Bonded Bitesize – Your Midweek Roundup
Bonded Bitesize – Your Midweek Roundup
Bonded Bitesize – Bringing you your midweek roundup of the latest in digital and media.
Stay connected with recent updates from Microsoft, Google, Meta & many more!
Sed porttitor semper neque a suscipit.
Google’s search ranking algorithm showing extremely high volatility despite having no expected updates
SEO analysts have reported extremely high volatility with the reporting of Google’s search ranking algorithm over the weekend and continuing over the start of the week. SEO experts do not yet know what is causing such this volatility as Google has not confirmed any type of update. The last confirmed update was the April 2023 reviews update, and Google fixed a Google News indexing bug last week so this should no longer be causing issues. Many SEO analysts are reporting sudden unexplained drops in their traffic, so hopefully Google will resolve these issues shortly.
Threads launches support of iOS 17, fixes bugs and rolls out several UI improvements, with plans to make app more accessible
Despite being so successful at launch (generating over 100 million downloads in its first days alone), Meta’s new app Threads was undoubtedly rushed in order to be released amid Twitter’s series of chaotic controversies. This however meant that the app was still significantly lacking in its user experience, an issue that Meta has been working to improve. Cameron Roth, a software engineer behind the new Threads app, has announced several new updates and improvements to the app - including support for iOS 17, fixing several bugs as well as many smaller improvements to the user experience such as better scrolling and trimmed images. In addition, Instagram chief, Adam Mosseri, has claimed that the team is also working on adding missing features like a following feed, an edit button and post search.
China unveils set of provisional rules to govern generative AI services that serve Chinese users
With all the buzz currently surrounding AI, China has taken a leading role in defining how the new technology should be used by creating a licensing regime for service providers to abide by. Eager to protect Chinese users from the unknown harms of AI, China’s top cybersecurity regulator has created a set of provisional rules that aims to “balance development and security”. These rules require providers to adhere to China’s core socialist values (ie no pornography, terrorism or racism), and to register algorithms that have the power to influence public opinions with a relevant authority. Generative AI service providers should all obtain administrative licences in line with the law, and algorithms must not discriminate against factors such as race, gender, age, occupation and health. Algorithms should also not be used for anti-competitive behaviour, and service providers are required to provide an anti-addiction system for younger users. Finally, regulators will have the right to know specific details of an AI model, including its training data, size, type, tagging rules and algorithms.
Digital billboard network becomes market leader for digital-48 audience, reaching over 30 million people a month
Digital billboard network, Alight Media, have replaced Global as the UK’s market leader for digital-48 audience reach according to research company Route. According to Route, Alight’s network is reaching 30.8 million people every month using its digital 48-sheet images - with the company itself claiming to reach “over half” of adults across 146 UK towns and cities. By focusing not just on cities, but also to smaller regions within the UK, Alight has amassed an impressive reach and helped bring OOH ads to new, underserved regions.
TikTok tests new way to download your own TikTok videos without watermark
TikTok has been spotted testing a new button that allows users to remove the TikTok watermark from their downloaded video clips - a feature that would hugely benefit creators and brands alike. Downloading a TikTok without the watermark could help creators upload their content to multiple platforms without being penalised for doing so. Meta, for example, actively limits the reach a Reel can have on its platforms when it contains a TikTok watermark - meaning removing this could help save time and effort for creators in cross-promoting their content.
Reddit has published a holiday planning guide to help marketers plan their festive campaigns
Another week, another holiday planning guide. Reddit has published a new holiday campaign planning guide, providing marketers with a range of key insights, trends, product categories and planning tips, to take all the hard work out of the festive season. According to the platform, Reddit is where shoppers make holiday purchase decisions with confidence, visiting the platform to validate their decisions. The guide offers handy insights into users research habits and behaviours, as well as tips on how to maximise promotional campaigns within the app.
Check out Reddit’s Holiday Planning Guide here.
Google Bard rolls out new features, new languages and support for more countries
Google has announced a significant expansion to Bard, its AI chatbot - rolling out several new features for creativity and productivity, as well as adding new languages and expanding to more countries. Following the expansion, Bard is now available in over 40 languages and is available in regions such as Europe and Brazil - having consulted with experts and policy watchdogs to ensure it does so safely. Google has rolled out several new features, including response customisation and audible responses, as well as the ability to pin and rename conversations, share responses and add images to prompts.
Meta claims its new AI image generator, CM3Leon, achieves ‘state-of-the-art performance’ and is more efficient than competitors
Meta has claimed it has had somewhat of a breakthrough for AI image-generators, with its new CM3Leon (chameleon) model. According to Meta, CM3Leon achieves ‘state-of-the-art performance for text-to-image generation’ and is one of the first generators capable of generating captions for images - helping to lay the groundwork for more models going forward. Unlike most existing image generators that rely on a process called diffusion, CM3Leon leverages a mechanism known as “attention” to weight the relevance of input data such as text and images. As a result, the generator requires five times less compute and a smaller training data set. Despite boasting its success, Meta has not confirmed when or if it even plans to release the model, amid the surrounding controversy with AI.
Twitter’s first ad revenue share payouts award top tweeters with thousands of pounds
Back in February, Elon Musk took to Twitter to announce that the platform would soon begin giving creators a share of the ad revenue for ads that appear in their reply threads. Well, now it finally has - with many users taking to Twitter to share how much they received from their first payouts, some reaching as high as $100k. The long delay between the announcement and the initial payout allowed the amount of ad revenue to build up in users accounts over several months, making the first payout seem more impressive and desirable to new users. To be eligible for ad sharing, users must be subscribed to Twitter's premium tier, Twitter Blue, and to have generated at least 5 million tweet impressions per month for three consecutive months - a feat only a limited number of creators will be able to achieve.
Reddit has announced the removal of its in-app awards system ‘Reddit Gold’ amid clash with moderators
Reddit has announced that it is removing its in-app rewards system, ‘Reddit Gold’, that acted as a form of in-app currency that premium members could use to reward their favourite creators. According to the platform, Reddit Gold had become overly cluttered, complicated and not that valuable to the recipient. This sunset comes at a time of continued resentment between Reddit moderators and the platform, as users continue to protest the price rise of API access. Many see this as a move for Reddit to take power away from community moderators and implement a clearer division between users and platform management.
Instagram spotted testing product tags that are added automatically in brand Story posts
Having depreciated several of its shopping features, Instagram has been spotted testing a new way to boost in-app shopping - by automatically taggings products from a brand’s catalogue within their Story posts. From an example shared by social media expert, Ahmed Ghanem, it appears that brands can only tag products from within their accounts catalogue - so it is not attempting to identify products in the Stories of everyday users. This could be a handy tool for reminding business owners to always tag their products to help maximise potential sales.
Apple releases iOS 17 with a bilingual Siri, a full-page screenshot feature and better support for dual-SIM users
Apple has released its first set of public beta for iOS 17, with new features and additional support for dual-SIM users. Firstly, Apple has given Siri multilingual support, meaning users can use a mix of English and Hindi (as well as several other languages) when asking queries. This is likely to be especially useful for Indian users, who often speak a mixture of languages in their daily conversations. Google assistant and Amazon launched similar multilingual support back in 2018 and 2019, meaning Apple is quite late to the game. In addition, Apple is bringing out full-page scrolling screenshots, a feature that Android has had for years now. And finally, users are also getting better dual-SIM support, with the ability to separate messages and choose different ringtones for different SIMs.
TikTok tests new dedicated ‘Shop’ feed alongside ‘Following’ and ‘For You’ feeds
TikTok has been spotted testing a new ‘Shop’ feed adjacent to the popular ‘Following’ and ‘For You’ feeds. This comes as TikTok continues to experiment with TikTok shop, its in-app ecommerce platform that has failed to take off in the UK and US. Whilst this is just a test, and is only appearing for a limited number of users, this could help place the shop's products more front and centre on the app, possibly helping to attract a wider audience.
Microsoft is rolling out AI-generated headlines and descriptions for ad campaigns
Microsoft has announced that it is launching AI-generated headlines and descriptions to help marketers finetune their ad campaigns. These AI-generated headlines and descriptions will be immensely helpful for advertisers, offering inspiration during creative blocks, highlighting potential improvements to ad copy and saving time. On top of this, Microsoft is also launching predictive targeting, generative AI and RSA, automated multi-media ads within dynamic search ads groups, enhancements to universal event tracking and data-driven attribution models.
Google Search to release new improvements to site names in search results in upcoming weeks
Google has announced that it is working on more improvements for site names in search results following prolonged complaints. Google has had issues with its site name feature since it was introduced last March - having asked SEOs for feedback before rolling out a batch of improvements. Yet clearly, for many the issues are still rolling on - Danny Sullivan, Google’s spokesperson for Search, commented that these improvements are due within weeks rather than months, though could not give an exact date.
