Today in Digital Marketing - "TwItTeR iS EnFoRcInG LoNg StAnDiNg API RuLeS"

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Friday, January 20th. Today, a new tool makes it easier to dip your toes into the retail ad platforms. Twitter burns yet another bridge, but maybe it's the right call. Google's new AI can spy on your shelves. YouTube's new tagging workflow might bring you more local buyers. And a curious decision by LinkedIn. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead on Today in Digital Marketing. A new AI tool could help advertisers peer beyond the walled gardens of major retailers.

Starting point is 00:00:31 Horizon Media's e-commerce division Night Market just launched a new tool called Neon, which is designed to help advertisers optimize their media spend across multiple retail media networks. So we're talking about the networks like Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, and so on. These retail media networks are typically walled gardens, which means it can be difficult for advertisers to compare and predict where to allocate their budgets. Horizon aims to fix that. According to the media agency, its AI platform can predict quarterly ROI

Starting point is 00:01:01 based on client sales data, retailer-reported campaign performance, and historical marketing mix modeling ROI. An executive for the agency said that if, for instance, a company is selling candy across different e-commerce platforms, Neon could make a prediction about which retailers and which channels within those retailers would drive the most revenue. Horizon claims the new platform is designed to increase advertisers' revenue by 20%. Twitter has officially pulled the plug on third-party apps.

Starting point is 00:01:37 Last week, we reported the company had started locking out third-party apps like TweetBot and Twitterific. After days of silence, Twitter seemed to confirm that it was blocking all those apps. A tweet from its developer account read, Twitter is enforcing its long-standing API rules that may result in some apps not working. Unquote. Except that wasn't true. There weren't any rules prohibiting the apps. If there were, Twitter wasn't saying which ones.

Starting point is 00:02:04 And certainly, wouldn't those apps have had action taken against them long before now? Twitter, realizing, apparently, that they didn't, in fact, have any long-standing API rules, yesterday wrote some and, without announcement, snuck them into its developer rules. That text

Starting point is 00:02:20 said you can't use its API, quote, to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter applications, which refers to the company's consumer-facing products, including its mobile applications, unquote. To be fair, this is the same policy that Facebook and Instagram and many other social platforms have. There aren't any third-party Facebook apps because Facebook shuts them down.

Starting point is 00:02:44 And considering that those third-party Twitter apps because Facebook shuts them down. And considering that those third-party Twitter apps weren't pulling any ads down from the API, honestly, and I can't believe I'm about to say this, I understand Elon's position here. But like most moves in his tenure, it was clumsy, done without any communication, and burned bridges. One of the most popular such apps, Tweetbot, which by the way predated Twitter's own app and was the first One of the most popular such apps, Tweetbot, which, by the way, predated Twitter's own app and was the first to use the word tweet in a Twitter context, has shut down. When you go to its website, all you get is an image of an elephant

Starting point is 00:03:14 looking at a gravestone with Tweetbot's name on it. Why an elephant? Because that's the logo for their new app, which is days from release, which is dedicated to the Mastodon platform. That app is called Ivory, and it's basically TweetBot for Mastodon. For us marketers, I should be clear that Twitter is not closing the API entirely. It still lets you use third-party tools to schedule content, review analytics, and book campaigns.

Starting point is 00:03:41 At least for now it does. An interesting use of artificial intelligence is blending the digital world with the in-store world. Google Cloud has designed an AI-powered shelf-checking tool that lets retailers use cameras to automatically track items on store shelves. This is an inventory scanning system. It uses machine learning models to translate this data into insights that can improve product availability, pricing accuracy, and increase visibility into the current inventory. According to Google, the AI system can work with images taken by cameras installed in the ceiling of a store or carried by robots that move up and down aisles. Stores can also upload photos taken using a phone to its engine.

Starting point is 00:04:29 The tool is currently in preview, but it will be available to retailers worldwide in the coming months. Google added that a retailer's images and data remain their own, and the AI can only be used to recognize products and price tags. Incidentally, a bit of adjacent Google news. Today, the company announced it would lay off 12,000 employees. That's about 6% of its global workforce and is the largest layoff in the company's history. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack,

Starting point is 00:05:04 fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. YouTube is testing a new location tagging feature that could help your brand reach local consumers. Up until now, location tagging has only been available on the shorts metadata editor, which is post-upload, meaning that creators had to

Starting point is 00:05:38 retroactively edit their shorts metadata and add a location to it. Now it's experimenting with letting brands and creators add locations to their shorts during this upload process on mobile. As social media today points out, location data can, of course, add contextual information to uploads, enabling YouTube's systems to highlight clips that are more relevant to users based on their location at that time. TikTok, for instance, uses location information to show users more localized clips and updates. And that will bring us to the lightning round. MailChimp was hacked again. The email marketing company confirming a data breach exposed the personal information of 133 customers.

Starting point is 00:06:20 It is the second time the company has been hacked in the past six months. Tumblr has started rolling out polls. Those with access to the feature can click on the orange poll icon and write their question. Add between two and ten options for voters to choose from. Polls can be set to run for one day or one week. LinkedIn has banished its curious emoji reaction. The platform has not provided any official confirmation regarding its removal. Wikipedia has a new look.

Starting point is 00:06:47 The website's desktop interface got its first update in over a decade that includes improved search. The update features a table of contents on the left side of the Wikipedia page and a relocated search bar at the top. Our LinkedIn newsletter, it's called the top story, and it will send you our top digital marketing story each day directly to your inbox and into your LinkedIn feed. You can sign up for that at todayindigital.com slash top story. It is completely free. There's also a link in the show notes. Today in Digital Marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories of the Tsunamic First Nation on Vancouver Island.

Starting point is 00:07:37 Our associate producer is Steph Gunn. Production coordinator, Sarah Guild. Podcast music licensing by Source Audio. Ad coordination by Red Circle. And you know, not many people know this, but our theme composer, Mark Blevis, is an internationally recognized fashion expert. I don't know why we're still friends, frankly. I still think socks and sandals are perfectly fine, but like he was telling me the other day, don't you know about the new fashion, honey?

Starting point is 00:08:08 All you need are looks and a whole lot of money. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful weekend, friends. And I will see you on Monday. Bye.

Today in Digital Marketing - "TwItTeR iS EnFoRcInG LoNg StAnDiNg API RuLeS"

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