Threads feels the heat from Bluesky
Bluesky’s recent success appears to have forced Threads’ hand after it unveiled several long-awaited updates this week. Users have been asking for alternative feeds on Meta’s newest platform for months now. Currently, it still defaults to a “For You” feed.
On Wednesday (27 November), Threads confirmed that the ‘Following’ feed will remain visible on home screens, even when refreshed, so users can switch more easily between the two. There will also be an option to view custom lists from here too.
It might not be too late for Threads. New data shows 35m new users signed up to the conversational app this month. Bluesky recently surpassed a 20m total user base milestone.
YouTube still the most popular app in the UK
YouTube is still the king of social media apps in the UK. More than 44m people watch content on Google’s video hosting platform every month, putting it ahead of Facebook (43.1m), Instagram (36.1m), and TikTok (24m).
Some more bad news for X, though: Elon Musk’s app now attracts 22.1m users per month, down from 24m a year earlier.
Google faces £7bn UK lawsuit
Google is in hot water globally as authorities chastise the company for abusing its search engine dominance and stifling competition.
The UK is next in line after the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ruled that a £7bn lawsuit filed against Google for “forcing” manufacturers to pre-install Search and Chrome (among other allegations) can proceed.
Google believes the latest legal proceedings are “speculative and opportunistic”.
Consumer advocate Nikki Stopford, who is fronting the case, disagrees. She said: “Google continues to rig the search-engine market to charge advertisers more, which raises the prices they charge consumers.”
AI-generated content plagues LinkedIn
A new study by Wired has found that 54% of long-form viral content on LinkedIn is likely AI-generated.
The tech website scanned almost 9,000 posts over six years from 2018 and, unsurprisingly, noted a huge uptick in content produced by generative AI tools after the launch of ChatGPT.
The surge has since plateaued, but lots of content on LinkedIn is still written by AI.
In response, LinkedIn said it doesn’t track how many posts are crafted using large language model tools.
It added: “But we do have robust defences in place to proactively identify low-quality and exact or near-exact duplicate content. When we detect such content, we take action to ensure it is not broadly promoted.”
Google’s core update rollout continues
It’s now been more than two weeks since the launch of the Google November 2024 Core Update. After a relatively calm period for SERPs last week, tracker tools recorded a spike in volatility on Tuesday (26 November).
SEMrush logged a “high” range score of 8.0, a trend that was matched by others, including Advanced Web Rankings and SERPstat.
SEOs are expecting Google to announce the white chequered flag for the last core update of 2024 any day now.
