Welcome to the first edition of the Refinery Digital Roundup, your pit-stop guide to the latest and most exciting digital news.

This month’s edition has the freshest insights from our search and social teams, including:

• Meta’s latest stance on labelling AI images
• Google say goodbye to Bard, and hello to Gemini
• Plus, why Reddit’s deal with Google has ruffled feathers in the SEO community

Search Updates

#1 Google have rebranded Bard - say hi to Gemini

After announcing their latest AI model, Gemini, late last year - Google have now made the decision to rebrand their chatbot, Bard, to fall under the Gemini umbrella.

This includes releasing a Gemini app, which is available for Android phones (but not iOS yet).

This is likely just the start of expanding the Gemini product range. We predict Gemini will become the name of Google’s voice assistant in the future as the chatbot technology becomes more reliable.

Other AI updates

• The GPT store is open to those with a ChatGPT Pro subscription - meaning access to 1000s of GPTs - STORE LINK | MORE INFO
• Google have released an AI Chrome update with new features, including smart tab management - MORE INFO

#2 Moving towards a cookie-less future

Google have started depreciating third-party cookies. They have now rolled out cookie-less options to 1% of Chrome users and are aiming to have scrapped cookies by Q4 of 2024.

Currently, Chrome uses cookies to track users across multiple websites, and shares a lot of data with MarTech providers that could contain personally identifiable data. Stepping away from this hyper-specific targeting is a welcome step towards data privacy for most people using the internet.

Advertisers and marketers can adapt by utilising:

• First-party data activation
• Google Topics API
• Attention based metrics
• Social media advertising and targeting

#3 Google’s cache command has been retired

Google’s cache link has been cut from search results, and the "cache:" operator will follow soon

The original function of the cache was to help people access web pages when loading wasn’t as reliable by serving up the last version of the page it had seen.

Despite not being used much for its original purpose, a lot of marketers use this to check:

• Page loading issues
• What Google is caching
• A recent but older version of a web page to see if anything has changed

Tools we can use instead include:

• Google Search Console
• Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine

#4 Reddit and Google shake hands over $60M per year API deal

After reaching a deal in February, Google will be using Reddit’s API to:

• Display real-time discussions in search (like it currently does with Twitter via its Firehose API)
• Use its content for training models

Google is also giving Reddit access to Vertex AI, which is an AI-powered service that helps companies to improve their search results.

EXTRA: Reddit is already being promoted heavily in Google search results

SEO’s aren’t happy about the extra attention the platform has been receiving from Google. Although helpful for queries where searchers are looking for opinions, Reddit has a prevalent spam issue.

A study by Glen Alsopp shows:

“The ‘Discussions and Forums’ SERP feature was present in 77% of searches, and Reddit was present in 97.5% of those [...] 51% of Reddit’s top-ranking threads currently have spam as a top comment.”

Despite this, rankings for Reddit (and other User Generated Content heavy forum sites like Quora) have soared recently.

Social Updates

#1 Instagram and Threads are making political content ‘opt-in’

Source


Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said,

“If you want political recommendations, you will have a control to opt into getting them. These recommendations updates apply to public accounts and only in places where we recommend content”.

You’ll be able to control this by a toggle once it has been implemented.

#2 TikTok is the no.1 platform for discovering new mobile games

TikTok recently released a report that shows TikTok is the #1 platform for discovering new mobile games for ages 18 - 24.

The report also revealed:

• Modern Gamers are 28% more likely to recommend games they find culturally relevant
• Modern Gamers are 27% more likely to recommend games that care about its fans
• Modern Gamers are 27% more likely to recommend games that their friends talk about
  
  
  
  

#3 Meta is going to start labelling AI generated images

In the next few months, Meta will start labelling images that they identify have been AI generated.

They have already been doing this with images created using their Meta AI feature.

Meta’s President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg said,

“As the difference between human and synthetic content gets blurred, people want to know where the boundary lies,”

What the label might look like

Other key news and insights

• TikTok is expanding Creative Assistant to Adobe Express // Source
• Threads now has 130M users and is continuing to see steady growth // Source
• Snapchat is now up to 800M monthly users // Source

See you next time

Enjoyed that? Take a look at some of our other blogs below, and watch this space for the next Refinery Digital roundup.

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