February 24-2025: A Recap of What Happened in The Digital Space Last Week

Hello there,

Welcome to this week’s edition of Digital Trends and Insights—your curated roundup of the latest tech breakthroughs and digital trends

From LinkedIn’s new email analytics to Meta’s evolving video storage policies, this week is packed with game-changing updates! AI continues to dominate with OpenAI’s Operator reshaping automation, TikTok expanding its e-commerce footprint, and Grok 3 making waves with a standalone app. Plus, YouTube is launching a “Premium Lite” subscription, and WhatsApp is testing new community features.

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Now, without further ado, click through the links to explore the stories in detail. Thanks for reading, and let's dive in!

LinkedIn

• #LinkedIn has added Email Open rate and Email send to Newsletter analytics.?

???Email Sends are the number of subscribers that have received an email of your article

???Email Open Rate is the estimated % of subscribers that have opened sent article?

Why is this important?

As a creator it helps you understand the performance and audience better coupled with the other analytics the platform provides.

• LinkedIn released The LinkedIn Event Framework, a 43 page guide on how to run a LinkedIn live video event.

Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp

• Facebook is making changes?on how long live videos can be stored on Facebook. Beginning on February 19th 2025, any new live broadcast videos from your Facebook Pages or profiles will automatically be removed from Facebook after 30 days. Previously these videos were stored indefinitely. Facebook says if you don't want to lose the videos you can turn them into Reels

• Facebook has started sending notifications about the best day and time to post on your page
• Last week, OpenAI released Operator, an agent that can go to the web to perform tasks for you. And right now Instagram is reported to be working on the ability to create tasks from messages using Meta AI. If you could automate any task using AI on Instagram, what would it be?
• Meta added a new chat theme for Facebook Messenger and Instagram DMs, “Tate McRae”.
• Meta is introducing Community Notes to Facebook, Instagram and Thread. Community Notes lets you help decide when posts might be misleading or missing context, and what context should be published on the post.

NB: It's first rolling out in US if you want to be a contributor

• Meta added a new type of partnership ad called Testimonials. Testimonials are quick, text-only written endorsements that appear on an ad and allow creators to have more more opportunities to earn through brand deals.

• Meta announces the date of its 2025 Connect conference, where it will showcase all of its latest developments in AR, VR, wearables, and more. It will take place on April 29
• Instagram added new features on DM

?Music stickers to share songs

?Chat Translate

?Ability to schedule text messages

?Pin important messages, memes

?Invite new friends to your group chat with a QR code

• WhatsApp is working on bringing a feature to display channel update viewers to a future update of the web client. This feature will display the view count within the message bubble, allowing both channel owners and followers to see how many times an update has been viewed, providing valuable insights into audience engagement.
• WhatsApp is testing on iOS a new “Allow guests” feature for chat events.

TikTok

• TikTok introduced Automotive Ads. Automotive ads are catalog-based ads that match your models, offers, or inventory with users based on their in-market activity and preferences. They help you match users with the right car or offer for them.

They are currently available two ad formats:

?Video + Product Card: Pair engaging video that our users expect from TikTok with personalized and shoppable product recommendations from your catalog.

?Multi-link Carousel Card: Upload your catalog to TikTok and launch ads with minimal lift, pulling images straight from your catalog. Each image is mapped to its unique URL destination.

There are two types of Automotive Ads:

?Inventory ads promote individual VINs (typically used by dealers and marketplaces) ?Model Ads promote models, trims, and offers (typically used by OEMs).

• TikTok Shares New Insight into ROI of Short and Long-Term- Ad Campaigns
• TikTok’s expanding its e-commerce operations to Italy, Germany and France, with plans to also launch in Japan and Brazil this year.

X(Twitter)

• Elon Musk xAI rolled out Grok 3 and it has a stand alone app available for iOS in select countries while for Android it shows it will be coming soon. Grok 3 i has the Deepsearch and thinking capabilities to solve the hardest math, science and coding problems.
• X doubled its Premium+ plan prices after xAI releases Grok 3
• Grok 3 new logo inspired by black hole and looks like a G

• X Unveils Two AI-Powered Ad Features for Brands, Powered by Grok!

? Prefill with Grok – Instantly generate compelling, high-converting ad copy that captivates your audience.

?? Analyze Campaign with Grok – Get instant insights into your campaign performance and actionable recommendations for optimization.

• A new study reveals that the majority of Community Notes on X are never displayed.?? 85% of notes remain invisible to users, with only 8.3% of proposed notes making it to public view
• Elon Musk’s xAI, says it’s investigating why its Grok AI chatbot suggested that both President Donald Trump and Musk deserve the death penalty

Google, YouTube

• YouTube is about to officially launch a cheaper, “premium lite” version of its subscription service without music videos. ? It will? target viewers who primarily want to watch programs other than music videos It will first launch in the US, Australia, Germany and Thailand
• YouTube is testing audio replies in comments starting iOS users. To try, go to YouTube app > Find a comment you want to respond to > Tap 'Reply' > Tap the sound wave icon > Record a voice reply

At what instance would you want to reply with an audio reply?

• Google announces Documents upload is now available to all Gemini users. You can upload multiple Google Docs, PDFs, and Word documents from Google Drive or your device and get quick summaries, personalized feedback, and actionable insights.

AI

• OpenAI now allows its iOS users to use ChatGPT without a login.
• OpenAI now had 400 million weekly active users with 2 million paying enterprise users
• South Korea has accused Chinese AI startup DeepSeek of sharing user data with the owner of TikTok in China.

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