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TikTok Is Giving Creators a New Way To Earn Ad Revenue
Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
TikTok is rolling out a new advertising program that promises to give marketers exposure through its top-performing videos while also providing creators with a cut of advertising revenues.
The Culver City-based social media app’s TikTok Pulse program will situate ads next to the top 4% of videos, TechCrunch reported Wednesday. Additionally, creators and publishers who have at least 100,000 followers will be eligible for a 50/50 split of advertising revenues when the program launches this June.
Initially, TikTok Pulse will invite select advertisers to place ads across 12 video categories—such as beauty, gaming and cooking—meant to target specific audiences, TechCrunch reported. The ads will run next to content that the app has determined as appropriate for those advertisers, with TikTok also providing measurement tools for advertisers to analyze their ads’ performance.
TikTok’s Santa Monica-based social media rival Snap unveiled a similar program to TikTok Pulse in February, which places ads in creators’ stories and pays them a share of the revenue.
Though this is the first feature that will allow creators to receive ad revenue directly from TikTok, it is not TikTok’s first attempt to pay out its creators. The company launched its $200 million Creator Fund in 2020, though the program has since been criticized for its poor payouts. Many of the app’s stars have turned to other sources for revenue, with some creators bringing in millions through brand sponsorships and outside business endeavors.
TikTok’s advertising revenue is expected to reach $11 billion this year, with rivals like Snapchat and Instagram struggling to keep up. Snap announced several new ad initiatives of its own on Tuesday, including a partnership with Cameo that will incorporate that app’s roster of celebrity creators.
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Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
https://twitter.com/ksnyder_db
GreenWealth Energy Is Here to Tackle California’s Biggest Hurdle to Electrification: Red Tape
12:43 PM | January 18, 2023
GreenWealth
In August last year, the California Air Resources Board voted to ban the sale of new gasoline powered automobiles starting in 2035. To realize that goal, California will need to add roughly 12.25 million electric vehicles to its roads over the next 12 years. Experts estimate that it will take more than 1.2 million chargers to support a fleet that size. For comparison, there are just over 80,000 public chargers in the state today. Which means to make up the difference, the EV industry will need to produce 99,333 new chargers per year.
Such an undertaking obviously comes with myriad technical hurdles, but the biggest obstacle facing the state might be the thicket of red tape surrounding the infrastructure rollout.
Right now, to secure funding for a new charger installation, property owners must navigate a complex web of rebates, incentives, and tax breaks offered at the local, state, and federal level. Permitting and installation, especially in Southern California, can be a bureaucratic quagmire requiring multiple rounds of planning and revision that can drag on for years and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And since zoning laws aren’t likely to change anytime soon, EV charging company GreenWealth Energy is trying too make this complex process smoother for property owners and bring more chargers to the places that need them. Though the company doesn’t eliminate the red tape, it does help its customers dance through it.
GreenWealth’s CEO Ariel Fan got her start in clean energy helping businesses transition to energy-efficient LED lighting when she was still in college. At the time, a host of rebates were available to make this switch as easy as possible. But Fan noticed that many businesses, especially smaller ones that might lack a sustainability officer, didn’t even know that the incentives existed. So naturally she launched GreenWealth in 2016 to help companies navigate the landscape.
As EV charging caught on, Fan saw the same story playing out in a new market.
In 2019, the company added ChargePoint as a corporate partner and turned its attention fully to the EV sector. (Despite the partnership, GreenWealth remains technology agnostic, and the company has installed chargers from Blink, SWTCH, and other brands.)
GreenWealth's value proposition is that it can help property owners get chargers installed faster and for less money. They also do consulting for companies like Disney or Hyundai that need to install large amounts of chargers across different states with different incentive landscapes. Their website claims, “Our superpower is stacking rebates, grants and tax credits for commercial and multifamily properties.”
The company places a heavy emphasis on helping underserved communities gain access to the infrastructure as well. “It’s an equity conversation and an equity issue,” says Fan. “When you go into the lower-income zip codes, it's more likely that the utility doesn't have good infrastructure there. And a lot of times, unfortunately, it kills projects.”
And as the first first woman and minority owned EV charging company in the United States, Fan wants to use GreenWealth to pave the way for others like her. “Our thesis is we seek to empower other women and small businesses to lead,” she says. “We want to procure as much as possible with them, and we work with them, and we open doors for new companies like that.”
So far, the approach seems to be working. Fan says GreenWealth has secured $20 million dollars in contracts with another $40 million in the pipeline. Until this point, the 18-person company has been essentially bootstrapped, but is now looking to raise its first round of institutional investment in order to scale up. Fan says the exact amount they’re looking to raise will depend on the partner. But GreenWealth is looking for a mix of both working capital and project finance. “We will be helping over 100 cities and communities adopt EV as soon as possible, in the smartest way possible,” says Fan. Expanding will require that GreenWealth learn a whole new set of state regulations and legal loopholes, but if it can be done in California, most other places should be a breeze.
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David Shultz
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
Here's How To Get a Digital License Plate In California
03:49 PM | October 14, 2022
Photo by Clayton Cardinalli on Unsplash
Thanks to a new bill passed on October 5, California drivers now have the choice to chuck their traditional metal license plates and replace them with digital ones.
The plates are referred to as “Rplate” and were developed by Sacramento-based Reviver. A news release on Reviver’s website that accompanied the bill’s passage states that there are “two device options enabling vehicle owners to connect their vehicle with a suite of services including in-app registration renewal, visual personalization, vehicle location services and security features such as easily reporting a vehicle as stolen.”
Reviver Auto Current and Future CapabilitiesFrom Youtube
There are wired (connected to and powered by a vehicle’s electrical system) and battery-powered options, and drivers can choose to pay for their plates monthly or annually. Four-year agreements for battery-powered plates begin at $19.95 a month or $215.40 yearly. Commercial vehicles will pay $275.40 each year for wired plates. A two-year agreement for wired plates costs $24.95 per month. Drivers can choose to install their plates, but on its website, Reviver offers professional installation for $150.
A pilot digital plate program was launched in 2018, and according to the Los Angeles Times, there were 175,000 participants. The new bill ensures all 27 million California drivers can elect to get a digital plate of their own.
California is the third state after Arizona and Michigan to offer digital plates to all drivers, while Texas currently only provides the digital option for commercial vehicles. In July 2022, Deseret News reported that Colorado might also offer the option. They have several advantages over the classic metal plates as well—as the L.A. Times notes, digital plates will streamline registration renewals and reduce time spent at the DMV. They also have light and dark modes, according to Reviver’s website. Thanks to an accompanying app, they act as additional vehicle security, alerting drivers to unexpected vehicle movements and providing a method to report stolen vehicles.
As part of the new digital plate program, Reviver touts its products’ connectivity, stating that in addition to Bluetooth capabilities, digital plates have “national 5G network connectivity and stability.” But don’t worry—the same plates purportedly protect owner privacy with cloud support and encrypted software updates.
5 Reasons to avoid the digital license plate | Ride TechFrom Youtube
After the Rplate pilot program was announced four years ago, some raised questions about just how good an idea digital plates might be. Reviver and others who support switching to digital emphasize personalization, efficient DMV operations and connectivity. However, a 2018 post published by Sophos’s Naked Security blog pointed out that “the plates could be as susceptible to hacking as other wireless and IoT technologies,” noting that everyday “objects – things like kettles, TVs, and baby monitors – are getting connected to the internet with elementary security flaws still in place.”
To that end, a May 2018 syndicated New York Times news service article about digital plates quoted the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which warned that such a device could be a “‘honeypot of data,’ recording the drivers’ trips to the grocery store, or to a protest, or to an abortion clinic.”
For now, Rplates are another option in addition to old-fashioned metal, and many are likely to opt out due to cost alone. If you decide to go the digital route, however, it helps if you know what you could be getting yourself into.
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Steve Huff
Steve Huff is an Editor and Reporter at dot.LA. Steve was previously managing editor for The Metaverse Post and before that deputy digital editor for Maxim magazine. He has written for Inside Hook, Observer and New York Mag. Steve is the author of two official tie-ins books for AMC’s hit “Breaking Bad” prequel, “Better Call Saul.” He’s also a classically-trained tenor and has performed with opera companies and orchestras all over the Eastern U.S. He lives in the greater Boston metro area with his wife, educator Dr. Dana Huff.
steve@dot.la
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