Techcetera 7.31 - Quarterly Reporting & tech FOMO

Twitter is now X. That's easily the biggest news but it's simply water cooler fodder for why rebrand and what Elon's future plans might hold.

In other news, tech giants all had quarterly numbers. Spoiler Alert! Their stocks are up, user engagement is up (except for Snap).

Social Media

• TikTok decides to add a less popular option and add text posting... to compete with X and Threads? Sounds like a case of FOMO gone wrong. (Source)
• Threads is adding DMs and "other things" to hook you like, giving threads users exposure on Instagram. (Source)
• Facebook crossed 3 Billion Users. Proving that I'm wrong and it's not dying, at least not immediately. (Source)
• Now might be the time to advertise on Twitter... erm "X". Pricing is way down and users are still reluctantly sticking with it. (Source)

Quarterly Reporting

Google

• In its earnings report released Tuesday (July 25), Alphabet reported?$7.665 billion?in revenue from YouTube ads, a?4.4% YoY?increase.
• Google Ad revenue was up 3.3%, with overall revenue up 7%[LINK]

Microsoft

• Bing (Microsoft) reported earnings last night was up 8% with overall revenue up 8% as well.

Meta

• Revenue for the quarter was $32.0 billion, an increase of 11% year-over-year.
• Costs and expenses were $22.61 billion, an increase of 10% year-over-year.
• Family monthly active people (MAP) increased of 6% year-over-year and DAU (daily active users) were up 5%
• Ad Impressions are up 34%, while the prices of ads are down.

Meta is facing increasing competition from other social media platforms, as well as from TikTok and other short-form video apps.?(Source)

LinkedIn

• A 22% increase in views of updates in the main feed year-over-year
• A 25% increase in public conversations in the app YoY
• Newsletter creation increased 10X in 2022

Snap (Snapchat)

1. The company's community grew by 14% year-over-year to reach 397 million daily active users (DAU) in Q2 2023 . The Spotlight monthly active users exceeded 400 million on average in the quarter, up 51% year-over-year
2. AI Integration: The company introduced My AI, an AI-powered chatbot, which is now available to all Snapchatters globally. Since its launch, more than 150 million people have sent over 10 billion messages to My AI.

AI

• Stack Overflow launches it's own AI. Now users can ask questions without being banned or ridiculed for not googling hard enough. (Source)
• Shopify adds an AI assistant, but their video demo makes it look like an awful support bot and not anything actually useful (Source)

AI FORUM

Some CEOs are joining with Google to help protect us from them, supposedly. The forum covered these items.

Here are some of the specific risks that the Frontier Model Forum is looking to address:

• Bias. AI models can be biased, which can lead to discrimination and other harmful outcomes.
• Misinformation. AI models can be used to generate and spread misinformation, which can have a negative impact on society.
• Cybersecurity. AI models can be hacked, which could lead to the theft of sensitive data or the disruption of critical infrastructure.
• Weaponization. AI models could be used to develop autonomous weapons systems, which could pose a serious threat to humanity.