May 2022 survey of non-professional creators in nine regions: 48% monetize content, including 53% in the US; 77% of those who monetize started in the past year (Todd Spangler/Variety)

Ina Fried / Axios:
Adobe argues Figma will help it rethink design tools for the cloud era; Adobe’s competing product, XD, generated just $15M in annual revenue after seven years  —  Adobe executives think there’s a lot that critics of its $20 billion purchase of Figma are missing.

Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Adobe’s Scott Belsky says the company plans to integrate Figma without changing its pricing or UI, add support for other Adobe tools, and more  —  Adobe Inc. plans to add technology from its creative software portfolio to Figma without tweaking pricing or simplicity after its acquisition …

John Walker / Kotaku:
Adobe apps will no longer support Pantone-owned colors for free due to a licensing change; users would need an Adobe plug-in costing $15/month to access colors  —  Due to a change in how Adobe licenses Pantone colors, old PSD files could start being filled in black

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Elon Musk seeks to reassure Twitter advertisers, arguing his goal is not “to make more money” and the service “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape”  —  Mega-billionaire Elon Musk, nearing the finish line in his rocky takeover of Twitter, posted an open letter …

Adobe Blog:
A survey of 5,000 emoji users in the US finds 91% think emoji makes communication easier, 68% like emoji at work, 😂 is the most popular, and more  —  With Unicode’s upcoming 15. release and a slew of new emoji on the way, we think it’s the perfect time to share the results of Adobe’s Future …

Sam Kim / Bloomberg:
South Korea’s trade ministry data shows its DRAM chip exports fell 24.7% YoY in August 2022, the biggest drop since 2019, indicating a deepening slump in demand  —  South Korea’s exports of its most lucrative memory chip fell by the most since 2019, indicating a deepening slump in technology demand central to global economic growth.