google looks from 2023 of September to today is vastly different." 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. The Onion, the satirical publication now led by former misinformation reporter Ben Collins, announced it won a bankruptcy auction to acquire conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' Infowars. Influur, a Miami-based influencer marketing firm, raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Point72 Ventures and HTwenty Capital. Divi, a scalp and hair health brand founded by creator Dani Austin, announced a minority investment from venture capital and growth equity firm Norwest Venture Partners. Sonya Brown, Norwest general partner and co-head of the firm's Growth Equity team, will also join Divi's board of directors. The size of the investment was not disclosed. Beehiiv, a newsletter startup, said it's making a "multi-million dollar investment" to create a new Beehiiv Media Collective of journalists as it tries to better compete with Substack, which has attracted high-profile former journalists. Through Beehiiv's program, journalists will receive a health care stipend and legal review support among other benefits. Substack initially offered similar perks to some independent writers, but has since pared them back. Snapchat launched a new feature so parents and caregivers can send a request asking for their teen to share their current location. Snap and other social networks have been expanding teen safety features amid greater lawmaker scrutiny. • Two new TikTok trademark filings, first reported by Semafor, could give an indication into the app's future plans. The first, for an apparent app called TikTok Go, could promote "restaurants, retail businesses, the travel industry, and other online and offline businesses." The other filing indicates the company is eyeing the buy-now-pay-later trend through a service called TikTok PayLater. • TikTok is opening up its AI ads tool Symphony Creative Studio to all advertisers, including the ability to use virtual AI influencers. • The company is also tapping celebrities and creators including the D'Amelio family and Nicki Minaj for live shopping events beginning Thursday. • The BBC is launching a reality TV show to find a new football commentator. The BBC Creator Lab is working with TikTok to find emerging football-focused creators to compete on the show. That's the percentage of Americans who use YouTube, much higher than other social media networks, with Facebook second with 70% and Instagram third at 50%, according to a new report from Pew Research Center.As of June, 21% of Americans said they used X, formerly known as Twitter, down from 23% in 2021. Li Ziqi, a top Chinese influencer, returned to posting videos online after a three-year hiatus with permission from the Communist Party, the BBC reported. In 2021, she surpassed 14 million YouTube subscribers, breaking the Guinness World Record for the most subscribers for a Chinese language channel on the platform. Lilly Sisto, a New York-based fashion influencer, launched a limited-edition collection of clothing, footwear, handbags and accessories with Dillard's department store brand Gianni Bini. Thank you for reading the Creator Economy Newsletter! I'd love your feedback, ideas and tips: kaya@theinformation.com and catherine@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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