Blog: UGC

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

Cutting loose the long tail in a rising culture of creative consumption

Hanna Kahlert

27 Oct 2023

Social

UGC

Media and Marketing

Recent news of Spotify’s reported plan to introduce two-tier licensing represents a significant departure from the incremental shifts we have seen thus far. With developments like Deezer’s new streaming royalty model with Universal Music Group, to X’s premium subscription, the tension between ...

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The future of AI will orient around datasets… which will put the user in a front-and-centre blind spot

Hanna Kahlert

6 Sep 2023

Blockchain

Social

The rise of generative AI has thrown the future of creators (of all industries) into question, with copyright being the key to how it all plays out. Models like ChatGPT have an input-output ‘black-box’ problem, which means that whatever goes into training the models cannot be traced to what come...

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Social platforms are going niche: the end of copycat features

Hanna Kahlert

28 Jun 2023

Social

Facebook

It has long been a recurring strategy for social platforms to borrow one another’s successful features – to the benefit of the incumbents, and the difficulty of new players trying to break through.

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The moment is here for social platform disruption

Hanna Kahlert

2 Nov 2022

Twitter

elon musk

Social media

After more than half a year of contradicting statements, lawsuits, countersuits, and bad memes, Elon Musk finally owns Twitter. Act one: taking a photo with a sink in the Twitter HQ, and captioning it “Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!”.

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Social media platforms are now content platforms (and not all of them are competing the same way)

Hanna Kahlert

14 Sep 2022

Social media

UGC

Content

As we move into an autumn that is haunted by the cost-of-living crisis, entertainment propositions are being forced to increasingly compete for what is left of the pandemic-driven entertainment boom of attention and spend.

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TikTok Music: Here is what it would mean for you

Kriss Thakrar

2 Aug 2022

TikTok

Music streaming

creator tools

TikTok has filed a US trademark for TikTok Music , building speculation on whether the platform is gearing up to launch a streaming service. It already has the tools at its disposal with Resso, its streaming service for emerging markets.

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The future of music consumption is (re)creation

Kriss Thakrar

4 Apr 2022

Creator economy

social music

creator tools

The music industry has grown at a record rate , led by streaming and boosted by an influx of an increasingly relevant revenue source: non-DSP streaming (via platforms such as TikTok and Twitch). This growth is an indicator of a major shift in music that will define it going forward, both culturally ...

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Quick take: Overwolf hints that UGC is the future of entertainment

Hanna Kahlert

18 Nov 2021

Media and Marketing

Gaming

overwolf

The gap between creation and consumption is closing. Entertainment behaviours no longer follow simple dynamics of viewing or listening. Increasingly, they comprise a variety of activities from sharing with friends, to using basic creator tools to interact with and create new aspects within other ent...

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Content proliferation is remaking entertainment categories and giving rise to experiential consumption

Hanna Kahlert

23 Sep 2021

Media and Marketing

Fandom

Digital

The attention economy reaching saturation was a disruptive force in entertainment long before the coronavirus pandemic. Too much competition for too little time meant that audience engagement was increasingly hard to grab and harder still to retain.

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Fluid audio is here, and music is about to meet its next mp3 moment

Kriss Thakrar

26 Aug 2021

creator tools

UGC

Gen Z

Kanye West has released the Donda Stem Player, a handheld remixing speaker that can interact with music, as a way to create a personalised experience with his new album. However, this is not just an interactive speaker for consuming Kanye’s new musical project - it is a creator tool to remix any r...

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The social studio will empower the next million producers

Kriss Thakrar

23 Apr 2021

creator tools

Social Studio

Social media

MIDiA recently explored the concept of the social studio and the more sophisticated tools for creation that are being embedded in social media platforms. It did not take long for this to go from concept to reality with Facebook’s Sound Studio announcement.

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Why Short Form Content Resonates with Younger Generations

Amanda Stears

2 Oct 2019

China

digital natives

douyin

Digital natives – be they classified as millennials or generation Z – have always had the term “instant gratification” associated with them. This is a reflection of the way technology has shaped and moulded every aspect of their daily lives and interactions.

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Facebook Might Just Have Done YouTube a Massive Favour

Mark Mulligan

13 Apr 2018

content id

Facebook

fair use

The word on the street is that the deals labels have struck with Facebook for its forthcoming music service have been done on a blanket license basis (i.e. a flat fee) with no reporting. This was reported by Music Business Worldwide and has been confirmed to me by various well-placed third parties: ...

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How YouTubers Monetize A Shift in Social Dynamics: And Why You Should Too

Karol Severin

25 Feb 2016

Content strategy

Marcus Butler

media content

YouTubers have become some of the biggest reach content creators out there. The likes of Marcus Butler, Zoella and Pewdiepie are living proof that it is completely possible today for a single YouTuber to supersede the reach of large traditional content creators and their programmes for a fraction of...

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