Q2 earnings were released for many major tech companies last week, and there’s been some positive news for the industry. Meta and Alphabet, amongst others, have seen growth in revenue on the same period last year. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined how AI was being used to drive results: “Almost all our advertisers are using at least one of our AI-driven products”.
TikTok offers users text-only posts
If you want to send a good old fashioned text (based) message, TikTok might not be the first platform that springs to mind. However, the app has said it will now offer that function to give people “another way to express themselves”. TikTok users will now be able to post photos, videos or text, and will be able to customise posts by adding sound, location or Duets (video reactions to posts by other TikTok users).
X rolls out creator ad revenue sharing program
Twitter, sorry, X is rolling out its ads revenue sharing program for creators to anyone globally who meets the eligibility criteria. Creators will need to be subscribed to X Blue (the new name for Twitter Blue, obvs) or be a Verified Organisation, have at least 15M impressions on their cumulative posts within the last three months, and have at least 500 followers. “We want the process to be as simple as possible” says the company – which, if true, will make a nice change. In other X news, the bird mobile app icon has now been replaced by an X, and Kanye ‘Ye’ West has now been reinstated on the platform.
WhatsApp adds quicker video message option
WhatsApp is introducing instant video messages that allow users to respond in a chat with clips up to a minute long. The messages will auto play upon receipt, though thankfully they will be on mute as default. While you can already send video messages on Whatsapp, this new process makes it a little quicker and easier. As they exist solely in the platform, they won’t clutter up your phone with poor quality footage of your pet/child doing something cute, or similar.
Ones to watch
Meta’s mobile version of Horizon Worlds, its VR metaverse social platform, may finally launch soon, and Instagram is working on a label to make it easier to identify AI generated content.
