Internal Meta documents detail Instagram’s struggle to compete with TikTok; users spend 17.6M hours per day watching Reels, far below TikTok’s 197.8M hours (Wall Street Journal)

Karissa Bell / Engadget:
YouTube plans to expand its Partners Program to give a 45% cut of Shorts ad revenue to creators that have 10M views on Shorts within a 90-day period  —  YouTube just announced a major change to its Partner Program that will allow its short-form video creators to make a lot more money from its platform.

Alex Barinka / Bloomberg:
The head of Instagram Adam Mosseri talks about balancing the urgency to make Reels work for Meta and not making “any mistakes by pushing too hard or too fast”  —  As Meta Platforms Inc. pursues an expensive, unproven metaverse strategy, success will depend in part on whether Instagram can pay the bills.

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Meta updates Stars on Facebook including testing automatic onboarding for creators, bringing Stars to images and text, and Stars Party to Facebook Reels  —  Meta announced today that’s introducing a number of new creator updates across Instagram and Facebook.

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Source: creators that use Snapchat’s TikTok clone Spotlight will now be paid millions per year, down from millions per week in 2021 and $1M per day in 2020  —  Snapchat has changed the way it pays creators through its Spotlight reward fund.  Creators that use Snapchat’s TikTok clone …

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Meta debuts Instagram ads on the Explore page and tests ads in profile feeds, letting creators earn extra income, and a shorter ad format for Facebook Reels  —  Following another quarter that saw marketers pull back on their ad spending, Meta today announced it’s increasing its ad load on Instagram with the launch of two new ad slots.

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Facebook expands its Professional Mode, giving all creators globally a chance to earn money with various tools, including Reels Play bonuses and subscriptions  —  Meta has announced the global expansion of its professional mode profile setting on Facebook to all creators.