Feb 26-2024: A Recap of What Happened in The Digital Space

Happy new week!

Welcome to my weekly newsletter

To new readers, welcome to my weekly newsletter, Digital Trends and Insights, where I curate and aggregate social media feature updates, tech news, digital trends, and weekly insights to keep you updated and informed!

Here is a recap of what happened last week in the digital space. Kindly click on the hypertext links to read more from the sources

Last week, there was fake news of Google sunsetting Gmail. However, according to Techcrunch, Google is not killing Gmail but sunsetting Gmail’s basic HTML view, which allows users to look at their emails in a bare-bones state, starting January 2024. Here is a message from Gmail

While at it, Elon Musk hinted at launching 'XMail' as an alternative to Gmail

LinkedIn

LinkedIn membership research shows that LinkedIn members are more professionally accomplished and ambitious than those on other social platforms. When audiences use LinkedIn, they are almost twice as likely to feel ambitious, accomplished; and confident, as on other social platforms.

LinkedIn shares a playbook that maximizes performance in the privacy-first era. Best practices for the privacy-first era

1. Own your data game: Establish a robust first-party data strategy
2. Boost with AI: Embrace machine learning and modeling
3. Measure like a pro: Construct a rock-solid measurement foundation
4. Test, Learn, Win: Discover what works best for your brand
5. Level Up: Supercharge your efforts with a LinkedIn Marketing Partner

Meta

Instagram is expanding its marketplace tool to connect brands with creators for paid partnerships or ads in eight new countries; Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Japan, India and Brazil.

Instagram is testing Live-Stream Games to Enhance Engagement

Instagram is working on a new AI “Backdrop” sticker, which enables you to replace the background of any image.

Instagram is testing a "Get Orders" sticker on Stories that will allow customers to view product details and send you an order request. You will be able to attach photos, product title and price.?

WhatsApp is testing a privacy feature that blocks the ability to take screenshots of profile photos

WhatsApp shares new text formatting shortcuts in chats.?

Threads is running a fact-checking program, but the system isn’t fully rolled out

Meta is testing the ability to cross-post to Threads from Facebook. Currently, users can cross-post to Instagram. This makes it easier for users with accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Threads who want to post the same content

TikTok

EU opened a formal probe of TikTok under the Digital Services Act, citing child safety, risk management & other concerns

TikTok launched its ‘Add to Music app’ feature available in over 160 countries including Kenya

TikTok now shows both photo posts and landscape videos in the “Search” section as shared by Radu Oncescu.

X (Formerly Twitter)

X rolled? out search filters for premium users on iOS?

X? is working on changing photo viewing from grid to carousel as shared by app researcher Nima Owji?

Elon Musk hints at possible X partnership with Midjourney

Pinterest

Pinterest launches first-ever streaming TV show with Tastemade

Pinterest is testing a new cutout feature for pins

YouTube

YouTube is rolling out an immersive layout on creator channel pages on the YouTube app for TV!

Viewers globally now watch more than 1 billion hours on average of YouTube content on their TVs every day. according to Google/YouTube Internal Data

YouTube crowned the number-one streaming platform by watch time for one full year in America by Nielsen Insights

Reddit

Google and Reddit have reportedly entered a partnership that would see user data from the popular social media platform used to train AI models for the big tech firm.

SEO

Google is testing a new item "Forums" on the search bar that filters the search results to forums, such as Reddit, Hacker News, and other forums on the internet. Could this be the effect of search generative AI results?

Google/AI/ Generative AI

Google paused Gemini’s ability to generate AI images of people due to inaccuracies in some historical image-generation depictions. The latest version of Gemini AI generated images of Blacks, Native Americans and Asian people but refused to do the same for White people.

Google is adding some new generative AI elements to its automated “Performance Max” ad campaigns, with its Gemini LLM to power a new process that will enable headline and copy generation within the Performance Max process.

Still denial on Generative AI disruption? See??

Tyler Perry halts $800 million expansion of Atlanta Studio after seeing the Capabilities of OpenAI’s new model Sora Text-to-Video Model “I no longer would have to travel to locations. If I wanted to be in the snow in Colorado, it’s text,”

Thank you so much for reading

??Did you find this insightful? Let me know through the comment section

I am a certified digital marketer and a trainer in love with digital trends and insights. I am open to influencer partnerships, product reviews, collaborations, speaker invites, and suggestions.?Feel free to reach out via DM or [email protected]

Also, kindly subscribe to this newsletter so that you don't miss out on future updates and leave me a comment