Youtube isn’t the place it use to be?

Will smith is a youtuber now

I had the absolute joy of attending the 12th Thinking Digital Conference. One of the speakers Chris Stokel-Walker so called YouTube Investigator, raised a number of interesting points about the evolution of youtube from its history as place for cat vdeos, pirate videos and silly antics; to a place with 1.9 billion monthly views, algorithmic bias and massive hollywood stars (Will Smith is on Youtube, bloody heck?!)

Chris made the point “youtube grew up faster than hollywood” alongside the fact its one of the most desirable career paths for young people currently and the vast amount of video being uploaded is unthinkable now. 4 months of youtube uploads will have you watching till the year 8096!

Youtube litteracy

He’s right, our media literacy around this all is seriously lacking, and its very clear while reading theverge piece I recently read.

Updated Sunday 19th May…

Weirdly enough I was reading a piece titled The Instagram Aesthetic Is Over, which I felt was very fitting. As it almost felt like while Youtube was becoming less authetic, Instagram with its super glossy unnatrual filter was shaking that off. They seem to be going in opposite directions?

“Everyone is trying to be more authentic,” says Lexie Carbone, a content marketer at Later, a social-media marketing firm. “People are writing longer captions. They are sharing how much money they make … I think it all goes back to, you don’t want to see a girl standing in front of a wall that you’ve seen thousands of times. We need something new.”

James Nord, the CEO of Fohr, an influencer-management platform, says he sees this shift play out in his clients’ numbers every day. “What worked for people before doesn’t work anymore,” he says. “For the first time, influencers are coming up against this problem of, How do I continue to grow as tastes change?” A year ago, an influencer could post a shot with manicured hands on a coffee cup and rake in the likes—but now, people will unfollow. According to Fohr, 60 percent of influencers in his network with more than 100,000 followers are actually losing followers month over month. “It’s pretty staggering,” he says. “If you’re an influencer [in 2019] who is still standing in front of Instagram walls, it’s hard.”

My Motiv activity ring

My Motiv ring on my hand

Finally the Motiv ring came

Motiv Ring pack

Nicely packaged and simple to setup although I did find the pairing with my Google Pixel 2 took a long time. I hooked it up to Google Fit but haven’t setup 2 factor auth yet but I just need to get the barcodes for some of my services and create my gesture. Kept meaning to save the barcodes in my password manager.

I did also pair it with my Ubuntu laptop but I’m unsure how to do anything with it except using Bluetooth unlock. The fit is good and the ring feels super light to me.

Motiv USB power charger

My only worry is I can’t seem to find another USB power unit for it, as I’d like to have one at home and one I can carry with me when away. I checked Amazon but I can’t find similar. Also not sure I can get another one separately unless I buy the USB Magnetic Charging Dock Keychain and Charging Dock?

So far so good…