Sep 4, 2020

Geekout Newsletter #10 - ⚠️ WARNING: This may be too geeky for you ⚠️

Issue #10 • View online

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Hello Geeks! 👋

While the world is still going crazy with the devastating impact of a global pandemic, Trump being Trump, and 2020 just being a really f**king weird year… I wondered where I would be, or what I might be doing if I had taken a different career path and wasn’t working in the world of social media.

I posed this question to the social media managers in my Facebook Group. The answers were… Well, entertaining. Read the replies here and add your own?

Anyway… Back to business.

Your weekly TikTok U.S. ban/sale drama update:

No. TikTok is still not banned in the U.S.
No. TikTok has still not been bought by Microsoft, Oracle, Walmart…Starbucks, KFC, or anyone else. Yet.

Tip: Buy more popcorn, this one’s gonna run on for a while yet. 🍿

Soooo… Fancy a sneak peek at loooooong list of cool new social media platform features uncovered this week? No problem! This week is jam-packed with social media geeky goodness.

Catch you on the twitters when you’re done. 💬

— Matt

❗️ PS. My good friend @ChrisMessina kindly hunted this Geekout Newsletter on Product Hunt!

I would love you forever if you upvoted it here and left a glowing review 🙏 ❤️

🚨 Everyone's talking about...

Facebook will stop accepting new political ads a week before the US presidential election

www.theverge.com • Share

Forget just our little social media news bubble, how Facebook and Twitter handle the US election is likely to be one of the most important stories in the whole world over the next few months. Given it’s easy to imagine Trump or his team announcing they’ve ‘won’ even if they haven’t, Mark Zuckerberg holds a lot of power over how millions of Americans perceive the election result.

While Facebook has said it will stop accepting new political ads a week before the election, existing ads will still run, and the big problem isn’t ads anyway, it’s organic posts by Pages and normal users.

To be fair to the big social media companies, they’ve been wargaming this stuff for months, and Facebook has a partnership with Reuters that could help Americans receive reliable news about the result. But in an age of rampant disinformation, the stakes are high and history will judge Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey on how their platforms perform between now and inauguration day 2021.

TikTok Deal Talks Are Snarled Over Fate of App’s Algorithms

$$$

www.wsj.com • Share

Last week, it looked like the announcement of a deal for ByteDance to sell TikTok in some form to either Microsoft and Walmart, or Oracle and a bunch of venture capitalists was just days away. But now China has thrown a spanner in the works.

The news that the Chinese government wants a say in whether a deal goes ahead is down to them seeing TikTok’s recommendation algorithm as ‘sensitive technology.’ But it makes a messy, risky deal even more messy, if that seems possible.

Bloomberg reports this might mean any deal is postponed until after the presidential election in November. But the chaos hasn’t stopped yet another challenger enter the arena. It’s unclear whether Triller’s bid is anything more than a publicity stunt though, given ByteDance says no talks are underway with the company and its backers.

Zuckerberg Denounces Apple's Monopolistic “Stranglehold” On Your iPhone

www.buzzfeednews.com • Share

Mark Zuckerberg is more vocal than ever about Apple’s “stranglehold” on iOS. He made the comments in a staff meeting that was leaked. Facebook PR then did something it occasionally does in these situations, made the video of his comments public.

The fact Facebook is less worried about angering Apple than in the past shows change might be coming to iOS. From Facebook, to Microsoft, to Epic Games, plenty of huge companies are very unhappy with the status quo.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR, KHOROS

The social media pocket guide: Everything you need to know about social media for business

Learn how successful brands are using social media for business by connecting with audiences in more meaningful ways than ever before.

khoros.com • Share

👀 ICYMI...

Stories you need to know about:

Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp:

Facebook threatens news sharing ban in Australia

Facebook has threatened to block all news in Australia if plans to let news publishers charge tech companies to link to their content go ahead in the country.

www.bbc.co.uk • Share

Facebook is rolling out new terms of service to let it block or remove content, helping it avoid regulatory trouble ahead. [Bloomberg $$$]
Facebook could let you link your news subscriptions to your account, meaning you don’t hit the paywall when you open a news link in the Facebook app. [TechCrunch]
Facebook says it will not charge fees for online events for at least the next year. It is also rolling out an organic video testing tool that will be a massive help to social media managers. [Facebook Newsroom]
Facebook bungled its handling of the Kenosha killings, new reporting shows. [BuzzFeed News]
Facebook is paying people to shut down their accounts ahead of the election, as it researches its role in influencing elections. [The Verge]
Messenger has followed WhatsApp in adding a limit on forwarding messages, to help keep misinformation in check. [Facebook Newsroom]
Facebook says Watch has 1.25bn visitors per month, but it’s unclear exactly what counts as a visit towards this figure. [TechCrunch]
Ad buyers are nervous about advertising against Facebook’s growing in-stream video programme. [Digiday $$$]
Could AR glasses give you super-powered hearing? That’s what Facebook wants to find out. [The Verge]

Twitter:

Twitter quote tweets are now easier to find

Twitter has officially made ‘quote tweets’ a metric, making them easier to find and removing the confusion over whether ‘retweets with comments’ were double-counted retweets.

www.theverge.com • Share

Another teenager is suspected of involvement in summer’s big Twitter hack. This one’s just 16 years old. [New York Times $$$]
Twitter has placed warning labels over more of Trump’s tweets, after he encouraged people to vote twice. [@TwitterSafety]
Academics have created an algorithm to detect misogyny on Twitter. [TNW]

TikTok:

TikTok creators can soon sell merch directly in the app with new Teespring integration

TikTok’s new partnership with Teespring will let creators sell merch to their fans directly via the app. The new feature is expected to start to rolling out this month.

www.theverge.com • Share

TikTok has launched a business marketing partner programme for brands and advertisers. It’s a suite of third party TikTok adtech / martech tools recommended by the company. [@tiktok_comms]
TikTok says a “record-breaking” 2 million users tuned into The Weeknd Experience’s immersive virtual concert on the platform. [@tiktok_comms]
Snap’s Evan Spiegel has talked down the chances anyone who buys TikTok will succeed without ByteDance’s engineers. He would do though, wouldn’t he? [Financial Times $$$]
TikTok has a problem with scammy ads, according to a new report. [CNet]

And the rest:

Snapchat had a big August amid TikTok uncertainty

It’s unclear why Snapchat had a spike in usage last month, but it could be people checking it out again after the uncertainty around TikTok’s future.

techcrunch.com • Share

Podcast listens on an Apple Watch artificially inflate listener numbers. The Interactive Advertising Bureau will no longer count these listens. [MacRumors]
It looks like ByteDance’s music-streaming app Resso is another hit for the company. It has 15.2m total installs according to Sensor Tower. [CNBC]
The UK government paid reality TV stars to get its Covid-19 public health messages across to young people on social media. [Sky News]
The BBC wants its staff to stop sharing opinions on social media, following accusations of on-air bias. [The Guardian]
Elon Musk is now worth more than Mark Zuckerberg. [Mashable]

🔨 Tool of the week

Old Layout for Facebook reverts the new layout back to the old!

I love clever little Chrome Extensions like these, but I wonder how long it will be before Facebook sends a cease and desist or alters code to stop this tool working.

oldlayout.com • Share

📲 Quick hits

Updates, experiments, and useful info snippets:

Facebook is testing Twitter-style topics that users can follow in Watch. [TechCrunch]
Facebook is rolling out a ‘Parenting’ Group type that allows for anonymous posts. [@MattNavarra]
Facebook’s photo export tool has been updated to support Dropbox and Koofr in addition to Google Photos. [TechCrunch]
Facebook is testing an ‘accounts center’ that will let you control how your accounts will work together once all its messaging apps are connected. [@MattNavarra]
Facebook has started highlighting a Group’s rules before users post. [@MattNavarra]
Facebook is working on the option to use avatars in Messanger audio calls. [@alex193a]
Facebook’s Ad Library now lets you filter by when ads where active. [@RobLeathern]
Facebook has filed a trademark application to use its name for video games and associated products. This follows the recent de-emphasising of the Oculus brand name. [@usptoTM]
Facebook will now notify third-party developers if it finds a security vulnerability in their code. [TechCrunch]
Your Instagram followers could soon automatically see your Stories in Facebook, even if they don’t follow you there, judging by a new test. [@MattNavarra]
A possible new Oculus headset turned up on Walmart’s website. [Android Central]
Want to do work inside VR? Collaboration tool Spatial is now available on Oculus Quest. [Upload VR]

Spatial on Oculus Quest

Facebook has launched a new education stream aimed at community managers. [Social Media Today]
Instagram has launched a dedicated tab for Reels in India, apparently because the feature is proving very popular there. [The Economic Times]
Instagram is working on a ‘Feed’ option in the camera section, joining Story, Reels, and Live. [@alex193a]
Instagram appears to be sending out new invites to its alpha programme on Android. [@MattNavarra]
WhatsApp is bringing vacation mode back. It appears in the current Android beta. [@WABetaInfo]
WhatsApp has launched a new portal for security disclosures. [TNW]
Twitter is boosting its accessibility efforts after the voice tweets test proved it was very much behind on that front. It plans to add automated captions to audio and video by early 2021. [Twitter blog]
Twitter is adding more context to trending topics amid concerns they help misinformation spread. [Social Media Today]
Twitter has added new search prompts to help US users find official voting advice. [Social Media Today]
Twitter is working on new features including a new DM requests interface, options for auto-translation, ‘shared content’ for DM conversations, and clearer labels on options in the profile menu. [@MattNavarra]
Twitter has been spotted labelling the people in a Twitter conversation, but I’m not sure why that’s necessary! [@MartinSFP]
Twitter now lets you download your data again. The feature was turned off as a precaution after July’s hack. [@TwitterSupport]
TikTok will now let you ‘sample’ other users’ videos for use in your own with a new feature called Stitch. [TechCrunch]
TikTok now lets all business accounts add their email address to their profile. [@MattNavarra]
TikTok will run an education session on creating branded AR effects, next week. [Social Media Today]
TikTok has changed the tag line of its App Store listing from ‘make your day’ to ‘global video community.’ App Store SEO in action! [@MattNavarra]
Snapchat has rolled out Shortcuts so you can send snaps to multiple friends in a single tap. [@EverythingSnap]

Setting up a Snapchat Shortcut

Snapchat will now let you save your favourite lenses for easy access. [@KenSchillinger]
YouTube has added a ‘create’ button on Android to encourage people make more video on the go. [9to5Google]
LinkedIn has added an Events tab to Pages, and new controls to help Page owners find out more about their followers. [Search Engine Land]
LinkedIn has published a guide on using its ad tools for brand building and lead generation. [Social Media Today]
LinkedIn is working adding swipe-up links to Stories, which hasn’t yet rolled out worldwide. [@alex193a]
Twitch has rolled out Watch Parties to all creators worldwide. [TechCrunch]
Twitch livestreams are now available in Amazon’s Music app. [TechCrunch]
Microsoft has developed new tech to detect deepfakes. [Microsoft blog]
Nvidia’s new Broadcast app wants to make life easier for streamers. [Pocket-lint]
Adobe Spark now supports animations in its social media graphics tool. [TechCrunch]