It is difficult to keep track of the latest industry news. Enter: SEJ Summary.
Every Friday, we condense the top stories you need to know—from search to social networking to artificial intelligence and beyond—into one easy-to-understand publication.
This week’s top stories include an update to Google’s desktop search, Bing reaching new heights, the RESTRICT law (and how it might affect TikTok users in the US), new AI tools for Slack, and vulnerabilities in the WordPress plugin.
Search news feed
Google has updated the desktop search user interface to display favicons and site names, making it easier for users to identify websites in search results and ads.
Google Search Central published a transcript of its latest SEO Hours that discusses WEBP images, duplicate content in different markets, moving large amounts of indexed pages, and more. (Google search center)
Google Trends has been updated with a new interface to make it easier to find trending topics in real time and see how other industries are using Google Trend data. (Word)
Microsoft reports that Bing search has reached 100 million daily active users, with nearly a third new, in both the Edge browser and the Bing search engine.
DuckDuckGo launched DuckAssist, an AI-powered feature that produces natural language answers using Wikipedia.
Brave Search has announced a new AI feature that abstracts web pages in 17% of search results into rich results.
PPC News Feed
Google Ads has introduced a new feature that provides direct access to the GA4 audience builder and Performance Max for travel goals. The new AI-powered feature allows hotel advertisers to create multi-format ads and reach more travelers across channels.
Microsoft announced several updates to its advertising platform, including Bing Local Search Ads to improve visibility in Bing local search results and a code-free conversion setup wizard.
Social media news feed
Question of the Week: Does the new restriction law ban TikTok and other technologies from a select list of countries?
TikTok introduced Chain, a new way for creators to monetize premium video content behind a paywall.
YouTube has relaxed its rules about profanity in monetized videos. Moderate profanity is eligible for full ad revenue, while moderate profanity may receive limited advertising.
Meta has announced a high-profile new suite of products that focus on generative AI features for Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.
Facebook announced upcoming changes, including making Messenger accessible within Facebook again. (Facebook newsroom)
LinkedIn revealed new collaborative articles with AI-powered prompts to encourage creators to share knowledge and insights.
Reddit introduced new features, including the ability to search a post’s comments and separate feeds for users to read or view trending topics. (upvote)
Discord has announced a new AI integration for Clyde, the bot assistant for its platform. (Discord blog)
Spotify has introduced a new interface with a TikTok-like feed and new tools for streamers – free hosting, recording and editing tools, and monetization features. (Spotify newsroom)
Artificial Intelligence News Digest
Slack introduced a beta ChatGPT for Slack from OpenAI that can summarize conversations, instantly find answers, and craft new messages. (sales force)
HubSpot announced new AI tools to help with content creation and task management. (HubSpot)
WordPress news feed
WP Statistics is a WordPress plugin with over 600,000 active installs, and it has patched a CSRF vulnerability.
An XSS vulnerability in the Elementor Contact Form Builder plugin affected as many as 200,000 WordPress sites.
Pack it up
It’s been a busy news week for search marketers and social media marketers. Given the rapidly evolving nature of AI, we expect to see more changes in search and social networking in the coming weeks.
Featured image: sebra/Shutterstock
