September 9-2024: A Recap of What Happened in The Digital Space Last Week

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Here is a recap of what happened in the digital space last week that you need to know. To catch up with previous updates click here

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Social Media Insight and State of AI

Mark Zuckerberg says the future of social media feeds is going to be taken by AI content. He says to take for instance Facebook, the feed evolved from seeing friends and family content to? largely entertaining content of interest from creators?

Facebook now has a feature that lets you post content from their generative AI, Imagine with Meta

Now, X's Grok AI now allows you to post images you have created directly on the app.

On LinkedIn, there are collaborative articles that are also written by AI and Premium Users can Rewrite posts with AI. For newsletters, you can create a featured image with AI

TikTok has AI effects and TikTok Creative assistant that uses AI to help you create content

LinkedIn

• LinkedIn and iHeartMedia have teamed up to create a podcast for Gen Z called Let's Talk Offline
• LinkedIn now lets you save drafts messages.

Meta : Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp Threads

• Meta Ads is showing New ad Placement including Threads feed. This would be a win for advertisers if they will be able to place ads on all the Meta platforms including Threads that is almost 200M monthly active users

• Meta's smart sunglasses Ray Ban now allow users to share Facebook stories in a hands-free manner. Users can pick between uploading a fresh photo or sharing the last one they’ve already taken with their glasses
• Instagram has new updates for DMs

?? Ability to cutout stickers from a photo or video and share them on Reels, Stories and now DMs

??Doodles, effects and text on photos and videos

?? Birthday Notes ??

• WhatsApp is rolling out a message draft feature, and it's available to some beta testers!
• WhatsApp is working on a call link feature within group chats, and it will be available in a future update!
• "Is this even legal?" A leaked pitch reveals marketing agency uses 'Active Listening' software to eavesdrop on calls and push curated Facebook and Google ads

TikTok

• TikTok has launched a new option to share a short, text-based “thought” in the app similar to Instagram Notes.
• TikTok has added a new Profile Search feature that lets you search for keywords, topics, and hashtags to find relevant posts from your profile
• Overall support for a TikTok ban in the U.S. is declining

X (Formerly Known as Twitter)

• X was banned in Brazil making Bluesky and Threads gain popularity there.
• The X TV app is now live on Android TVs in US
• X algorithm recommends posts you see based on the following signals

—Content you interact

—Content you share but here they can't tell content that outraged you

• X rolled out a real-time analysis tool for verified organizations to gain an understanding of market trends and public opinion.

• X Excludes EU Users from xAI Training Set after a legal challenge over how the project is utilizing public X data to fuel its language models.

Telegram

Telegram made some changes after CEO, Pavel Durov arrest last month. They have removed People Nearby feature that had issues with bots and scammers and disabled new media uploads to Telegraph their standalone blogging tool, "which seems to have been misused by anonymous actors".? Pavel Durov shared on X Post

And....Telegram has reached 10 million paid subscribers and has over 950 million monthly active users.

YouTube, Google

• YouTube is developing new tools to protect creators and artists which allows them to detect and manage AI-generated content?
• Google Analytics has new updates! You can now visualize up to 5 rows of data directly within your detailed reports to measure their changes over time and ability to mark key events in the Events report. More updates here

Canva

Canva is set to increase prices for Global customers for Canva Teams by over 300% next year. The increase is due to the “expanded product experience” and value that generative AI tools have added to the platform.?

Starlink Internet

Starlink is strict on copyrighted materials. X User, Lennox Omondi shares his experience on Post.

Starlink is now available in Zimbabwe and it awaits regulatory approval in South Africa

AI, Generative AI

• Anthropic is launching a new subscription plan for its AI chatbot, Claude, catered toward enterprise customers who want more administrative controls and increased security?
• Rankings: Countries That Use ChatGPT the Most

??India has the highest share (45%) of people using ChatGPT.

?? Generally younger countries are using AI more possibly because of a younger, more tech-savvy population.

Brands

Court Awards KES 4 Million to Nonini in Copyright Infringement Case Against Brian Mutinda and Syinix Electronics.

Kenyan musician Nonini successfully sued social media influencer Brian Mutinda and Syinix Electronics for the unauthorized use of his hit song "We Kamu" in a promotional video. The court ruled in Nonini's favour, ordering Mutinda and Syinix to pay KES 4 million in damages for copyright infringement. Here is a copy of the Judgement

Farmers Choice leveraged trend jacking strategy during Kenya Power Nationwide Blackout on Friday Morning.

Further Reading

Report: Tubular Labs has published its latest report on the state of social media video

Meta Shares Reels Marketing Tips in New Guide

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See you next week!