Bookmarks, banks & bans

Bookmark Metrics

A few months ago, Twitter 2.0 added a view count to tweets. This week they added a way to view how many times a tweet has been bookmarked. Not only is this cluttered UI a serious eyesore, but it speaks to the strange new design philosophy of Elon’s reign as Chief Twit: appearing relevant matters more than actual connection. 

For power users like himself, Elon seems to think that more numbers that can go up mean more ways the platform can pat you on the head and tell you you’re a good boy. More metrics equals more addictive dopamine hits. 

For the public, there’s a real desperation to prove that people are still using the site. “See, we got lots of big numbers and active users over here.” Twitter has always been a smaller platform compared to Meta’s apps, YouTube, or recently TikTok, but the thesis was that Twitter’s users are more influential. The collection of journalists, celebrities, and politicians who heavily used the site AND interacted with each other made Twitter’s impact on the culture bigger than its DAU counts. Twitter 1.0 never really figured out how to fully monetize that theory, but it seems like Twitter 2.0 isn’t even trying to prove that any longer. 

Platform Updates

Instagram 

• Instagram’s Testing a New ‘Top 3’ Sticker for Stories

The Rest of Meta 

• Meta Pauses Reels Bonus Program as it Develops a New Ad Revenue Share System

• Meta to lay off another 10,000 as Zuckerberg celebrates “year of efficiency”

• Meta Winds Down NFT Projects to Focus on Other Elements

• Meta to end Canadians’ access to news on Facebook and Instagram if Bill C-18 becomes law

TikTok

• Biden administration reportedly demanding that TikTok sell or face a ban

• TikTok Partners with Dentsu on New Campaign Performance Tracking Solution

• TikTok is preparing to launch search ads

Twitter

• Twitter’s $42,000-per-Month API Prices Out Nearly Everyone

• Great, tweets are showing another metric now (*eye roll* it’s bookmarks) 

• Twitter has been down-ranking the corporate accounts of its competitors

YouTube

• YouTube TV hikes price to $72.99 per month due to rising ‘content costs’

Google 

• Google Looks to Add Generative AI to Gmail, Docs, Slides and More

LinkedIn 

• LinkedIn expands its generative AI assistant to recruitment ads and writing profiles

Twitch 

• Twitch CEO Emmett Shear is stepping down

Culture Movers 

The Moon 

• Samsung caught faking zoom photos of the Moon

• NASA and Axiom unveil spacesuits astronauts will wear on the moon

Film & TV

• The Best, Worst, and Most Heartwarming Moments of the 2023 Oscars

Creator Economy 

• The Sephora x TikTok Incubator Program will teach beauty brands the potential of short-form video

• [Video] The Deceptive World of Ghost Kitchens 

• Influencer Parents and The Kids Who Had Their Childhood Made Into Content

Gaming 

• Epic will now let developers self-publish to the Epic Games Store

AI 

• OpenAI announces GPT-4 — the next generation of its AI language model

• Duolingo launches new subscription tier with access to AI tutor powered by GPT-4

Scams

• The Incredible Tantrum Venture Capitalists Threw Over Silicon Valley Bank (as I said on Twitter, a lot of people working in tech don’t like the worst of these VC chucklefucks either, and would be happy to see a tech industry free of their influence) 

• What YouTube hustle gurus are really selling you

Banklash

I’m nowhere close to being a qualified financial reporter, but the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank definitely feels like a technology and culture story too. I don’t have a ton of new things to say about it, but I want to quickly point out how I think a few long-term trends are coming to a head around this story. 

In It’s A Wonderful Life, Jimmy Stewart calms down a potential bank run by pointing out how the Building & Loan’s money is invested in the community. After Bored Apes, the Metaverse, and years of disruption changing other industries, I don’t think anyone would accept that argument from SVB or the investors and VCs associated with it. Folks have been discussing techlash for a while now, but this weekend feels like a flashpoint in that ongoing cultural conversation. 

Ban TikTok?

TikTok enjoys the strange superposition of being both wildly popular with consumers and the most likely to be subject to serious government regulation. The one-two punch of being able to “do something about big tech” and “do something about China” all in one action makes them an easy target for politicians. 

I think there’s good reason to be skeptical about the safety of American user data with TikTok. I also don’t think we should put much trust in Mark Zuckerberg regarding user data safety. Or most of the major tech companies for that matter. I hope as we get closer to a possible TikTok ban that we don’t just look at this as a TikTok issue. The whole industry needs good consumer privacy and data security regulation if it ever wants to climb out of the PR hole that birthed techlash to begin with.