Today in Digital Marketing - Will Meta’s Twitter Competitor Kill the Once-Mighty Birdsite?

Starting point is 00:00:01 It's Tuesday, April 25th. Today, Zuckerberg versus Musk, the showdown for the very future of Twitter. Deepfake election ads aren't just theory anymore. Google ad revenues fall again. An entire country recommends its citizens block online ads. And today's the day, a major programming announcement about this very podcast. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing. Meta's Twitter alternative is on the way. Last month, we reported that the tech giant was looking to create its own Twitter clone. Now it appears the project is gaining momentum with the development of its new text-based social app called Barcelona. According to an internal prototype shared by an app researcher, the

Starting point is 00:00:46 upcoming app is now pitched as Instagram for your thoughts with a text-based feed of posts that aims to target the private messaging boom. Socialmediatoday.com notes that it sounds eerily similar to Instagram's recently added channels feature, which lets brands and public figures push messages to their followers. But Barcelona is a standalone app that lets other users follow and stay updated on their text updates, pretty much like Twitter. It's still unclear when Barcelona will be launched, but here's what we do know. It will be a separate app. It will use your Instagram credentials for login. Your Instagram ID will also be the username for the new app.

Starting point is 00:01:27 500 characters appears to be the maximum length of posts for now. And Barcelona will be decentralized, although the specifics of this have yet to be defined. Generative AI has come for political campaigns. U.S. President Joe Biden announced his reelection campaign this morning, and the Republican National Committee just went full black mirror with a new AI-generated attack ad. A disclaimer at the top of the ad says, built entirely with AI imagery, while the caption underneath the YouTube video says, an AI-generated look into the country's possible future if Joe Biden is reelected.

Starting point is 00:02:05 This morning, an emboldened China invades Taiwan. Financial markets are in free fall as 500 regional banks have shuttered their doors. Border agents were overrun by a surge. The ad features a series of stylistic images depicting a possible future under Biden's leadership, including explosions in Taiwan after a Chinese invasion and military deployments on U.S. streets. It's unclear what tools were used to create the images and whether they violate any terms and conditions, since some AI generators limit overtly political images. But as The Verge points out today, most of the images in the campaign are pretty generic and could be generated without

Starting point is 00:02:45 defying any of these systems filters. As the AI landscape evolves, Google is expected to report a second straight drop in ad revenue. The Wall Street Journal reporting today that Alphabet's ad revenue for the first quarter is expected to be $53.7 billion. That is a 2% drop over the same period last year. This would mark the company's third quarterly decline in ad sales since going public, following a 3.5% decline in the fourth quarter of last year. According to the report, this decline is attributed to economic uncertainty and the company's attempts to capitalize on recent AI advancements. But Alphabet's total revenue is expected to increase by 1.5% to $70 billion in the first

Starting point is 00:03:31 quarter as a result of continued growth in the company's cloud computing unit. Despite typically attracting a considerable amount of brand spend, YouTube is expected to report a third consecutive quarterly sales decline, with ad revenue for the first quarter dropping 5% compared to the year prior to $6.5 billion. So, didn't have this on my 2023 bingo card. An entire country is now urging its citizens to use ad blockers, which are being hailed as protectors against fraudulent online ads. The government of Singapore recently issued the recommendation for the use of ad blockers, citing their effectiveness in preventing scams disguised as legitimate ads from appearing on

Starting point is 00:04:16 users' screens. According to GovTech, that's the statutory board responsible for Singapore's public digital services, ad blocking not only protects against scams, but also results in faster page loading times and reduced data usage. The move follows similar advice from the FBI. Last year, we reported that the FBI issued a statement advising people to install ad blockers due to cyber criminals using search engine ad services to impersonate real brands. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit?

Starting point is 00:04:57 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. Is Be Real's moment over? If nothing else, it's feeling some pressure. In its glory, the social app reached 73 million monthly active users last year. This prompted some to declare it as the next big thing and maybe signaling a return

Starting point is 00:05:25 to authentic social app connections. The company recently published a blog post saying it's growing steadily and now has more than 20 million daily active users. But the functionality in the app remains limited. The app only notifies users once per day to share what they're doing. There are no advanced engagement or usage features or significant opportunities for brands or advertisers. Now, B-Real's testing some new features like Spotify integration and the ability to post multiple photos in an effort to expand its offering. But as socialmediatoday.com notes, it appears that the Instagram but authentic ship has sailed and the app is struggling to catch up. And that will bring us to the lightning round. Yelp now lets users add videos to their reviews. Users can add videos of up to 12 seconds alongside their text reviews and photos. The platform is also rolling out some suggested review topics,

Starting point is 00:06:20 four new review reactions, and of course, some AI-powered features. TikTok has released a new guide called Making Creator Marketing Easy, based on the best-performing videos on its creator marketplace, Brand Connection Platform. The guide provides techniques for improving collaborations with your creators, such as campaign planning and connecting with the right influencers. And this is honestly the best news I've heard all week. Google Authenticator can now sync any of your one-time two-factor authentication codes that it generates to the cloud. Previously, these codes were stored locally on a single device,

Starting point is 00:06:57 which meant that if you lost your phone, you lost access to any service set up with Google Authenticator's system. This new sync feature can be accessed by simply updating the Authenticator app. The time has come, friends, to let you all in on our big secret that we've been working on for the last month or month and a half now, I think. We have a new podcast. Don't worry, it's not replacing this one. This one will stay exactly the same. The new podcast, though, is for people who like deeper dive, more Richard documentary stuff. And in each episode, we will be going deep, deep into the backstory behind the scenes of the world's most compelling ad campaigns, the most talked about

Starting point is 00:07:46 campaigns. We've been working really hard on it. I think you'll like it. You can find it anywhere you get your podcasts. It is called Behind the Ad with Todd Maffin. And the URL is behindthead.page. And tomorrow, a special, we will be airing a full episode from the podcast. This one is about Apple's iconic ad, 1984, that will be coming to you tomorrow while the rest of us are off at a staff retreat. Again, it's called Behind the Ad with Todd Mappin. You can find it anywhere you get podcasts or just go to behindthead.page.

Starting point is 00:08:19 Thanks for listening. We hope you like it. We'll be back here on Thursday with a regular episode. Just wanna have fun Have my pick just like any mini I'm a bad girl, I ain't too friendly Thanks for listening. We hope you like it. We'll be back here on Thursday with a regular episode.

Today in Digital Marketing - Will Meta’s Twitter Competitor Kill the Once-Mighty Birdsite?

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.