YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has published a letter to content creators, in which she shared the company's successes and outlined the social media platform's priorities for 2022.
Wojcicki said that content creators can currently make money in ten different ways on the platform. One of the noticeable changes in 2022, however, will be the shift to utilizing more modern technologies, including NFT and cryptocurrency, to allow creators to capitalize on emerging technologies.
Wojcicki said that everything happening in Web3 is a source of inspiration for YouTube to continue innovating. The term Web3 refers to the next phase of the Internet based on the blockchain, which relies less on large companies such as Meta or Google and more on decentralized networks.
Thus, the use of cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) can significantly strengthen the connection between content creators and their viewers. YouTube plans to expand its ecosystem to help video creators benefit from such technologies. However, Wojcicki did not mention how exactly such technologies would be integrated within YouTube.
Bradley Rhodes
The company will also continue developing Shorts, its short-video alternative to TikTok, which exceeded a total of five trillion video views. The company even expanded a special fund that allows the creators of Shorts to make money on such content.
Wojcicki also spoke out about the removal of dislikes under YouTube video. She noted that the decision was quite controversial, and many users criticized YouTube's new feature. However, hiding dislikes helped stop the "dislike attacks" on creators.