By Tom May

The software giant has got a lot of flack from creatives for its focus on ‘ethical’ AI. But I’m starting to think they might actually have a point.

Last week I was in North Greenwich, London, for Adobe Max, the big conference by the design software giant. Full disclosure: like many of the journalists here, the company has paid my train fare and for me to stay in a nice hotel. At the same time, they’ve done this in full knowledge that I often write quite negative things about them. And I gave them no sign that would change this year.

In fact, as I travelled to London yesterday, my mind was firmly fixed on one thing: that Adobe is losing the trust of creatives.

Partly because the Creative Cloud remains so darned expensive. And partly because all they ever seem to talk about these days is their generative AI model, Firefly. Generative AI, let’s remind ourselves, is extremely unpopular with a lot of creative professionals today.

Admittedly, Adobe do stand out for their ‘ethical’ policy towards gen AI, whereby they only train their AI models on their own Adobe Stock content. But is that really a sign that they have our backs, or just a fig leaf for more nefarious ambitions?

Until recently, I was tending towards the latter. But then, at a demo of Adobe Content Authenticity at Adobe Max, I started to think differently.

Protecting copyright

For the uninitiated, the Adobe Content Authenticity app—which has just launched in public beta—allows you to apply Content Credentials to your creative work. Content Credentials refers to a piece of open-source software that Adobe’s developed for the world to use as it wishes: much as it invented the PDF (Portable Document Format) many moons ago.

Basically the app enables you to embed proof that you took a picture or made an illustration, and nobody else did. Apparently, it creates an invisible ‘watermark’ in the pixels which will persist there regardless of any technical trickery. So even, for instance, if someone takes a photo of your photo, the software will still somehow recognise it as your own.

Clever stuff, and this could well be the future of copyright protection: like a modern version of sending yourself copyrighted material in the mail, so you have the postmark as proof.

Content Credentials is a bit more sophisticated than that, though. It can tell you a lot about how something was created, what camera or software was used, what edits were made, and so on. In a world of fake news and fake images, this could all become pretty important.

In fact, I’d say that if you’re a Creative Cloud subscriber, you should be ticking that Content Credentials box every time you start a new piece of work (it’s baked into all the major Adobe tools). Admittedly, if some 12-year-old in China rips off your work, it’s unlikely to be of much use. But if a major brand does—something we depressingly hear a lot of complaints about at Creative Boom—it could be very helpful indeed.

Protection against scraping

So how does all this tie in with generative AI? Well, if you use Adobe Content Authenticity to add Content Credentials to your image, you can also tick a box that says you don’t want this image scraped by AI.

Great, I thought. So my obvious question to the guy giving the demo—Andy Parsons (senior director, content authenticity at Adobe)—was: “Apart from Adobe, have any of the other AI companies said they’ll also respect my wishes in this way?”

The answer, unfortunately, was a simple, and pointed, no. Because while Adobe says it will only ever train its Firefly model on Adobe Stock, other companies like Midjourney and Open AI have made no such commitment. Which means that, basically, we’re screwed.

Screwed, that is, as long as that nothing changes. But of course, everything in this world is changing right now. And actually, only a couple of things need to happen, and things could change quite dramatically.

The optimistic scenario

First off, assume that one of the many lawsuits aiming to protect creators’ and publishers’ copyright against the juggernaut of AI finds success. It could be The New York Times v. OpenAI and Microsoft. It could be Andersen v. Stability AI. It could be Authors Guild v. OpenAI. There are over 30 of these going through the courts right now, and if a judge finds in favour of a single one, that will change everything.

What would happen then? Well, at the moment all these AI tech giants are in bed with Trump, so it’s likely that—just as TikTok—the White House would attempt some compromise, some deal, some stay of execution that would keep these trillion-dollar operations in business. But again, that’s assuming things stay the same. And if Trump’s first 100 days have proved anything, it’s that nothing is certain.

The President’s tariff war will go one of two ways. And if things turn bad—the economy is weakened, his popularity drains away, and the Republicans have disastrous mid-terms—Trump may not be in the mood to focus his energies on protecting the AI industry. Heck, the man falls out with people on the turn of a dime, so they might just have lost his support by then anyway.

Adobe the saviour?

I can see a possible future, then, in which the current rampant, unfettered trawling of content by AI training models gets properly shut down. At which point, where do OpenAI, Facebook, Google and so forth turn? The one company that’s been doing things relatively ethically, and would be untouched by any new restrictions.

At this point, Adobe—which is already, let’s remember, a $150 billion company—would be in prime position to set terms over the future of AI, and maybe become the major partner, in an echo of the AOL-Time Warner-style mergers of the early 2000s.

Far-fetched? Maybe. But it’s a reason for hope nonetheless. And a reason to ponder that Adobe’s ethical model of generative AI, combined with its Content Credentials technology, might turn out to be less an annoyance to creatives, and more a benefit to us all.

Feature Image Credit: David Wadhwani, president of digital media at Adobe

By Tom May

Sourced from Creative Boom

By Orlando Martins

The UK’s fastest growing companies are growing faster than at any point in the last four
years. That’s according to Growth Index, an annual ranking of businesses that turn over at
least £5m by two-year compound annual revenue growth, published today, with an exclusive
preview in City AM.

The top 100, led by anti-tout ticketing app DICE FM, grew at an average of 114.2 per cent annually,
up from 107 per cent last year and 92 per cent the year before, partly as the effects of Covid on baseline revenues eased, but partly reflecting the extraordinary surge in one sector in particular:
fintech.

This year, 27 of the Growth Index 100 were finance companies, spanning B2B payments and marketplace finance through to consumer-facing budgeting, investment and savings
brands. That makes it by far the largest sector – with over twice as many as retail or energy
and utilities – but also the one with the highest average growth. It additionally marks a steep
increase from last year, when only six fintechs made the list.

The cohort reflects the maturity and vibrancy of the wider financial services ecosystem,
particularly in London, home to 24 of the leading fintechs and 55 of the wider top 100 – a
geographical dominance that has extended since last year.

Fintech’s flourishing comes hand in hand with a marked increase in the proportion of high-
growth companies that previously received venture capital or private equity funding. Last
year, only 14 Growth Index companies had done equity rounds; this year, it is 68.

The surge in fintech fundraising in 2021 and 2022 – $222bn in global VC investments across
the two years, of which $26bn went to the UK – undoubtedly contributed to the subsequent
flat-out growth of its leading companies.

The question for the sector is whether it can maintain that pace, and its dominance of lists
like this, given the steep declines in fundraising in the years since.

The full Growth Index report, including founder interviews and analysis, is available at
here

By Orlando Martins

Sourced form CITYam

By Vismaya V

OpenAI has added shopping, trending search suggestions, and citation improvements to ChatGPT, bumping against Google’s ad-driven business.

On Monday, OpenAI announced a new set of upgrades for chatbot ChatGPT’s search experience, including a new shopping feature that allows users to find, compare, and buy products directly, without any sponsored placements.

“Product results are chosen independently and are not ads,” OpenAI posted on X, alongside the announcement.

The company revealed that ChatGPT handled over 1 billion web searches just in the past week, sharing the growth of a tool that was only officially added in November.

With ChatGPT now offering ad-free shopping alongside real-time search, OpenAI is directly challenging Google’s model of monetizing search through paid ads, a system that has generated hundreds of billions of dollars for Google over the past two decades.

The AI search bot can now detect when a user’s query indicates shopping intent, such as a search for gifts or affordable electronics, and surface product listings, pricing, reviews, and direct links to make a purchase.

The new features are rolling out globally to Plus, Pro, Free, and even logged-out users, and should be fully deployed within a few days, the AI research company said.

Alongside shopping, OpenAI has upgraded ChatGPT’s search to include multiple citations for a single answer, highlight citations linked to specific parts of responses, autocomplete, trending searches, and live answers via WhatsApp through 1-800-ChatGPT.

Websites that permit OpenAI’s crawler to scan their pages can be included in search results, and any clicks from ChatGPT will carry a tag identifying them as traffic coming from ChatGPT, according to the company statement.

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock

By Vismaya V

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair

Sourced from Emerge

By John Winsor

In a major shift for the creative industry, Microsoft recently launched an ad for its Surface line that was almost entirely created by artificial intelligence. Using tools like Hailuo and Kling, the design team generated every scene except for a few human close-ups, such as hands typing. The ad ran for three months without anyone noticing it was AI-made, proving Shelley Palmer’s insight: “If you cannot tell the difference, there effectively is no difference.”

This milestone highlights a critical transformation in how brands create content. As Palmer smartly frames it, creative work now falls into two categories: “required” content, practical, executional work increasingly handled by AI, and “inspired” content deeply human storytelling still beyond AI’s full reach. Microsoft’s Surface ad achieved a 90% reduction in time and cost while maintaining broadcast-quality standards. For brands and agencies alike, this signals an urgent need to rethink how creativity is produced, valued, and rewarded.

When I led strategy at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, one of the most decorated creative agencies in history, we focused intensely on unpredictable human creativity. Later, at Victors & Spoils, we pioneered open talent models, demonstrating that creativity could survive and thrive in new structures. In my book Open Talent, I argue that embracing open networks and AI-driven collaboration doesn’t diminish creativity; it liberates it, amplifying human potential by automating required content.

The implications are clear: AI can now efficiently handle the “required” creative work, freeing human teams to focus on the “inspired” work that moves hearts and builds brands. However, the economic efficiencies AI brings are already compelling brands to recalibrate their balance between human creativity and machine-driven execution.

Brands now have the opportunity to fundamentally rethink their creative strategies. First, it’s no longer necessary or financially wise to pay for agency overhead. Freelancers, empowered by AI tools and connected through emerging platforms like Hence Creative, can deliver exceptional results with greater agility and at a fraction of the cost. The bloated agency model is giving way to streamlined, open networks that prioritize speed, innovation, and return on creative investment.

Second, companies must recognize the opportunity to automate and streamline their required content. AI can rapidly generate high-quality, functional creative assets, enabling brands to reduce costs and reallocate resources toward more strategic and emotionally resonant initiatives. This shift is not about replacing creativity; it’s about reclaiming the time and space for deeper innovation.

At the same time, AI’s ability to handle routine creative tasks allows human teams to focus on what matters most: inspired storytelling. Freed from production-heavy demands, creative professionals can push boundaries, explore cultural narratives, and forge the emotional connections that truly engage audiences. In this new era, the brands that thrive will be the ones that understand creativity as more than content; they’ll see it as a profound emotional dialogue with consumers.

Finally, brands must adopt an open talent mindset. AI reaches its greatest potential when paired with diverse human insights. By tapping into a global pool of freelance and independent talent, brands can access broader perspectives, richer ideas, and faster innovation. AI isn’t a competitor in this model; it’s a collaborator, amplifying the capabilities of a dynamic, distributed creative workforce.

Ultimately, the adoption of AI-generated content might spell the end of traditional ad agencies that cling to outdated structures. Those unwilling to evolve will find themselves struggling to survive. But those who embrace AI as a tool for enhancing human creativity, blending technology with diverse, open networks of talent, will lead the next wave of storytelling innovation.

The future of creativity won’t be built behind the walls of traditional agencies. It will emerge from open ecosystems, where humans and machines collaborate, liberated from legacy systems, and ready to meet a new era of brand building.

Feature Image Credit: Brands&People

By John Winsor

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work.

Sourced from Forbes

By Steven Ezekiel

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the creative landscape, particularly in the visual arts.

Since 2022, AI-powered image generation tools have exploded in popularity, flooding social media platforms and sparking intense debate within the art community. These tools, often trained on vast datasets of existing images scraped from the internet, allow users to create intricate, photorealistic, or abstract images simply by typing text prompts. This technological leap has fuelled a burgeoning market, with the global AI image market projected to surpass $0.9 billion by 2030, a significant jump from $0.26 billion in 2022. This rapid expansion begs the question: who stands to gain from this boom, who is being left behind, and what does the future hold for the intersection of art and artificial intelligence?

The Beneficiaries: Tech, New Creators, and Expanding Markets

The most obvious beneficiaries of the AI art boom are the tech companies developing and deploying these powerful generative AI models. Platforms offering AI image generation tools, some operating on subscription models or selling credits, stand to gain significantly as adoption increases. These tools democratize art creation, allowing individuals without traditional artistic training to generate visuals, sometimes leading to commercial success through platforms like Etsy or Redbubble. Some artists are even finding novel ways to profit by selling the sophisticated text prompts used to generate specific styles or images.

Beyond individual creators, businesses are adopting AI-generated art to streamline workflows, particularly in marketing and advertising, saving time and potentially costs associated with hiring human designers for specific tasks. Some artists themselves are embracing AI as a collaborator, using it to brainstorm ideas, explore new styles, expedite parts of the creative process, or enhance their existing work. Nearly half of the artists surveyed found text-to-image technology useful in their process. Furthermore, AI is creating new avenues in the art market, such as AI-generated art sold as NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), attracting younger collectors and enthusiasts more readily than traditional buyers. High-profile sales, like the $432,500 auction of an AI-generated portrait at Christie’s in 2018, have brought mainstream attention, although the market remains somewhat inconsistent. AI is also being explored for its potential in art authentication and market analysis, interpreting vast datasets to identify trends and potentially assess value.

The Casualties and Concerns: Artists, Copyright, and Ethics

Despite the opportunities, the AI art boom casts a long shadow, primarily over working artists. Many fear significant negative impacts on their income, with estimates suggesting over half of artists feel AI will harm their ability to make a living. Illustrators report declining commissions as clients turn to cheaper, faster AI alternatives, while concept artists face layoffs or pressure to incorporate AI into their workflows. This displacement raises existential concerns within the creative community. A major point of contention is copyright. AI models are typically trained on enormous datasets, often including copyrighted images scraped from the internet without permission from the original creators. This practice has led to lawsuits and widespread anger among artists who feel their work is being used unfairly to train systems that could ultimately replace them or devalue their unique styles.

Current U.S. copyright law complicates matters further, as it only protects original works created by humans. Works generated solely by AI, even with detailed text prompts, generally cannot be copyrighted, though works incorporating AI elements alongside substantial human creativity might qualify on a case-by-case basis. This legal ambiguity leaves many artists feeling unprotected, with nearly 90% fearing that copyright laws are outdated for the AI era. Ethical concerns also abound. AI systems can perpetuate and amplify biases present in their training data, leading to skewed or stereotypical representations of race, gender, and other groups. The potential for AI to generate convincing deepfakes or misinformation is another significant worry. Moreover, critics argue that AI art, derived from existing data, lacks the genuine emotion, intent, originality, and lived experience that define human creativity. While some argue AI can’t replicate human creativity, the uncanny resemblance and speed of AI generation challenge traditional notions of artistry.

The Road Ahead: Integration, Regulation, and Redefinition

The future of AI in art appears poised for deeper integration rather than outright replacement of human artists. Many envision AI evolving into a powerful collaborative partner or creative assistant, enhancing ideation, speeding up production, and enabling artists to explore novel forms of expression. Future AI tools are expected to offer greater realism, integrate multiple media (like text, animation, and sound), and become more interactive, perhaps even suggesting modifications in real-time during the creative process. Personalized AI models, trained on an artist’s specific style or dataset, could offer more tailored creative possibilities.

However, navigating this future requires addressing the significant ethical and legal challenges. Calls for regulation are growing, demanding transparency about AI use, compensation for artists whose work is used in training data, and clearer copyright guidelines. Establishing ethical frameworks and potentially new legal structures to manage ownership, bias, and intellectual property in the age of AI is crucial. The ongoing dialogue involves artists, tech companies, policymakers, and the public, debating how to balance technological advancement with the protection of human creativity and livelihoods. While some predict AI will become ubiquitous in creative fields, potentially displacing certain roles, others believe human artists will remain central, leveraging AI as just another tool in their arsenal, albeit a uniquely powerful one. Ultimately, the AI art boom is forcing a reevaluation of creativity itself, challenging us to define what art means in an era where machines can generate aesthetically compelling images, and pushing us to consider the future landscape of human expression.

Feature Image Credit: Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

By Steven Ezekiel

Sourced from MarylandReporter.com

By Kehl Bayern

Well, until they told us that is.

In a sign of the times, Microsoft published a blog describing the process behind one of their latest ads which relied upon AI-generated imagery and content to work.

Ostensibly conceived to demonstrate the company’s prowess in AI, the ads show off Microsoft’s latest iteration of the Surface along with what is can do for businesses using CoPilot.

How did this come to be?

Hint: If you’ve ever used ChatGPT or anything like it before, then you probably have some idea.

“We probably went through thousands of different prompts, chiselling away at the output little by little until we got what we wanted. There’s never really a one-and-done prompt,” Creative Director Cisco McCarthy told Microsoft.

“Like carving a masterpiece from a block of marble, each prompt was a careful stroke of the sculptor’s tool that gradually revealed the form within. Through relentless experimentation and countless revisions alongside generative AI, the team eventually conjured a library of stunning art for characters and sets, translating their ideas into captivating visualizations for the ad,” the company writes.

That’s an interesting way to describe it. The results speak for themselves, naturally, and you can watch them over on YouTube at this link.

From our perspective, we’re seeing it as yet another sign of the times and as further evidence of one of the biggest trends to shake up our industry since we started writing this news blog. How we got here and where we are going are always interesting to ponder but they might make us miss the fact that the future is very much here and now already.

Any thoughts that you might have on AI-generated advertising are welcome in the comments.

We have some other news you might like to read at this link.

Feature Image Credit: Windows

By Kehl Bayern

Kehl is our staff photography news writer since 2017 and has over a decade of experience in online media and publishing and you can get to know him better here and follow him on Insta.

Sourced from Light Stalking

By Dana Sullivan Kilroy

Until now, the company has kept shoppers inside its ecosystem.

The pandemic was unkind to many businesses, but others saw it as an opportunity to fine-tune their e-commerce business.

Take Amazon. It saw a surge in revenues and profits during 2020 and 2021 — up 220% at one point — and has managed to maintain double-digit growth in its e-commerce sector each year since.

While e-commerce still accounts for a small minority of overall retail revenues (around 16% in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce), there are a few dominant players.)

Walmart, Target, and eBay are a few of them. But the uncontested leader is Amazon, which commands nearly 40% of the market, according to Statista. In fact, the other nine of the top 10 retailers combined add up to barely 22% of the market.

Historically Amazon has preferred to keep customers inside of its ecosystem, a “walled garden,” as it’s known in the tech world.

How ‘walled gardens’ benefit tech companies

In general, keeping customers inside an ecosystem gives a company more control over their experiences. By the way, Amazon is not alone in this practice. Plenty of other companies do the same thing, including Apple, X, and Facebook, to name a few.

In the case of Amazon, the walled garden structure gives the company total control over what users can see and do on their sites. It controls the advertising that can be shown on its site, and it controls all the data it collects.

Amazon is able collect data about customers’ shopping habits and product preferences and then target them with ads and special offers.

It all gives Amazon a competitive advantage that has helped it remain the dominant player in the e-commerce space.

Despite Amazon’s dominance, some brands have chosen not to make their products available on the platform. Now Amazon is testing how it can make some of these products available via its platform anyway.

Amazon testing a way for customers to ‘shop directly’ from brands

Amazon recently revealed it is testing a new feature called “Buy for Me” among a subset of users in the Amazon Shopping app.

The feature, which is currently in beta, “helps customers discover and seamlessly purchase select products from other brands’ sites if those items are not currently sold in Amazon’s store,” according to a company announcement.

Amazon is testing a limited number of brand stores and products. It plans to roll out to more customers and expand offerings based on feedback.

Customers who currently have access to the feature can search for specific brands in the Amazon Shopping app, and in some cases they’ll see relevant results from Amazon and third-party sellers. They might also be shown additional products from other stores in a separate section of search results labelled “Shop brand sites directly.”

Customers can link directly to these sites, or in some cases, customers will see a link to Buy for Me.

Amazon says it is not charging brands a commission for these transactions.

“We’re always working to invent new ways to make shopping even more convenient, and we’ve created Buy For Me to help customers quickly and easily find and buy products from other brand stores if we don’t currently sell those items in our store,” said Amazon Shopping Director Oliver Messenger.

By Dana Sullivan Kilroy

Dana Sullivan Kilroy has been a writer and editor for more than 20 years. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, Real Simple, Self and Outside and on digital platforms including BabyCenter, Everyday Health and WebMD. You can email her here.

Sourced from TheStreet

By Rex Jones

You’ve got the camera. You’ve got the talent. You even have a slick little website that screams “I take this seriously.” So why does it feel like you’re shouting into the void? Spoiler: it’s not your work, it’s your SEO (or, more accurately, the lack of it).

Most photographer websites look great but function like a sealed vault when it comes to Google. If the world’s biggest search engine can’t figure out what you do, who you do it for, or where you are, you’re basically a very talented ghost.

In this article, we’re going to fix that. We’ll cover why Google doesn’t care about your pretty pictures, what SEO actually means in plain English, and how to make your site go from “meh” to magnetic. No tech-speak. No marketing guru nonsense. Just straight-up strategy, wrapped in sarcasm and served with a side of clarity.

Why Google Doesn’t Care How Pretty Your Site Is

This part stings a little, but it’s important to hear: Google doesn’t care how gorgeous your site is. It doesn’t care about your cinematic reels, that custom typeface you bought, or the way you cleverly laid out your galleries. Google isn’t a person, it’s a machine. It doesn’t see your work. It reads your site. And if all it finds is a bunch of beautiful images with no context, no structure, and zero information about what those images mean… it bails.

Google is trying to answer questions. If someone searches for “natural light family photographer in Southern Arizona,” but your homepage just says “Welcome to my site” and your images are all titled IMG_9273.jpg, guess what? You’re not getting that traffic.

Imagine Google as an overworked librarian trying to organize an infinite number of books. Your site is a photo book with no title, no chapters, no captions, just vibes. And unfortunately, vibes don’t rank.

How to Tell If You’re Invisible (Without Needing a Degree in Data Science)

You don’t need fancy tools or spreadsheets to know if your site’s underperforming. You just need to look at it the way your potential clients do. Open your site in a new tab, pretend you’ve never met you, and ask yourself:

• Do I instantly know what kind of photographer you are and where you’re located?
• Is it obvious what I’m supposed to click on next?
• Do your images have filenames and alt text that describe what’s in them?
• Is your “About” page helping me trust you, or is it just a list of facts about your camera gear and coffee preferences?
• Can I contact you in two clicks or less, or is it buried under a dropdown like a game of hide-and-seek?

If you can’t answer these questions with a confident “yes,” don’t panic. Most photographers are in the same boat: amazing work, buried under a confusing, text-light, SEO-optional website that might look great but doesn’t function for search.

Let’s fix that, yeah?

What SEO Actually Is (and Why It’s Not Black Magic)

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, but if that phrase makes your eyes glaze over, let’s simplify it. SEO is about helping Google (and other search engines) understand your site well enough to confidently send traffic your way.

When someone types “portrait photographer near me” into Google, the search engine scans all the content it’s indexed and tries to serve the best match. If your site doesn’t clearly say what you do, where you do it, or who you serve, Google’s not putting you on that list, no matter how good your work is.

SEO isn’t trickery. It’s structure. It’s clarity. It’s thinking like your client and the algorithm at the same time. It means:

• Writing in a way that mirrors how your ideal client searches.
• Structuring your pages so Google can understand your hierarchy.
• Using the right words in the right places, headlines, page titles, alt text, and blog posts.
• Keeping your site fast, easy to navigate, and mobile-friendly.

You don’t need to learn to code. You just need to start thinking about your site as a place people land, not just something you launch.

What Google Loves (And What It Couldn’t Care Less About)

Google’s love language is clarity. It adores:

• Homepages that say what kind of photographer you are and where you’re based.
• Page titles that aren’t just “About” or “Gallery,” but “About | Utah Brand Photographer.”
• Fast load speeds. (Massive uncompressed photo files? Yeah, Google hates those.)
• Internal linking. (A blog post that links to your services page? Yes, please.)
• Actual text. Not just pretty pictures floating in white space.

What Google doesn’t like:

• Generic sites that feel empty or hard to crawl.
• Pages without headings or structure.
• Sites with no updated content or context.
• Portfolio-only websites with zero keywords.
• File names like IMG_8632.jpg and alt text fields left completely blank.

Google isn’t trying to punish you, it’s just trying to give its users the best answer to their question. If your site doesn’t provide that answer, you’re not in the conversation.

Easy SEO Fixes You Can Make This Week

Let’s get you on the map. Literally. You don’t need a complete overhaul, just a few strategic changes to get Google’s attention and give it something worth indexing.

• Add a clear value statement on your homepage. A single sentence that includes your specialty and location is all you need to start. “I’m a New York portrait photographer specializing in candid, natural-light sessions for families and creatives.”
• Rename your top 20 images. If you’re still uploading files as DSC_0487.jpg, stop. Rename them to something like miami-florida-family-photo-session-2024.jpg.
• Use alt text like a storyteller, not a robot. Alt text is a quick sentence that describes what’s in the image, this helps Google “see” what your image is showing. Keep it short and descriptive: “Mother and daughter walking along a white sandy beach in San Diego.”
• Update your page titles and meta descriptions. These are what show up in search results. Your homepage title should include your location and specialty. Your meta description should give a reason to click. Title: “Southern Utah Elopement Photographer | Wild & True Photography” Meta: “Natural, adventurous elopements in Southern Utah’s wildest places. See galleries, get planning tips, and book your session today.”
• Audit your contact page. Can people reach you in two clicks? Does your form work on mobile? Is your location listed somewhere on the page? These all impact local SEO and conversion.

None of this is hard. It just requires intention. You don’t need more effort. You need more alignment.

SEO Isn’t a Trick, It’s a Service

Let’s be honest, SEO can feel dry. But it’s really just the art of making your website useful. To Google, yes, but more importantly, to your clients. It’s not about chasing an algorithm. It’s about understanding that your work deserves to be seen, and search engines need a little help connecting the dots.

You don’t need to game the system. I mean, seriously, do you think any of us can outsmart a trillion-dollar company? You just need to describe yourself clearly. Keep your site structured. Use words people are already typing into Google. And show up consistently with content that reflects who you are and what you offer.

That’s not “strategy.” That’s just being findable.

What’s Coming Next

Now that you’ve got a solid handle on why your site might be invisible and how to start changing that, we’re going to dive into the engine behind visibility: keywords. Not the spammy kind. The real ones. The phrases your clients are already searching for, the ones that will help you write better content, create better service pages, and actually show up when it matters.

You don’t need to write more (not necessarily, though more content does tend to be advantageous over time), you just need to write smarter. That’s what we’ll tackle in Part 2.

But for now? Take five minutes and go look at your homepage. Ask yourself:

If someone landed here for the first time, would they know what I do and how to book me?

If the answer is “probably not,” that’s okay, you just found your starting point.

By Rex Jones

Rex is a commercial photographer and branding strategist based in Saint George, Utah. He helps businesses look less boring, market like grown-ups, and actually get noticed instead of merely blending into the background. He also shoots portraits, products, and whatever else catches his eye before the caffeine wears off. rexjones.photo

Sourced from Fstoppers

Sourced from Association of Advertisers in Ireland

Join us on Thursday, 22nd May from 8.30am to 10.30am at Core (1 Windmill Lane, Dublin 2) for a special morning seminar:
Unleashing the Power of Social Media – A Global and Irish Perspective

In collaboration with IAPI and Ipsos B&A, we’ll be unveiling findings from a new study that tested the effectiveness of selected Irish ads on platforms like TikTok and YouTube — using a simulated social media environment to mirror real digital behaviours.

The session will feature:

• Adam Sheridan, Global Head of Products at Ipsos Creative Excellence, sharing global social media trends, best-in-class creative and insights from his book Misfit – how creativity in advertising sparks brand growth.

• Jimmy Larsen, Director at Ipsos B&A, presenting key learnings from the Irish study and what drives success on platforms like TikTok and YouTube.

Agenda
8.30 – 9.00: Registration & Networking
9.00 – 9.10: Opening Remarks
9.10 – 9.40: Global Perspective – Adam Sheridan
9.40 – 10.20: Irish Perspective – Jimmy Larsen
10.20 – 10.30: Q&A

📍 Core, 1 Windmill Lane, Dublin 2

We look forward to seeing you there.

REGISTER NOW

Sourced from Association of Advertisers in Ireland

By Ian Shepherd

By any measure, Linus Tech Tips is one of the most successful YouTube channels in the world with more than 16 million subscribers and 8 billion views. But what Linus Sebastian has built goes far beyond a channel. It’s a diversified, vertically integrated media company—one that continues to grow in scale, influence, and sustainability.

In a detailed (and very on-brand) video posted to the Linus Tech Tips channel this week, Linus and his team broke down exactly how their business made money in 2024. While they no longer disclose exact revenue figures, the percentage split reveals how the business has evolved over the last 8 years.

Merch

The single largest source of revenue in 2024 was LTTStore.com, which accounted for 55% of total revenue—up from just 15% in 2020. That growth has been driven by product innovation, fulfilment efficiency, and sheer scale.

“Back then, two of our biggest product families didn’t exist yet—hand tools and bags—which now make up about half the revenue,” the team explained in the video.

LMG even flipped the model—going from being sponsored to becoming a sponsor themselves. “We recently flipped the script and went from sponsor to sponsorer, choosing some of our favourite creators to show off all of our products,” said COO Nick Light.

AdSense: Share Shrinking, Revenue Growing

AdSense made up a smaller percentage of revenue in 2024 than in previous years—down from 26% in 2020. But that’s not a decline in performance; it’s a reflection of how fast other areas of the business are growing.

“Just because it’s a smaller percentage does not mean that it’s less money,” said another team member. “It means that LMG is far less reliant on our Google overlords than we used to be.”

61.5% of YouTube revenue came from traditional ads, while 37.3% came from YouTube Premium—despite Premium users only making up 29% of views. Shorts, by comparison, underperformed: one 13-million-view short earned just $1,300.

LMG’s top channels for AdSense were the main Linus Tech Tips channel (76%), ShortCircuit, and TechLinked.

Sponsors

Sponsorships made up 21% of total revenue in 2024, broken down into:

• 9% from in-video ad reads
• 12% from fully sponsored videos

LMG now works with over 150 sponsors across 13 categories. PC parts made up 34.6% of sponsor revenue, followed by SaaS (25.5%) and lifestyle brands (13.6%).

“A sponsor can buy airtime on our channel, but they can never buy our opinion,” Linus said. “And if a sponsor doesn’t like it, we’ll just drop them—like we’ve dropped so many others.”

Floatplane

Floatplane, LMG’s proprietary paid video platform, contributed 7% of revenue—up 1% from the year before. Despite subscriber losses after the August 2023 “great reset,” the platform bounced back thanks to stronger exclusive content and new offerings like 4K video and event access.

“You are the boss… when you choose to directly support us on Floatplane,” Linus told viewers.

Affiliate Links

Affiliate marketing brought in 3% of revenue. These are links typically found in video descriptions or on LMG’s websites that generate a commission when users make a purchase.

From Scrappy Creator to Scaled Operator

What makes Linus’s story so compelling is how deliberately he’s built LMG from the start.

“Unlike most creators that I meet, I was never a one-man show—not even for one day,” Linus told Colin and Samir in a December 2024 interview. “I always had someone operating a camera, operating a timeline—usually both.”

In the early years, money was tight: “We almost ran out of money… If I didn’t nail things, we just wouldn’t have had money to pay pay checks. I had what I called the one-take policy.”

Today, the company employs over 100 people. Linus has stepped back from daily operations (he hired a CEO in 2023), but remains deeply involved in scripting, creative direction, and writing.

“If there’s anything that I am as a creative, I would say it’s that I’m a writer… My canvas is a blank sheet of paper.”

Even as the business has matured, its core philosophy hasn’t changed. “The audience is the boss,” Linus said. “And it’s the hardest boss in the world.”

A great case study for the Creator Economy

What Linus has built is far beyond the “solo creator + AdSense” model. It’s an independent media company with:

• Owned IP
• A direct-to-consumer merch line
• A proprietary subscription platform
• Multi-channel ad revenue
• Production-for-hire capabilities
• And a highly engaged community

As an investor in creator-led businesses, I’ve seen first hand how this model of vertical integration and audience alignment can scale and is exactly the kind of structure we aim to build with the creators we partner with. I believe the next great media brand won’t come from Hollywood—it’ll be built by creators who follow this playbook.

Feature Image Credit: Linus Sebastian, Linus Tech Tips

By Ian Shepherd

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Sourced from Forbes