Every two weeks, Vanguard distills hundreds of digital media headlines into the best “byte”- sized pieces of useful information. Each edition has news ranging from the latest Facebook algorithm changes to best practices for email marketing. Share Digital Bytes with your organization to keep your digital strategies ahead of the pack.
Digital Bytes
Yesterday, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes publicly called for the company to break up. While former Facebook employees have been criticizing the company for years, this was a well-orchestrated renewed push for changes at Facebook that features a lengthy op-ed and accompanying video. Mark Zuckerberg owns 60% of Facebook voting shares, so it’s unclear how this renewed call for change will have an impact if it doesn’t have his support.
In Other News …
- Google will begin indexing podcasts as part of updates to Google Search. With more than 500,000 podcasts in existence, this will be a great new way to search podcast content without having to listen to hours of audio.
- In dystopian news, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) made some headlines this week, and you can read up on everything from hallucinating AI to facial recognition In positive news, Instagram is planning to roll out an AI solution to combat anti-vaccine messages.
- Confession time: I love TikTok! It’s replaced the hole Vine left with absurdist humor and is a great way for me to laugh a little before I go to bed. It will take some time for brands to figure out how to best use the platform, but in the meantime catch up on the basics with a primer from The New York Times.
Fun Resources
- Axios Media Trends is a weekly newsletter covering digital and traditional media trends. This week’s newsletter has a great breakdown of social media platforms (just scroll down to the middle of the page).
- Don’t annoy your audience! Social Media Today breaks down 8 ways your social media content may not be hitting the mark.
Finally …
In one of the most creative uses of Instagram I’ve seen this year, an Israeli tech executive is using Stories to share the horrors of the Holocaust with younger generations. Read about the concept and watch the Stories.