Two-thirds of the world’s population is on social media

There are now 5bn+ social media users worldwide, according to new data in the latest annual Digital 2024 report. A further 266m people signed up to TikTok, Instagram, Facebook et al during the last 12 months. Typical daily social media usage has now jumped to 2 hours and 23 minutes, and people use 6+ platforms monthly. 

Willy Wonka gone wrong highlights AI risks

Videos and images from a disastrous Willy Wonka pop-up experience lit up social media platforms this week. The event in Glasgow, which had an entry fee of £155, was sold as a professional, immersive experience, but its AI-driven ad campaign was simply a ruse. When parents arrived with their children last weekend, they were subjected to a shoddily decorated hall with strangely haunting cosplay characters, many of whom have since gone viral. The disastrous event highlights how generative AI can often be very deceptive.

Google to shut down Business Profile-made websites

Creating web pages and content for local audiences is critical in 2024 but those relying on Google’s Business Profile infrastructure will have to look for alternatives from June this year. Google said this week: “Websites made with Google Business Profiles are basic websites powered by the information on your Business Profile. In March 2024, websites made with Google Business Profiles will be turned off and customers visiting your site will be redirected to your Business Profile instead.”

Threads users don’t want auto-archiving posts

Ephemeral social media posts can be a blessing in a digital age where everything is seemingly stored and available forever. However, Threads users are not interested in an auto-archiving option for posts on the platform. Insta boss Adam Mosseri asked whether Threads should archive posts after a month. The response was a resounding no; 84% chose “never!!” in the poll, while 7% said they would be happy to see content archived after 12 months.

Google publishes “Crawling explained” video 

Google’s SEO education series “How Search Works” returned with another video this week about crawling. The new, seven-minute clip quickly explains how Googlebot finds and catalogues the trillions of pages on the web. Google Analyst Gary Illyes explained: “Most new URLs Google discovers are from other known pages that Google previously crawled.” The video also talks about fetching, rendering, sitemaps and useful tools that support the crawling process. 

LinkedIn shares feed algorithm changes

New details about LinkedIn’s algorithm have emerged in a new podcast this week, following a discussion involving the platform’s editor-in-chief and director of engineering. Good news for content creators; high-value posts now have a longer shelf-life. In the past, excellent posts had the habit of disappearing from people’s feeds after just a few days. Now, the algorithm can identify these posts as “uniquely useful” and then surface them as a “suggested post” to users months later. LinkedIn’s editor, Dan Roth, added: “If you can just share knowledge into the world, I guarantee you things are going to work out. They won’t always work out for every single post, but over the length of your posting, it is going to work out for you.”