New Year. New Platform. New Kinda Brief.

Kinda Brief Now On Beehiiv 

Welcome to Kinda Brief 2.0! We’ve got a new look and a new publishing platform for a fresh start in 2024. 

What does this mean for you? 

If you were a free subscriber to Kinda Brief 1.0, nothing. Your subscription has seamlessly moved over from Substack to Beehiiv. 

If you were a paid subscriber, nothing for now. Beehiiv’s free publishing tier doesn’t include paid memberships, and I don’t think I’d break even on the next tier up based on my Substack subscriber levels. So, there is no paid option now through Beehiiv. All subscription payments through Substack are paused on my end.

If you think Kinda Brief is awesome and want to say thank you, you can share the newsletter with folks who might also enjoy it or leave me a tip via Venmo. 

As the newsletter grows, if we get to the point where I think I’d have paid-only content worth publishing and the audience size to justify it, I’ll consider moving things around to add a paid option. For now, though, Kinda Brief is all free. 

I also took this platform transition as an opportunity to upgrade and document my approach to branding for this newsletter. Because I can’t help but be that kind of nerd. Based on what I know about you all, I suspect you might find that project interesting, so I’m sharing the full branding document I made for myself with you all here. 

We’re catching up on a lot of links this week, so no new mini-essay today. Finally, I want to say thank you. For being a subscriber, supporting this project, and following me as I move away from a platform that didn’t align with my values. 

Platform Updates

Instagram & Threads

• Instagram’s Testing the Capacity To Add Notes To Feed Posts 

The Rest of Meta 

• Facebook courts creators with performance-based payouts for its ad formats

• Facebook Suspends, Then Restores Libs of TikTok

• Meet ‘Link History,’ Facebook’s New Way to Track the Websites You Visit

TikTok

• TikTok Launches Improved Experience on Tablets and Foldable Devices

Google 

• Google Just Disabled Cookies for 30 Million Chrome Users. Here’s How to Tell If You’re One of Them.

Apple

• Apple is now banned from selling its latest Apple Watches in the US Apple resumes Apple Watch sales after ban is paused 

Twitch 

• Twitch Reverses Policy on ‘Artistic Nudity’ After Just Two Days (honestly surprised it took them that long) 

• Then this happened: Twitch will ban people pretending to be naked

Reddit

• Reddit’s Retiring Its ‘Live Chat’ Option in Subreddit Communities

• Reddit Aims for 2024 IPO at $15B Valuation

Adobe

• Adobe abandons $20 billion acquisition of Figma 

Substack 

• Substack says it will not remove or demonetize Nazi content

Twitter, Sorry X

The Product 

• X Announces Integration With StreamYard for Livestream Broadcasts

The Dumpster Fire

• Twitter Now Showing Ads For Nonconsensual 'AI Undress' Apps

• EU opens formal DSA investigation into X in wake of Israel-Hamas war

• Users Flock to Threads as X Suffers Largest Outage Since Musk Takeover

• Elon Musk’s X, accused of withholding bonuses promised to staff, will have to face a court battle

• Elon Musk's X gets another valuation cut from Fidelity 

Twitter Alts 

• Flipboard is pivoting to ActivityPub and the fediverse 

• Bluesky changed its logo and now lets everyone view posts, even without an account

• Bluesky rolls out an in-app video and music player and a new ‘hide post’ feature

Culture Movers 

Film & TV

• Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global in Merger Talks

• Amazon Will Inject Ads Into Prime Video Starting Jan. 29th

• Of Course the First Steamboat Willie Horror Movie Is Already Here

Sports

• How Strawberry, the Pop-Tarts Bowl mascot, took over the internet

Creator Economy 

• Pornhub blocks North Carolina and Montana as porn regulation spreads

Gaming 

• Fortnite’s Marriott Bonvoy Land is a ghost town of video game sadness 

• China’s regulators restrict game monetization, sending Chinese game stocks down

AI 

• OpenAI buffs safety team and gives board veto power on risky AI

• The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement 

• OpenAI’s app store for GPTs will launch next week

*I’m very dyslexic, and this is a largely free project/hobby. I do not set aside the same time for proofreading that I do for other professional work. If you spot a typo that would cause a communication error, please reach out to gently let me know.