Google's Gemini will kill your watch time on YouTube

Gemini will Summarize your YouTube videos for free, watch time be damned!

Google announced that Gemini will now be able to summarize your video and answer questions from your video. “Ask this video” is a feature that is coming soon to YouTube. So, where does that leave your watch time?

Especially if you are doing How-Tos or DIY or recipes, this isn’t exactly great news for you.

“Ask this video” will further provide the timestamp on the video that has the corresponding topic. What about pre-roll ads? We don’t know yet.

If Google didn’t do this, there would be other tools that do. There already are. Technology drives innovation, behaviors adapt to it over time.

To stay ahead, start figuring out how to create content that compels watching. The era of creating filler content and dragging out the answer reveal may be threatened.

YouTube is the #1 Streaming Platform for the 12th consecutive month

8.6% of all streaming happens on YouTube and that’s more than Netflix and every other platform out there. So, if you are creating videos and are not on YouTube, you are missing out.

For many Americans, TV is now YouTube. In terms of what this means to creators, consider this. The average RPM is just a few cents for Shorts, whereas, it is as high as $20 for longer-form videos in certain categories. For YouTube TV, this jumps 2-3x!

While short videos are easier to create, if you are looking to monetize well, you need to create longer videos.

Creator Spotlight: Lex Fridman

For those of you who know him, Lex Fridman unpacks big ideas with renowned guests. The podcast's format allows in-depth exploration of each topic, with episodes often running for several hours.

In addition to his really long videos, Lex produces clips from long-form content and distributes them on his second channel, “Lex Clips”. These clips are a result of days of editing and clipping by his editorial team, but they bring a massive boost to his engagement and monetization.

While Lex’s videos are rather simple with no b-rolls or fancy graphics, his clips strategy brings a major boost to engagement.

In other news…

• TikTok content creators sue the US government over the potential ban of the platform, citing violation of freedom of speech. While it may not have an impact, we still have over 200 days and that’s a long time.

• Google search will increasingly provide answers before search results. While this is rough around the edges now, AI answers will improve. If you rely on website visits, that could be impacted.

• Influencer parents who created content about their kids’ childhoods are facing resentment from the kids who have grown up in public. Turns out consent may sometimes haunt you in the future.

• TikTok is testing hour-long videos for obvious reasons - to take over YouTube and to make more money. If you are creating long videos on YouTube now, would you create them on TikTok? Until TikTok proves that they’re on the right side of history with creator RPMs, it’s tough!

• How it’s made is becoming an interesting content category. While there is a small possibility this can expose sweatshops and fast fashion practices, as with anything else, you can expect content curation.

• 78 of the Top 100 YouTube channels are primarily active on Shorts. This is surprising given that the monetization on shorts is less than 1/100th of longer videos. But these are much easier to create and can easily be cross-platform - so, there’s that.