👀 Weekend Update: Massive Change to Google’s Business Model

GM nerds,

Welcome back to the newsletter that passes along the hottest tips in indexing:

Step 1. Be Reddit or Forbes

Step 2. Success

And if you can’t do that, Marketing Letter’s gotchu anyway

So here’s what’s good this week:

→ A Big Change to Google’s Business Model 👀

→ AI Insight: Public Opinion on Recent Developments 🤖

→ Stepping Up Your LinkedIn Game 🤔

→ more, obviously 💬

But first…

​​This Week's Video​ 🗣️🎙️​

In this week's video, I shared my thoughts on how utilizing Fiverr gigs can be a cost-effective way to improve local SEO efforts. I also provided insights into my rankings and the strategies that have been working for me. Tune in.

​​YouTube​

AI Insight 🤖

Big news from the AI guy.

→ More tea is being spilled on how AI mega-giants like OpenAI and Google violated copyright laws and did all sorts of nastiness to train their models. This NYT article - How Tech Giants Cut Corners to Harvest Data for A.I.- reports that they used transcriptions of YouTube vids: “OpenAI transcribed 1M+ hours of YouTube videos through Whisper and used the text to train GPT-4.” Which, BTW, is against the rules.

→ On that note, another NYT piece - Four Takeaways on the Race to Amass Data for A.I. - is also worth a read. These tech companies are making big moves to get more data, which is really proving to be a highly valuable, finite resource. The thirst for data is substantial enough that Meta "discussed buying a major publisher like Simon & Schuster."

→ “What could AI come for next?” You ask? How about OnlyFans? Sure, why not.

→ Finally, Meta partnered with Stanford’s “Deliberate Democracy Lab” to analyze public opinion on AI, coming up with some interesting findings:

“- The majority of participants from each country believe that AI has had a positive impact
- The majority believe that AI chatbots should be able to use past conversations to improve responses, as long as people are informed
- The majority of participants believe that AI chatbots can be human-like, so long as people are informed.”

Click through for more.

What’s Going Down @ Google 📊

→ Speaking of AI, it’s looking like Google may start charging users for its premium AI products, such as the Gemini AI assistant in Gmail and Google Docs, in what is obviously a major shake-up of its current business model. And, Google also dropped a report on “how AI can accelerate growth in developing countries.”

→ Pour one out for the Translate Community Contribution feature, which Google has decided to discontinue. Improvements in advanced machine learning techniques made this decision happen, and it's worth noting that people can still give feedback through Google Translate.

→ If you’re wondering how to make Google Trends work for your marketing, this piece explains its usefulness in doing stuff like doing keyword research, building topic clusters, improving YouTube SEO, optimizing your local SEO, leveraging seasonal trends and trending topics for social media content and otherwise, and monitoring competitors.

Social Media Round-up 📲

→ For a brief reminder that the most buzzworthy moves don’t always pay out, here’s a look at the ten years since Facebook purchased Oculus, and the lack of a VR revolution. Is anyone buying groceries at Metaverse Wal-Mart?

→ Hopefully, VR has been worth the $50B+ Zuck has dropped on it.

→ While Meta stacks the occasional L, it’s obviously important to keep in mind that they do stay winning as well, as this article reminds us. TLDR; “Instagram generated $32.4B in ad revenue in 2021, which is more than YouTube's $28.8B in ad revenue that year. And YouTube gives up to 55% of every ad dollar it generates to content owners, while Instagram's cost is much less.”

→ LinkedIn has officially launched its Connected TV ads, billing it as an effective method for reaching engaged B2B decision-makers: “Right within Campaign Manager, you can easily launch a LinkedIn CTV campaign and scale it across our network of publishers, including Paramount, Roku and Samsung Ads.“

→ Speaking of LinkedIn, if you’re using it as part of your grind, this study has some useful insights re: “Engagement Rate Data and Top-Performing Content Insights.” For example, “multi-image posts” generate the most engagement, video posts generate the most shares, and brands are both posting more and seeing more engagement on LinkedIn.

Jacky Chou​
Founder of Indexsy
hello@indexsy.com
Let's Connect on Twitter👇

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