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Hello, geeks! |
What a year this week has been. |
So much news that I appear to have accidentally become a full-time spokesperson for the internet. |
In the past seven days I’ve given interviews to BBC News, CNET, The Guardian, Ad Age, Business Insider, CBC and Sky News. |
They wanted my thoughts on: |
🍇 Whether Vine reboot diVine will be a hit 💰 A new creator platform from the founders of Kick 🤖 Reddit’s new AI-generated video feature 💼 A new study on what AI is doing to social media teams 👑 Why Harry and Meghan have reportedly flopped on social 📺 And why ’90s British TV star Michael Barrymore is killing it on TikTok
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The bit nobody sees is the work behind each one. |
It can take me anything from 10 minutes for a quick off-the-cuff comment, or up to two hours of desk research into a breaking news story about a major platform before I can develop a smart take on it. |
Which is partly why I hired an AI employee* earlier this year. Three months in, he handles four jobs including media research, and has freed up 12+ hours of my week. |
Live TV is way more stressful. |
A BBC News producer can message me at 7pm on a Tuesday asking if I can be on air within the hour. |
Typically, my anxiety immediately says: “F**K NO!” |
My business brain says: “You need to do this.” |
My business brain usually wins. |
Partly because it’s a privilege to be asked. And partly because, as a solo business owner, being available to journalists at stupidly short notice has generated an enormous amount of free exposure, which often leads to new work opportunities from all over the world. |
Occasionally, it goes spectacularly wrong. Let me give you a vivid (and very real) example… |
Years ago, one of India’s biggest news channels asked me to pre-record a two-minute take about a new WhatsApp feature for its evening news programme. |
Simple enough. |
I joined the Zoom call from home. The presenter appeared. The opening titles rolled. |
And I suddenly realised nobody was pre-recording anything. |
We were live. |
In my head: “Oh s**t!” |
Then came the introduction by the presenter. |
“Joining us is one of the world’s top experts on end-to-end encryption…” |
I distinctly remember thinking: |
Who have they booked alongside me? |
Then my face appeared on screen. |
Oh s**t! |
Apparently I was the expert. WTF?! |
But then it got a whole lot worse. |
The presenter continued: “And he’ll be debating the latest developments with India’s leading encryption academic...” |
My gormless face likely gave OMFG vibes! |
A real encryption academic. Live. Against a man whose knowledge of encryption ends at knowing what the padlock symbol means. |
My face drained of all colour. |
Several minutes of that car-crash interview still exist somewhere online. |
I’ve never been more grateful that Google Search is getting worse. 🤣 |
Right. Loads to get through this week. |
Let’s get into it. 👇 |
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P.S. I’ve now spent two solid weeks wearing Meta’s AI smart glasses
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I’m hoping to write up my brutally honest review of them next week. |
Meanwhile, spotted in London… 😳
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________________ |
3 cool things… |
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🗓️ 🧠 Nobody in Social Has AI Search Figured Out: Including me. That's why I'm going to this → Grab a ticket*
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👻 3 Creators Just Ghosted You: There's a system that stops this → Check it out* |
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*sponsored — I only run things I've tried myself. I declined 7 sponsors in July for not being good enough. |
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YouTube is changing how it counts views [BOOSTING] Meta is paying influencers to fight teen social bans [INFLUENCING] TikTok could soon let US users send money in DMs [PAYING] LinkedIn is warning users if their posts are reported as AI slop [DISCLOSING]
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SPONSORED ▶︎ CREATOR COLLAB TIPS ✨ |
3 Creators Just Ghosted You: There's a Smart System That Stops That 👇 |
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You know the spreadsheet… |
Twelve tabs. Three creators ghosting. A contract "definitely sent" in someone's DMs. |
Usage rights? Nobody knows. 🤷🏻♀️ |
Every hour you spend chasing creators is an hour not spent scaling what's working. |
Insense replaces the chaos with one platform for the entire workflow: creator matching, briefs, Shopify shipping, contracts, payments and lifetime usage rights. Done. |
What that actually looks like: |
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And timing matters: BFCM CPMs jump 20–60% by October. |
The brands that win Q4 are building their creator engine now, while it's cheap. |
↳ BONUS: Book a call by September 4 and get $200 toward your first campaign |
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Why do platforms keep messing with view counts? |
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‘What is a view?’ sounds like it could be the kind of question philosophers might wrangle over for centuries… |
But it’s more like a question social media managers have to keep themselves on top of endlessly, because platforms keep moving the goalposts. |
YouTube is the latest to throw your neatly planned spreadsheets into disarray. As of this coming Monday, a view is counted from the first second of a video being played. Previously, viewers had to watch for an undisclosed number of seconds before a view was counted. |
The reason for this change is pretty obvious: big numbers look better than small numbers. And thankfully, the old metric is still available behind the scenes so creators can measure their more engaged viewers consistently. |
Long-form creators should particularly benefit from bigger public view counts, although if everyone’s views start ticking up too, they might not seem so impressive. |
If you post across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram the move might be positive, although Shorts already used the new metric so it’s likely you won’t see any difference across comparable content. |
And there’s actually some pain for Shorts creators here. They’ll need 10 million views every 90 days to keep earning from Shorts. |
And if you’re new to Shorts, you’ll need 8,000 watch hours or 20 million Shorts views to qualify for monetisation. |
Keep pumping that algo with sticky content that will eventually backfire on YouTube in a social media addiction trial, folks! |
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Meta  / Facebook  |
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Custom video reactions on Messenger |
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__________ |
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Instagram  |
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Instagram’s ‘Catch up’ feature for Stories |
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Threads  / WhatsApp  |
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Upgraded Insight Summaries for Threads [Credit: Jonah Manzano] |
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X / Twitter  |
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X text overlays for videos [Credit: Allegra Jacchia, via Social Media Today] |
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X has added text and emoji overlays for video uploads on iOS X's algorithm feeds off ragebait and impacts Democrats more, a study has found X is offering $175,000 for Grok-made versions of The Odyssey, following Elon Musk’s attacks on Christopher Nolan’s recent adaptation X now allows you to share posts on Threads by just tapping the icon in the share sheet. X is giving its Chat composer a cleaner layout, smoother transitions, and better attachment handling
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TikTok  / YouTube  |
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Royalty-free sounds in TikTok Studio [Credit: Jonah Manzano] |
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TikTok Studio now has a huge royalty-free sounds library TikTok US must explain to senators by 1 September why it switched off kids’ safety features as a test TikTok is to start letting music live-streamers’ LIVE status appear on videos using their music or mentioning them TikTok appears to be expanding Service+ with a refreshed onboarding experience. One of the newly highlighted benefits is access to a professional verification badge TikTok is bringing back its Music on Stage competition for 2026 …alongside a Songs of LIVE programme for songwriters YouTube is offering some popular channels millions of dollars for an exclusivity window on new videos, taking on competition from Netflix YouTube will soon start sending copyright email notifications to channel managers, including alerts for copyright claims and removal requests. YouTube is making its TV app feel a lot more like television, with better support for bingeing creators’ content YouTube is moving AI likeness and copyright issues to sit together under a single Claims tab for creators to handle
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This is really useful for small businesses… |
Meta AI can now analyse your Facebook and Instagram accounts and tell you what content is actually working. |
It can audit Meta ad campaigns, spot winning audiences and creatives, and suggest where to shift budget. |
It can even benchmark you against similar brands using public Facebook and Instagram data. |
Oh, and you can connect Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Slides so Meta AI can use your wider business context too. |
It can then turn all of that into decks, spreadsheets, reports, and reminders. |
Very handy! |
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Chat to Meta AI for its verdict on your social strategy |
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Also spotted this week… |
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What role should AI play in social media teams in 2026? |
I spoke to CNET about Metricool’s latest study on AI use by social media managers. It found: |
98% use AI at work, with 86% using it for copy and 84% for ideas. Use for design and image editing jumped from 38% to 61% in a year. But only 12% say they have clear AI guidelines, while 45% have no formal rules at all.
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Also this week: |
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Gen Z is swapping doomscrolling for birdwatching on TikTok. |
Posts using #birdwatching and #birdtok are up around a third, while #birding is up 40% in the UK. |
Globally, the three hashtags have now passed 1 million posts. |
One seagull video hit 52m views, while a bird-ringing explainer reached 7.5m. |
Birding groups are also reporting stronger demand from younger people for real-world events. 🦅 |
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RushTok has become a major brand marketing opportunity |
Nike, Poppi, Dunkin’, Sephora and others are building activations around sorority recruitment. |
RushTok campaigns have driven huge results, including a 1,300% jump in sales for Tarte’s student-discount promo. |
Individual sorority videos can also hit tens of millions of views and launch influencer careers. |
One RushTok breakout creator, Kylan Darnell, built a 1.3m-follower audience and a six-figure influencer career 😮 |
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More brand news and views: |
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“As technology evolves, we want this to be a safe, trusted place where the stories, photos, videos, and memories shared reflect his legacy with authenticity, warmth, and care” |
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| – The children of Robin Williams on why they’ve reactivated his Instagram account in the face of growing amounts of AI fakery |
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Also quoted this week: |
“We’ve truly enjoyed seeing the response from people and other brands — whether it’s memes, someone updating their wordmark to connect with ours, or user reactions. We’re proud of our work here and glad it’s out in the world.” |
– Instagram’s director of product design Jasmine Probst discusses the reaction to the platform’s new wordmark |
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The Vine reboot diVine is now open to everyone |
The app keeps Vine’s classic six-second looping video format and has restored more than 2 million original Vine clips. |
diVine is explicitly pitching itself as a place without “AI slop”. |
AI-detection tools are used to keep recycled and synthetic content off the platform. |
diVine also plans creator monetisation tools that Vine never had. |
But can it build an audience in the age of TikTok? |
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Watching TikTok and Instagram Reels videos deactivates the brain’s cognitive control network. |
Researchers scanned 56 young adults while they freely watched short videos Two brain regions linked to focus and self-control became less active during clips participants watched to the end The effect was stronger for those “liked” videos than for clips people skipped Researchers say this may reflect the brain shifting into a low-effort, automatic viewing mode
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Also: |
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Hollywood figures are being targeted by fake celebrity podcast scams! |
Scammers impersonate famous hosts and send highly personalised invitations that reference real career details. |
One target thought Nikki Glaser wanted him on a podcast and nearly lost control of Facebook. |
Another believed Terry Gross had invited him onto Fresh Air and actually sent money. 😱 |
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More WTF this week: |
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Instagram recently said it’s cracking down on harassing videos filmed with Meta smart glasses. |
The company says it has blocked search terms like “rizz” and “cold approach” and removed thousands of posts. |
But Business Insider still found dozens of similar videos live a month later. |
More awkwardly, after interacting with a few, Reels started serving almost nothing else 🤔 |
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More fails spotted: |
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X revealed the formula for going viral on its platform. |
Its “Phoenix” ranking system scores different engagement actions on your posts, which influences how much reach X gives it. |
If an X user… |
Copies link to your post: +20pts Replies, QRT, DM shares your post: +5pts Follows you from your post: +4pts Reposts your post: +1pt Likes your post: only +0.5pt
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Negative engagement signals are scored much harsher. If someone... |
Reports your post: -234pts Mutes you from your post: -59pts Marks “not interested” on your post: -43pts Blocks you from your post: -31pts
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Also this week: |
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__________ |
More social stats: |
BIG BILL: The WSJ estimates Meta has around $693 BILLION in off-balance-sheet commitments, much of it tied to AI infrastructure BIG MONEY: TikTok’s revenue across the UK, Europe, Africa, and Latin America jumped 45.7% to $9.1 BILLION in 2025 WORKTOK: 46% of Gen Z workers say TikTok helped them land a job or internship DEDDIT: Reddit’s visibility inside ChatGPT has reportedly collapsed. Reddit appeared in up to 4.5% of ChatGPT responses before dropping to around 0.5% this month LOVEDUP: 22% of professionals have either sent or responded to a romantic message on LinkedIn DATA FEAST: A Surfshark study found Meta apps declare access to an average of 25 out of 35 possible personal data types. 3x more than apps from Apple or Microsoft, which averaged around 7–8
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What counts as a “video view” still varies WILDLY by platform… |
1 million views doesn’t mean the same thing everywhere. |
Here’s a handy breakdown for each platform:
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__________ |
Also charted this week: |
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__________ |
Also spotted this week… |
Another major social media addiction lawsuit has been dropped before trial. [New York Times $$$] UK regulator Ofcom is actively researching how Instagram, Facebook, X, and Telegram work. [Ofcom] ByteDance and the Motion Picture Association have reached an agreement on restricting IP use in deepfakes. [Deadline] New Mexico is using its court win against Meta to push tougher social media laws. [The Guardian] The EU opened new complaint channels for suspected AI Act violations by Meta and Google. [PPC Land] Meta quietly became one of Microsoft’s biggest AI customers, spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on AI models through Azure. [Bloomberg $$$]
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New features and tests: |
Meta is removing more control from advertisers. Soon, brands may no longer be able to exclude specific ad placements from campaigns. [Social Media Today] TikTok’s Activity Centre now lets you view your Ad Activity History. [@jonahmanzano] Discord doubled its free file upload limit from 10MB to 20MB. [The Verge] Twitch is giving creators bonus subs for using Dual Format streams. [Twitch blog] Mastodon released a minor update to improve quality of life for users. [Mastodon blog]
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Also worth a read: |
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Mark Zuckerberg has bought… A Castle… In Ireland. 🏰 🇮🇪 |
He reportedly bought Strancally Castle in County Waterford with its 440-acre estate. |
The 16,000 sq ft property dates back to around 1830 and was recently restored. |
The price hasn’t been disclosed, but reports estimate it at around €20m–€30m. |
I’m really looking forward to finding out how the locals react to their new neighbour! |
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That’s yer lot for this week. |
I’m off to get increasingly excited about an expensive and entirely unplanned decision I made last night after three glasses of wine. |
I’m going to Ibiza in September. |
More specifically, I booked the ‘Anything Can Happen - Stage View’ suite at the Ushuaïa Ibiza Beach Hotel. |
This was not the result of careful planning. |
I saw this one TikTok video as I poured one more glass of wine: |
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Watch now on TikTok |
@ravewithmeliss |
Ushuaia stage view suite 😭😍 #ibiza #ushuaiaibiza |
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Then I hit the F**K IT button and entered my credit card details. |
Buy now. Regret later? |
The line-up while we’re there is ridiculous: |
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Which also gives me the perfect opportunity to finally settle one of the internet’s more persistent (but overly flattering) claims about me. |
For years, people on Twitter/X have joked that I look (vaguely) like Calvin Harris. (more like a Temu Calvin dupe, at best): 👇
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⬇️ |
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⬇️ |
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Goodbye, geeks! |
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P.S. This newsletter is edited by Martin SFP Bryant |
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