Francis Zierer
@fzierer.bsky.social
Researching, writing, podcasting about creators and digital media
Editor @ Creator Spotlight for beehiiv
Co-host of Tasteland with Daisy Alioto
📧 francis@creatorspotlight.com
Editor @ Creator Spotlight for beehiiv
Co-host of Tasteland with Daisy Alioto
📧 francis@creatorspotlight.com
Reposted by Francis Zierer
This is the way to do it. Substack wants to own ALL your audience on its own tools. Beehiiv is like, “sure, put your chat on Discord and your videos on YouTube, we’ll make it all work out.”
Best of breed > suites. Every. Single. Time.
Best of breed > suites. Every. Single. Time.
we're the only platform that *never* takes a cut of your subscription revenue
and today we're introducing quarterly payments, native integrations with Discord and YouTube, and more...
more ways to monetize, more ways to connect with your audience 👌
and today we're introducing quarterly payments, native integrations with Discord and YouTube, and more...
more ways to monetize, more ways to connect with your audience 👌
September 17, 2025 at 3:23 PM
This is the way to do it. Substack wants to own ALL your audience on its own tools. Beehiiv is like, “sure, put your chat on Discord and your videos on YouTube, we’ll make it all work out.”
Best of breed > suites. Every. Single. Time.
Best of breed > suites. Every. Single. Time.
On Tasteland this week, @mikerugnetta.com joined us to talk about late-stage platformism, the rise of the agentic web, that the attention economy is a zero-sum game, how Hentai explains platforms, and heading to the library to avoid AI slop.
Full episode on all pod platforms! pod.link/1760333416/
Full episode on all pod platforms! pod.link/1760333416/
July 18, 2025 at 12:22 PM
On Tasteland this week, @mikerugnetta.com joined us to talk about late-stage platformism, the rise of the agentic web, that the attention economy is a zero-sum game, how Hentai explains platforms, and heading to the library to avoid AI slop.
Full episode on all pod platforms! pod.link/1760333416/
Full episode on all pod platforms! pod.link/1760333416/
Reposted by Francis Zierer
What’s a creator journalist?
Liz is featured in today’s Creator Spotlight talking about how creator journalism differs from traditional newsrooms
www.creatorspotlight.com/p/liz-kelly-... @lizkellynelson.com
Liz is featured in today’s Creator Spotlight talking about how creator journalism differs from traditional newsrooms
www.creatorspotlight.com/p/liz-kelly-... @lizkellynelson.com
🔴 Your audience wants to pay you
How one former media executive is teaching creators to think like founders, not freelancers
www.creatorspotlight.com
July 15, 2025 at 4:59 PM
What’s a creator journalist?
Liz is featured in today’s Creator Spotlight talking about how creator journalism differs from traditional newsrooms
www.creatorspotlight.com/p/liz-kelly-... @lizkellynelson.com
Liz is featured in today’s Creator Spotlight talking about how creator journalism differs from traditional newsrooms
www.creatorspotlight.com/p/liz-kelly-... @lizkellynelson.com
Reposted by Francis Zierer
So fun to talk to @fzierer.bsky.social about my favorite topic!
People ARE paying independent, creator-model journalists for their work.
@lizkellynelson.com is one of a network of leaders helping journalists make the jump from traditional newsrooms to starting up their own publications through her essential newsletter, Project C.
An essential episode today.
@lizkellynelson.com is one of a network of leaders helping journalists make the jump from traditional newsrooms to starting up their own publications through her essential newsletter, Project C.
An essential episode today.
July 15, 2025 at 6:36 PM
So fun to talk to @fzierer.bsky.social about my favorite topic!
People ARE paying independent, creator-model journalists for their work.
@lizkellynelson.com is one of a network of leaders helping journalists make the jump from traditional newsrooms to starting up their own publications through her essential newsletter, Project C.
An essential episode today.
@lizkellynelson.com is one of a network of leaders helping journalists make the jump from traditional newsrooms to starting up their own publications through her essential newsletter, Project C.
An essential episode today.
July 15, 2025 at 6:28 PM
People ARE paying independent, creator-model journalists for their work.
@lizkellynelson.com is one of a network of leaders helping journalists make the jump from traditional newsrooms to starting up their own publications through her essential newsletter, Project C.
An essential episode today.
@lizkellynelson.com is one of a network of leaders helping journalists make the jump from traditional newsrooms to starting up their own publications through her essential newsletter, Project C.
An essential episode today.
Today on Tasteland, @colenowicki.com joins @princessdaisy.bsky.social and I to talk about the state of the skate industry, Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico (and the pitfalls of happinessmaxxing), the smell of skateboarding, and religion being big in skateboarding.
www.tasteland.fyi/ep-46-state-...
www.tasteland.fyi/ep-46-state-...
June 11, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Today on Tasteland, @colenowicki.com joins @princessdaisy.bsky.social and I to talk about the state of the skate industry, Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico (and the pitfalls of happinessmaxxing), the smell of skateboarding, and religion being big in skateboarding.
www.tasteland.fyi/ep-46-state-...
www.tasteland.fyi/ep-46-state-...
Reposted by Francis Zierer
A good read for my fellow synesthesic freaks, as a person who often thinks of things that aren't smells in terms of smells, loved this from @fzierer.bsky.social!
Brand sillage｜Dirt
Let it linger.
dirt.fyi
April 18, 2025 at 1:06 AM
A good read for my fellow synesthesic freaks, as a person who often thinks of things that aren't smells in terms of smells, loved this from @fzierer.bsky.social!
Reposted by Francis Zierer
Growth hacks like me are killing what’s good about the internet.
@fzierer.bsky.social has the antidote in his piece for Dirt on “brand sillage.”
dirt.fyi/article/2025...
@fzierer.bsky.social has the antidote in his piece for Dirt on “brand sillage.”
dirt.fyi/article/2025...
Brand sillage｜Dirt
Let it linger.
dirt.fyi
April 15, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Growth hacks like me are killing what’s good about the internet.
@fzierer.bsky.social has the antidote in his piece for Dirt on “brand sillage.”
dirt.fyi/article/2025...
@fzierer.bsky.social has the antidote in his piece for Dirt on “brand sillage.”
dirt.fyi/article/2025...
Reposted by Francis Zierer
Fantastic interview with @fzierer.bsky.social for @beehiiv.com! Never before has an interviewer quoted one of my vlogs back at me 🫶🏻
“[What qualifies someone] to run a digital media company or be a digital media creator is making digital media.” — @amandamc.bsky.social on The Creator Spotlight Podcast today.
What Amanda, Eric, and co. are doing at Multitude is a blueprint for sustainable creator-first media businesses. Listen!
What Amanda, Eric, and co. are doing at Multitude is a blueprint for sustainable creator-first media businesses. Listen!
How to Make a Living as a Creator — from a podcasting expert
YouTube video by Creator Spotlight
www.youtube.com
April 11, 2025 at 6:35 PM
Fantastic interview with @fzierer.bsky.social for @beehiiv.com! Never before has an interviewer quoted one of my vlogs back at me 🫶🏻
“[What qualifies someone] to run a digital media company or be a digital media creator is making digital media.” — @amandamc.bsky.social on The Creator Spotlight Podcast today.
What Amanda, Eric, and co. are doing at Multitude is a blueprint for sustainable creator-first media businesses. Listen!
What Amanda, Eric, and co. are doing at Multitude is a blueprint for sustainable creator-first media businesses. Listen!
How to Make a Living as a Creator — from a podcasting expert
YouTube video by Creator Spotlight
www.youtube.com
April 11, 2025 at 6:25 PM
“[What qualifies someone] to run a digital media company or be a digital media creator is making digital media.” — @amandamc.bsky.social on The Creator Spotlight Podcast today.
What Amanda, Eric, and co. are doing at Multitude is a blueprint for sustainable creator-first media businesses. Listen!
What Amanda, Eric, and co. are doing at Multitude is a blueprint for sustainable creator-first media businesses. Listen!
Today in TASTELAND, Colin Nagy joins @princessdaisy.bsky.social and I to discuss laundering credibility, who gets to decide what we remember, how cultural mores get baked into LLMs, fact-check literacy, "irrational hospitality," and more
Ep. 37: In defense of hospitality ft. Colin Nagy
This week Daisy and Francis talk to travel and hospitality writer, Colin Nagy. Colin is also the co-creator of the newsletter 'Why is this interesting?' Colin: http…
www.tasteland.fyi
April 9, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Today in TASTELAND, Colin Nagy joins @princessdaisy.bsky.social and I to discuss laundering credibility, who gets to decide what we remember, how cultural mores get baked into LLMs, fact-check literacy, "irrational hospitality," and more
Today on Tasteland, Trey Taylor joins @princessdaisy.bsky.social and I to discuss his new fragrance brand Serviette, how he taught himself to make perfume, the art of selling a lifestyle, perception vs. perception vis-à-vis taste, Kelly green, and more.
Listen —
Listen —
Ep. 34: Fragrance Rich ft. Trey Taylor
This week Daisy and Francis are joined by Trey Taylor, Gen Z consumer expert who has recently pivoted into the world of fragrances and just launched their perfume b…
www.tasteland.fyi
March 19, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Today on Tasteland, Trey Taylor joins @princessdaisy.bsky.social and I to discuss his new fragrance brand Serviette, how he taught himself to make perfume, the art of selling a lifestyle, perception vs. perception vis-à-vis taste, Kelly green, and more.
Listen —
Listen —
Sworn enemy of video podcasts @ericsilver.bsky.social came on my video podcast and we talked about:
🎙️ How he teaches podcasting
🎧 Audio-only podcasts are still the future
🚫 Spotify toxicity
🤝 Building an ethical, creator-first business
🎲 Why "actual play" podcasts work so well
And more : )
🎙️ How he teaches podcasting
🎧 Audio-only podcasts are still the future
🚫 Spotify toxicity
🤝 Building an ethical, creator-first business
🎲 Why "actual play" podcasts work so well
And more : )
How to Make a Living as a Podcaster in 2025
YouTube video by Creator Spotlight
www.youtube.com
March 6, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Sworn enemy of video podcasts @ericsilver.bsky.social came on my video podcast and we talked about:
🎙️ How he teaches podcasting
🎧 Audio-only podcasts are still the future
🚫 Spotify toxicity
🤝 Building an ethical, creator-first business
🎲 Why "actual play" podcasts work so well
And more : )
🎙️ How he teaches podcasting
🎧 Audio-only podcasts are still the future
🚫 Spotify toxicity
🤝 Building an ethical, creator-first business
🎲 Why "actual play" podcasts work so well
And more : )
"It is so much harder to teach someone who has no imagination how to have a creative idea than to teach a creative person to learn Excel."
@ericsilver.bsky.social on tomorrow's episode of The Creator Spotlight Pod. It's a good one.
@ericsilver.bsky.social on tomorrow's episode of The Creator Spotlight Pod. It's a good one.
March 5, 2025 at 6:59 PM
"It is so much harder to teach someone who has no imagination how to have a creative idea than to teach a creative person to learn Excel."
@ericsilver.bsky.social on tomorrow's episode of The Creator Spotlight Pod. It's a good one.
@ericsilver.bsky.social on tomorrow's episode of The Creator Spotlight Pod. It's a good one.
Reposted by Francis Zierer
People are saying everything feels like hypergambling now. I will add - social media feels like it has become a casino not for financial but for social capital. A game where people place bets with hot takes, where bigger risks could have bigger rewards, but the house always wins.
March 5, 2025 at 4:01 PM
People are saying everything feels like hypergambling now. I will add - social media feels like it has become a casino not for financial but for social capital. A game where people place bets with hot takes, where bigger risks could have bigger rewards, but the house always wins.
Reposted by Francis Zierer
Paying subscribers to @mattbrown.bsky.social's newsletter, Extra Points, get access to a simulator game: "an edutainment product for sports students", as @fzierer.bsky.social puts it.
That's a cool perk.
More info: www.creatorspotlight.com/p/matt-brown...
That's a cool perk.
More info: www.creatorspotlight.com/p/matt-brown...
March 3, 2025 at 4:46 AM
Paying subscribers to @mattbrown.bsky.social's newsletter, Extra Points, get access to a simulator game: "an edutainment product for sports students", as @fzierer.bsky.social puts it.
That's a cool perk.
More info: www.creatorspotlight.com/p/matt-brown...
That's a cool perk.
More info: www.creatorspotlight.com/p/matt-brown...
Had a wonderful time chatting with Matt a couple weeks ago. Read the writeup!
If you're interested in the (deep sigh) Creator Economy, I chatted with the good folks at Creator Spotlight about, why I push so much for newsletters to be written by people who actually like writing, the ethics of paywalls, and more:
www.creatorspotlight.com/p/matt-brown...
www.creatorspotlight.com/p/matt-brown...
🔴 Integrity is a great business model
ft. Matt Brown, creator of Extra Points, a newsletter about what happens off-the-field in the college sports industry
www.creatorspotlight.com
February 28, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Had a wonderful time chatting with Matt a couple weeks ago. Read the writeup!
Every morning, famously, Sisyphus re-jiggered his strategy to roll the stone up the hill based on first principles.
February 26, 2025 at 11:48 PM
Every morning, famously, Sisyphus re-jiggered his strategy to roll the stone up the hill based on first principles.
Today on TASTELAND, our guest rugged us so I asked @princessdaisy.bsky.social to tell me 5 things she did this week or I would accept her resignation as co-host.
We also spoke about media productions vs. consumption literacy, why we need more working-class media, islands and empires, and more —
We also spoke about media productions vs. consumption literacy, why we need more working-class media, islands and empires, and more —
Ep. 31: Art of the steal
There's no guest this week, which gives Daisy and Francis the chance to discuss why people hate Renoir, the simultaneously growing and eroding types of media litera…
www.tasteland.fyi
February 26, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Today on TASTELAND, our guest rugged us so I asked @princessdaisy.bsky.social to tell me 5 things she did this week or I would accept her resignation as co-host.
We also spoke about media productions vs. consumption literacy, why we need more working-class media, islands and empires, and more —
We also spoke about media productions vs. consumption literacy, why we need more working-class media, islands and empires, and more —
"For me, when you take on the label of creator, you're more saying that you're making content, obviously, and that content is being shared and owned by these platforms where you have no control over anything.”
Wrote about Alicia Kennedy choosing to be a writer over being a creator, on principle.
Wrote about Alicia Kennedy choosing to be a writer over being a creator, on principle.
🔴 Positive social friction
How Alicia Kennedy parlayed a Twitter following into a mailing list, and how she plans to build a new type of publication-education business on that foundation
www.creatorspotlight.com
February 24, 2025 at 2:41 PM
"For me, when you take on the label of creator, you're more saying that you're making content, obviously, and that content is being shared and owned by these platforms where you have no control over anything.”
Wrote about Alicia Kennedy choosing to be a writer over being a creator, on principle.
Wrote about Alicia Kennedy choosing to be a writer over being a creator, on principle.
Today in TASTELAND: @defaultfriend.bsky.social joins @princessdaisy.bsky.social and I to chat e-girl etymology, anti-woke entertainment, treating AI chatbots like you treat people, dolphin accelerationism, internet history is oral history, and more —
Ep. 30: Mammalian E-girls ft. Katherine Dee
This week Daisy and Francis are joined by Katherine Dee, a reporter and internet culture writer since 2018. She's here to discuss the evolution of e-girls, their cu…
www.tasteland.fyi
February 19, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Today in TASTELAND: @defaultfriend.bsky.social joins @princessdaisy.bsky.social and I to chat e-girl etymology, anti-woke entertainment, treating AI chatbots like you treat people, dolphin accelerationism, internet history is oral history, and more —
Reposted by Francis Zierer
The news ecosystem is evolving. The lines between journalism, content creation and AI-generated news are blurring. A new framework is needed to better define these shifts. This piece maps the spectrum – from “Trad News” to emerging creator models. Take a look:
🔗 projectc.beehiiv.com/p/from-trad-...
🔗 projectc.beehiiv.com/p/from-trad-...
From 'Trad News' to AI: The evolving journalism landscape
A visual breakdown of how and where news is produced in 2025
projectc.beehiiv.com
February 17, 2025 at 2:16 PM
The news ecosystem is evolving. The lines between journalism, content creation and AI-generated news are blurring. A new framework is needed to better define these shifts. This piece maps the spectrum – from “Trad News” to emerging creator models. Take a look:
🔗 projectc.beehiiv.com/p/from-trad-...
🔗 projectc.beehiiv.com/p/from-trad-...
3 weeks ago I interviewed @kofie.bsky.social for Creator Spotlight. 2 days before the podcast's publication, he and a couple of colleagues were laid off.
3/4 of my most recent interviews have been laid off by Vox in the last few years. So I scrapped my planned profile and wrote about it!
3/4 of my most recent interviews have been laid off by Vox in the last few years. So I scrapped my planned profile and wrote about it!
🔴 Social media presence as career insurance
ft. Kofie Yeboah, a beloved sports and gaming content creator publishing long-form YouTube videos, TikToks, and all manner of other content
www.creatorspotlight.com
February 14, 2025 at 6:42 PM
3 weeks ago I interviewed @kofie.bsky.social for Creator Spotlight. 2 days before the podcast's publication, he and a couple of colleagues were laid off.
3/4 of my most recent interviews have been laid off by Vox in the last few years. So I scrapped my planned profile and wrote about it!
3/4 of my most recent interviews have been laid off by Vox in the last few years. So I scrapped my planned profile and wrote about it!
Today on Tasteland, @princessdaisy.bsky.social and I chat with Jad Esber about inverting the internet's personal data model to favor individual users over companies, "data gravity," how taste aggregation apps do and don't contribute to social relationships, and more —
Ep. 29: Shelf life ft. Jad Esber
Daisy and Francis are joined by Jad Esber, founder and CEO of Koodos Labs, a product and research company focused on the next generation of the internet. Koodos Lab…
www.tasteland.fyi
February 12, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Today on Tasteland, @princessdaisy.bsky.social and I chat with Jad Esber about inverting the internet's personal data model to favor individual users over companies, "data gravity," how taste aggregation apps do and don't contribute to social relationships, and more —
You will not survive a month lost in the wilderness without knowledge of bushcraft, either pre-existing or gained by sheer force of will to survive. Neither will you thrive long-term in the creator economy without knowledge of entrepreneurialism.
My latest:
My latest:
🔴 Creators are entrepreneurs
The business of art and the art of business; this is the arena of the creator and entrepreneur alike
www.creatorspotlight.com
February 10, 2025 at 4:38 PM
You will not survive a month lost in the wilderness without knowledge of bushcraft, either pre-existing or gained by sheer force of will to survive. Neither will you thrive long-term in the creator economy without knowledge of entrepreneurialism.
My latest:
My latest: