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Hello, geeks!

Welcome to this week’s Geekout!

To kick things off this week…

Ever wanted to be Mark Zuckerberg (without the Senate hearings)?

Check out this new card game. It’s wild! 😮

Also

Transform that boring LinkedIn ‘#OpentoWork profile frame into something less… cringe… with this free tool. ✨

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Meta Moderation Madness Strikes Again…!

Another week, another bizarre Meta moderation decision on my account.

This time, Meta decided to remove one of my posts from 2018!

I’m not sure if this is a slight against Rihanna, my taste in music, or the Meta AI’s nipple fears.

Fortunately, Meta’s PR pitbull Andy Stone stepped in, notifying me (via Threads) that it was a mistake (obvs!) and the post had been reinstated.

But he didn’t respond to my follow up comment about the seemingly increasing frequency of ridiculous content moderation decisions the companies platforms keep making. 🤔

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Watch me look awkward on stage in Kosovo… 😬

I recently travelled to Kosovo to speak at the Growth Tank Event.

I spoke about my unconventional career path into social, the challenges of working in social with ADHD, the state of social media in 2024, what happens next to TikTok, X, Threads, Bluesky, and more.

I have uploaded it to YouTube for you to watch for free, if you’re interested.

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DON’T MISS THIS…

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Stop second-guessing your content — this FREE playbook breaks it all down for you. [AD]

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🔥 GEEKOUT HOT 5

Geekout’s pick of the hottest headlines in social this week:

2. Australia launches ‘landmark’ bill to ban social media for children under 16 [RESTRICTING]

3. Texas AG opens investigation into advertising group that Elon Musk sued for 'boycotting' X [SCRAMBLING]

4. Instagram will now let you ‘reset’ your recommendations algorithm, TikTok style [REFRESHING]

5. UK Government to summon Elon Musk to testify about X’s role in UK summer riots [GRILLING]

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🚨 EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT…

Bluesky seems to have “the juice”

It started last week, but this week it became a phenomenon - Bluesky is really taking off.

It blazed past 20 million users this week, and while X and Threads are still way ahead, it’s notable how many prominent X accounts have shifted over to Bluesky.

Publishers are now launching on Bluesky, while some journalists say X is “no longer a useful tool” for reporting. It’s worth noting that publishers aren't leaving X though, just adding another platform to their social repertoire.

So what’s the appeal? For some, engagement feels more real than X because it focuses on your followers rather than pushing your posts to randos who don’t get your jokes, like Threads does, or who want to lob abuse at you, like on X.

While it still has way more users, it looks like Threads is feeling the heat. It’s launched Bluesky-style custom feeds and is tweaking its algorithm to focus more on followers than engagement from beyond your own network.

But despite the hype, do you need Bluesky? The UK Prime Minister certainly says he doesn’t… yet. And while some celebrities on Bluesky are real, fake accounts have caught people out. In the world of UK politics, there was excitement among journalists when right-wing firebrands Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage appeared to sign up. Neither was a real account.

Some argue it still needs more normies, but for now it’s a fun place to hang out and pretend it’s still 2011 and the world is a calmer place. The vibes are generally good, and it turned out to be a good place to have fun around this week’s ridiculous Jake Paul v Mike Tyson boxing match.

Still, Bluesky has a tiny team of around 20, so features like a proper verification system to help stop those fake accounts might be a long way away. Connecting up your domain as your username is fiddly, and anyone could buy a similar domain to fool 90% of people.

And as for whether it’s “billionaire proof” as CEO Jay Graber claims… well, we’ll just have to see how soon its recent investors from the crypto world want a return.

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✨ NEW & NOTEWORTHY

Everything else you need to know from the past seven days…

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🤖 SOCIAL A.I.

The newest social media A.I. features spotted this week:

• Instagram is testing AI profile image and sticker generation tools

• TikTok could soon enable creators to build AI bots in their likeness

• Messenger is getting AI backgrounds for video calls

• Meta has begun its AI rollout on its Ray-Ban smart glasses in France, Italy, Ireland and Spain

• Meta has formed a product group to build AI tools for businesses

• WhatsApp is exploring a new interface to chat and talk with Meta AI.

• YouTube now lets some creators generate video backgrounds instantly using AI

• LinkedIn has added more AI assistance tools to Sales Navigator

• Bluesky says it won’t train AI on your posts

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💬 YOU CAN QUOTE ME ON THAT

When I’m quoted in the news, you’ll find it here:

Will BlueSky eventually dethrone X as the global town square? I gave my thoughts to The National:

Also:

• I spoke to the Telegraph about the 'alternative' vibe found on Bluesky

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😆 LOL

Amazon Prime Video’s social media manager is living their best life… They hit publish on this… delightful… Instagram Reel.

Tap the image below to watch in full: 😳 😆

primevideo

View more on Instagram

📈 MEMES

You probably hate it, but the Jaguar rebrand certainly got people meme-ing this week…

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🪧 BRANDS

So yes, the Jaguar rebrand has been a hot topic this week.

It’s either a massive screwup or the best ragebait campaign of all time.

People are talking about the Jaguar brand for the first time in years. Maybe the new brand will make sense when they reveal a new car that suits the brand? And maybe getting people upset about the death of the old brand is part of the lead-up to that?

If that’s the plan, it’s really working…

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🙊 WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

“I quit Twitter. Eleven years, man. It really changed. Grew dark.”

– Author Stephen King announces he’s moving to Threads

Also this week…

• Bluesky: “This is the kind of competition and innovation that's been missing from social for the last decade.” – Bluesky responds to Threads copying custom feeds
  

• Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says X rival is “billionaire proof" 🤔
  

• Meta lobbyist turned EU regulator, Aura Salla, says big tech rules have gone too far
  

• Instagram chief Adam Mosseri says Threads has "many times" as many daily active users as Bluesky has total signups, contradicting Similarweb's estimate
  

• A social media ban for UK under-16s “not on the cards” for now, the minister for technology has said
  

• Elon Musk criticised Australia’s proposed ban on social media for children

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😮 WTF?!

“The BBC wanted to ask Logan Paul serious questions about his crypto dealings. Logan Paul sent a lookalike to the interview.”

Also:

• X-tremely Foolish?: It turns out people are uploading their health data to X to train Grok, as Elon Musk suggested

• A Russian X account tweeting policy suggestions at Elon Musk is causing a full-on freakout

• Instagram has been flooded with hundreds of AI-generated influencers who are stealing videos from real models and adult content creators

• Social Shopping: This startup wants to bring TikTok shopping into the real world

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📲 NEW APP

BlueArk will scrape all your tweets from Twitter and import them to BlueSky. But a quote to move my 151,000 tweets and media was $85.90!

Also:

• The Bluesky firehose of posts visualized as a 1990s screen saver

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👌 PRO TIPS

• Instagram Image and Video Size and Dimensions in 2024 — for Posts, Stories, and Reels

• How to maximise the effectiveness of your LinkedIn ads

• Threads does NOT downrank posts with links, boss Adam Mosseri says

• Cool stuff you can do with Bluesky (top platform features, tips and tools)

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🪦 RIP

Social media features heading for the graveyard:

Also heading to the social media graveyard this week:

• LinkedIn is retiring Audio Events, its social audio feature.

• Google's DeepMind and YouTube built and shelved 'Orca,' a 'mind-blowing' music AI tool that hit a copyright snag

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🤦‍♂️ #FAIL

I mean, we’ve described this as a FAIL, and it is for Musk. But Grok is quite accurate here!

Also this week:

• Reddit went down not once, but TWICE within hours this week.

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👔 YOU’RE HIRED!

Hot new social media jobs worth checking out this week:

• Penguin Random House needs a Social Media Manager [London, UK]

• The Royal British Legion is on the lookout for a Social Media Manager [Remote, UK]

• The Empire State Building is hiring an Influencer Relations Manager [New York City, NY, USA]

• AmeriCares is looking for a Manager, Social Media and Influencer Marketing [Remote, USA]

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📊 SOCIAL STATS

238%

– The increase in retweets of Elon Musk’s posts on X. Starting around July 13th
Elon Musks’ posts X began receiving 138% more views and 238% more retweets than before that date 🤔

• Bluesky vs. X: One expert says Google treats Bluesky as 10x more important than X

• Mastodon says downloads have increased by 47% on iOS and 17% on Android, and its monthly active users grow to 894,000 across all Mastodon servers

• TikTok parent ByteDance reportedly values itself at $300 billion

• Creator Economy: The percentage of Bank of America customers earning income as content creators has continued to decline and is now 0.20%, down from its 2021 peak of 0.25%

• YouTube is the most cited source for Google's AI Overviews

• LinkedIn: More marketing jobs are being advertised on LinkedIn (up 76%)

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📈 CHARTED

Bluesky overtook Threads in daily website visits in both the US and UK this week, according to Similarweb 📈

Note that this is web visits so perhaps not surprising, as people Google Bluesky to find out more about it.

• US news influencers are mostly men who post on X

• Podcasting in 2024: Why everyone is now watching podcasts on YouTube

• YouTube has more CTV viewers than the total viewers of any platform except Netflix

• ByteDance’s explosive growth, charted.

• Tipping on social media: How much TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X take from creators in 2024

• Does Trump’s election signal a turnaround for advertising on X?

• ⁠TikTok’s US ad CPMs could rise 15.6% in Q1 2025, a bigger increase than CPMs on Meta, Snapchat, or YouTube

• Younger consumers are losing trust in influencers

• The most downloaded apps in the world in October

• The highest-earning apps in the world in October

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• India has ordered Meta to curb WhatsApp data sharing, and has levied a $25m fine. Meta will legally challenge the move. [Reuters $$$]

New features and tests:

Facebook:

• Facebook now shows a broadcast channel option for profiles using professional mode. [@mattnavarra]

• Facebook is inviting some creators to use licensed music for Reels. [@jonahmanzano]

Instagram:

• Instagram is testing a new icon for Reels. [@ihammod_oh]

• Updated and more customisable avatar designs are rolling out on Instagram. [@yassermasood]

• Instagram Notes now lets you add music to Spotify. [@jonahmanzano]

Messenger:

• Messenger has added a new ‘Channel invitations’ section. [@oncescuradu]

• Messenger will now show a stacked deck of photos in chats when you share multiple images, just like Instagram [Social Media Today]

Threads:

• Threads is testing a file upload progress bar. [@oncescuradu]

• Threads is rolling out a QR code for sharing your profile. [@jonahmanzano]

• Threads seems to be moving away from the Instagram-branded colour scheme by adopting its own splash screen. [@oncescuradu]

• Threads is experimenting with a new floating action button placed in the “Search” section. [@oncescuradu]

WhatsApp:

• WhatsApp is testing a new sticker creation feature, “With camera”. [@oncescuradu]

• WhatsApp is rolling out an updated call log management feature. [WABetaInfo]

• WhatsApp is testing animated confetti for New Year’s Eve. [@wabetainfo]

The rest: Creator Studio / Adtech / Quest and more:

• Microsoft is bringing Windows 11 to Meta Quest. [TechCrunch]

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• TikTok has launched its first ‘TikTok for Songwriters’ event. [TikTok Newsroom]

• TikTok has collaborated with National PTA to provide new online safety for teens and families. [TikTok Newsroom]

New features and tests:

• TikTok now displays the total number of likes gained by an account, in TikTok Search. [@oncescuradu]

• TikTok now lets you use Face ID or Touch ID to unlock the Activity Center. [@jonahmanzano]

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💥 EVEN MORE SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS & UPDATES

• Snap has accused New Mexico of intentionally friending alleged child predators, then blaming the company. [The Verge]

• The Kremlin denies it is behind recent disruptions to YouTube in Russia. [Reuters $$$]

• Tech giants are leaning on culture-war issues to splinter bipartisan support for the Online Kid Safety Bill. [Wall Street Journal $$$]

• The UK government is vague on how its new theoretically encryption-busting powers might be used. [The Register]

• Elon Musk has criticised Australia’s proposed ban on social media for children. [NBC News]

• Roblox is the latest target of state kids online safety bills. [The Verge]

• Turkey has fined Twitch 2 million lira for a data breach. [Reuters $$$]

New features and tests:

• WeChat has rolled out Passkey support for iOS users outside China. [MacRumors]

• The Crossant cross-posting app for iPhone is coming to Mac and iPad. [MacRumors]

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📰 WEEKEND READS

Geekout’s pick of the best longer reads to sink into over the weekend:

• How Bluesky is handling its explosive growth

• Inside Meta’s long-term vision to make its Orion glasses the Airpods of augmented reality

• Liberals are left out in the cold as social media veers right

• How Mark Zuckerberg went all-in to make Meta a major AI player and threaten OpenAI’s dominance

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😳 AND FINALLY…

This is giving me vertigo just looking at it! 😬

“A Facebook page, which began among a few friends, has grown into a popular photo collection of hazardous stairs.”

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📅 BACK NEXT WEEK…

…And that’s a wrap for this week’s Geekout.

Don’t trip (down the stairs) on your way out!

I’m heading off to make a start of my Christmas shopping. 🎄🎁

I dread it every year, and always leave it to the last minute!

But at least I can celebrate getting it done in time this year… Maybe.

Goodbye, geeks!

p.s. This newsletter is edited by Martin SFP Bryant