At Macstock, Alessandra White explains how blockchain can give creators greater control and permanence over their digital content. She discusses Hive, decentralized publishing, digital sovereignty, and ways creators can preserve posts and videos beyond centralized platforms. The conversation also examines blockchain’s permanence, including the trade-off that published material cannot simply be deleted…ever. http://traffic.libsyn.com/maclevelten/MV26229.mp3 This MacVoices […]
Toby Schmitz was the youngest attendee at Macstock X, so his perspective on how the conference and the accompanying Ecamm Creator Camp gave him the confidence and practical guidance to begin his own YouTube channel, podcast, and livestream. He reflects on learning from a wide variety of sessions, the influence of his family of creators, […]
The Road to Macstock stops to talk to Paula Marie Davis, who previews her first Macstock appearance and the path that led her from longtime Mac user and wellness coach to launching Ditch the Dogma with Ecamm. She explains why creators need to care for the person running the tech stack, how conference inspiration can become post-event exhaustion, and how movement, time mapping, and small wellness practices can support energy, creativity, and follow-through.
At NAB in Las Vegas, Alex Mavlios of Epidemic Sound explains how the company licenses music by acquiring full rights from artists, then offering secure usage across podcasts, video, social media, broadcast, and film. He addresses copyright risks, monetized content, artist royalties, pricing from creator plans to enterprise licenses, and why perpetual licensing helps creators avoid future rights disputes.
This time, the Road to Macstock takes us to Katie Fawkes, Director of Marketing and Doc Rock, Director of Strategic Partnerships for Ecamm, who talk about both their Creator Camp the day before Macstock, as well as their session during Macstock. They discuss how the hands-on event will help users of all experience levels build confidence with video production. They also cover Ecamm’s broader role beyond live streaming, practical uses for creators and businesses, the value of experimenting with gear, and why Macstock's welcoming community makes it a special gathering.
From NAB 2026 in Las Vegas, Skylar Holtzman of Presaige introduces their AI-powered content improvement tool that predicts how engaging images and short videos will be before posting. The discussion covers scoring, recommendations, thumbnail selection, carousel ordering, video limits, privacy, proprietary AI, pricing tiers, creator use cases, and API integration.
At NAB 2026, Chuck Joiner talks with Ryan Burke, Portfolio Director for RØDE about the new RodeLink 2 UHF wireless system, developed with Lectrosonics expertise. The discussion covers interference-resistant UHF performance, 32-bit float recording, timecode, adaptive power, battery life, and removable storage media. Ryan also provided a look at the new RODECaster Studio AI audio editing app for podcasters.
At NAB Las Vegas, Madeleine Budd, Marketing Manager for Saramonic Audio, introduces the Air SE, a tiny dual wireless mobile microphone system with USB-C and optional Lightning receivers, and magnetic charging. No larger than a lipstick, it features AI noise cancellation, and a strikingly low price. She also demos the WeTalk 9X intercom system, built […]
At NAB in Las Vegas, Chris McNamara, Senior Technical Marketing Specialist for Elgato gave us a tour of their latest tools for creators and broadcasters. That tour included new variations on the super-popular Stream, a new mic and XLR interface, a new touchscreen display, and more. If you’re doing production, you need to be aware of these products.
In the Riverside booth at NAB in Las Vegas, Danielle Baxter, Business Development Representative, explains how the platform supports podcasting, video interviews, webinars, testimonials, and live streams. She covers options like local recording, separate audio and video tracks, browser-based guest access, built-in editing, branding, captions, producer mode, and flexible plans for solo creators and businesses.
From NAB in Las Vegas, Dan May, President of Blackmagic Design, talks about DaVinci Resolve 21, local AI tools, the new photo page, Blackmagic Cloud collaboration, Fairlight Live, and the free Blackmagic Camera app. The conversation highlights Blackmagic Design's focus on accessible professional tools and creator growth paths.
X wants to make money on previously used handles. | Image: The Verge
X is ending its controversial revenue-sharing program for content creators, which has seen numerousrevisions under Elon Musk's reign. In its place, it's launching a new Original Content Rewards program on September 8th. To be eligible, creators must have at least 500 verified followers and at least 500,000 Home Timeline impressions from verified users in the last 90 days, among other requirements.
Creators will then earn revenue based on "qualified impressions" on "original content."Qualified impressions are unique impressions from Premium subscribers "on the Home Timeline feed, where at least 50% of the post is visible." What qualifies a …
Meta's smart glasses have been a PR headache for the company. Public backlash has been swift, and fierce; people are concerned about the erosion of privacy and expansion of surveillance. Some especially bad actors are using the glasses to film themselves "pranking" random strangers. Women have become unsuspecting social media content for men filming themselves hitting on them without their knowledge. When your product is being referred to as "pervert glasses," you have a problem on your hands.
On Thursday, Business Insider reported that Meta was taking the fairly extraordinary step of banning some content filmed with Meta glasses from the c …
Indulging in the “Dark Souls of synthesis.” | Image: Aleksander Stojanov / Hainbach
Stefan Paul Goetsch, better known as Hainbach, is a German experimental composer, artist, and YouTuber who is perhaps most famous for making music with laboratory equipment and scientific instruments. He describes it as being like the "Dark Souls of synthesis." Despite using "hard mode" production techniques that often rely on telephone line testing equipment and gear salvaged from nuclear testing facilities, Hainbach is also incredibly prolific, releasing six albums in 2025 alone, along with a handful of singles and EPs. His latest, Gentle Hum, is a collaboration with Ah! Kosmos (Turkish composer, Başak Günak). The album is a melancholic co …
InfoWars founder Alex Jones speaks to the media outside Waterbury Superior Court during his trial on September 21, 2022. | Getty Images
The Onion's InfoWars officially has a launch date: On July 2nd, the conspiracy network previously run by Alex Jones will return as a comedy and media platform. The reboot comes more than a year and a half after news broke that the satirical news site was working to acquire the property owned by Jones, a conspiracy theorist who notably targeted victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting.
"Developed with the support of the Sandy Hook families, the new InfoWars is being reimagined as a comedy and cultural platform featuring original programming, guest talent, and new comedic voices," a press release reads. "The project reflects The Onion's broa …
Photoshop is one of several Adobe Creative Cloud apps to receive new conversational editing capabilities. | Image: Adobe
Adobe's plan to stick AI assistants into all of its Creative Cloud suite is now fully underway, with new chatbots now rolling out to its biggest editing and design apps. As part of a public beta launching today, Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign, and Frame.io now each have a bespoke AI Assistant that can be used to organize your work and automate app-specific tasks.
While the AI assistants are all powered by Adobe's "conversational creative agent," they work independently and operate "as a specialist" within each Creative Cloud app, according to Adobe's announcement. That means the Premiere AI assistant is fine-tuned for tasks like …
Give your characters, objects, and backgrounds a name to easily replicate them without changing the design. | Image: Adobe
Adobe is introducing some new capabilities for its Firefly AI assistant, alongside a "reimagined" AI studio that lets you edit and generate new designs from a single interface. The new Firefly experience launching today in private beta is designed to give you "persistent context, reusable assets, and organized workflows" across your projects, according to Adobe, making it easier to go from ideation to production-ready designs without switching between apps.
This is the latest of several design overhauls to Adobe's all-in-one Firefly AI hub since it was first launched in September 2023. In addition to the UI updates, the new Firefly AI studi …
VSCO is taking on Adobe with a new Studio Pro editing app rolling out today on iOS and coming to macOS later this year, as Bloomberg reports. At launch, the app offers tools for batch editing, style matching from a reference image, and sharing images through VSCO Galleries. VSCO says more features are coming later, including support for RAW images, advanced export options, and additional advanced editing tools like adjusting image aspect ratios.
A press release says the app is made for managing high-volume editing projects, like "weddings, portraits, events, sports, school photography, and other large-scale photoshoots."
The state of Florida is suing TikTok over claims the company isn't complying with the state's child safety law, which bans kids under 14 from creating social media accounts, as reported earlier by Reuters. The lawsuit, filed on Monday, alleges that TikTok still allows 13-year-olds in Florida to use the platform and is "actively deceiving" parents about its risks.
TikTok is also accused of failing to require 14- and 15-year-olds to obtain parental consent before signing up to the platform, in violation of Florida's social media law. The law (HB3) initially came into force on January 1st, 2025, but a federal judge blocked it in the midst of a …
Mike Rugnetta is a writer, podcast host, producer, audio engineer, educator, musician, sound designer, and father. In short, the man wears a lot of hats. He's the cocreator and host of the award-winning Never Post, an absolutely must-listen podcast about the internet, as well as Fun City, a TTRPG podcast where he's the GM. He's also hosted twodifferentCrash Course series and PBS's Idea Channel.
If you're thinking that sounds like a lot, you're not wrong. It made us want to know how Mike stays focused with so much on his plate, and what tools are most indispensable to him with his hectic schedule. But, what we got was so much more than th …
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