GU Live Lunch – Ep 145

Welcome to Live Lunch!

This week, the team talked about the latest Twitter changes, how Spotify is becoming more social, the latest Meta updates, changes to Google and the ongoing legal troubles with TikTok.

Here are the snippets:

3:00 – Google’s desktop search results will now display favicons (website icons/pictures) and site names, making it easier for users to identify websites listed in search results and ads. The changes were made to make them visually distinct, and clear labelling of ads will now be displayed to differentiate them from organic search results.

7:15 – TikTok is inching closer and closer to bans in the US and Europe due to ongoing security concerns, but Rishi Sunak has said he will not ban the platform in the UK.

14:20 – Facebook is introducing Contributor badges for groups. Badges can be earned by members who share, comment, react, and engage consistently within a group, which will encourage quality participation within them. Admins can turn off the ability for members to earn badges, and group members will be able to see other members’ badges.

17:30 – Spotify is revamping the mobile app. Users and subscribers will gain access to a handful of new features, including the vertically scrolling “discovery” feeds, a new “Smart Shuffle” mode for playlist recommendations, and a new podcast auto-play feature. Other updates include; Spotify clips – short-form videos, under-30-second vertical videos that allow you to invite fans into your creative process – think of this as Spotify Stories.

20:15 – Twitter has announced a 10,000 character limit – currently only available to Twitter Blue users, but this could soon roll out further to non-paid accounts.

23:00 – Reports suggest Meta is cutting another 10,000 jobs to reduce costs. This comes after the considerable cull of 11,000 employees just last November.

24:15 – New apps are on the market which allows users to have a bot “accompany you in your hard times” or to help you decide what you should have for breakfast – yes, really! The ‘AI friends’ are chatbot companions powered by artificial intelligence. Scary or useful?

25:33 – Twitter is rolling out direct message updates, including full encryption and the ability to reply to individual DM’s in a chain message. You can also use any emoji as a reaction rather than the seven pre-sets.

26:20 – Twitter is removing all live recordings stored in Periscope to cut costs. If you have anything archived – download them now, or it will be lost forever.

35:15 – LinkedIn has rolled out its Collaborative Articles – AI-generated articles, which you can contribute to, although we’re not sure how the selection of who is invited to contribute works – but keep an eye on those notifications!

42:00 – Huge Facebook update; Messenger will no longer be a separate app. This comes from the shift towards private messaging, so re-integrating the two after seven years could be a great way to get users back to seeing Facebook feed content and ads!

46:45 – Facebook community chats have rolled out to more and more groups. Admins can start a direct message to all members of a group. Also, there is no limit to the number of separate chats they can create, eek!

Join us for our live lunch break on Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn every Thursday at 12:00 pm for a few laughs and some useful tips thrown in too! Feel free to ask us any questions that you may have, or if you would like to join us, then please get in touch!