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Hello, geeks! |
It’s all about Zuckerberg and Musk this week. |
Meta has dropped a new AI toy. It's called Muse, and it's already No. 2 on the US App Store charts. |
Sounds impressive, until you read Muse has hit 83,000+ US downloads so far. Threads managed 4.3 million on day one. |
Meta's pitch is that Muse is an AI that never switches off. Which is either the future of productivity, or the plotline for ‘The Social Network 3’. |
But Zuck really wants you to trust Meta with this one. |
He’s been doing the rounds on podcasts, including sitting down with Alex Heath, where he revealed he personally recruited Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike to build Muse's privacy architecture. |
His words, not mine: "Even Meta cannot see the content that is in there." You pinky-promise, Zuck? 🙄 |
A company built on knowing everything about you, hiring the guy who built the app famous for knowing nothing about you. |
Quite the pivot, two weeks after an $18 billion teen safety settlement highlighting Meta’s wild west approach to product safety. |
Also this week…. |
There's a new Alex Gibney documentary about Elon Musk. |
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Unsurprisingly, he hates it. Roughly the reaction you'd expect from a man whose ex just told a journalist his biggest relationship problem is honesty.
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You couldn't script this. 💀 |
On a personal note, a quick heads-up… |
I’m taking a break next week. I’m jetting off to party at The Unexpected Hotel in Ibiza. |
A completely unplanned last minute break booked after I got a bit click-happy after 3 glasses of Sauvignon Blanc. |
I booked the "Anything Can Happen - Stage View" suite. Looks like it’s going to be banging 😆 |
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Watch now on TikTok |
@brentonwesley |
Stage view room @Ushuaïa Ibiza Official 😮💨 #ushuaia #ushuaiaibiza #ibiza #stageview #martingarrix #ibizahotel #spaintok #fyp #balconygoals #vacation |
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Big thank you to The Unexpected Hotel, who gifted me a VIP table on Monday night for David Guetta. Epic people watching spot secured. |
Geekout won't miss a beat though. |
Geekout editor, Martin ‘SFP’ Bryant, will hold fort, while I empty my bank account and pickle my liver with overpriced vodka + Red Bull. |
Keep your eyes peeled on my Instagram Stories to watch the carnage unfold next week. |
Coming up in this week's Geekout: |
🤖 My full read on Meta Muse, and whether it deserves your trust 🤬 Elon Musk's X meltdown over the new Musk documentary 🚫 Instagram overlord Mosseri explaining why algorithm opt-outs aren't the utopia people think 🔥 25+ new platform features spotted, including Threads AI analytics + Meta AI post summaries
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Plus everything else social media teams need to know about this week.
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4 cool things… |
🔥 8 Claude Skills for Social Media Teams: Stop wasting hours writing AI prompts. Steal mine → [Download skills]
- 🔍 100 Viral LinkedIn Hooks: Reverse-engineered. Templated. Yours in one click → [Steal the sheet]
- 🤖 Creator Ops in ChatGPT: Brief, approve and track creator work without opening another dashboard → [Take a look]
- 📰 61,000+ Marketers at TikTok, Google and Meta read this free newsletter: I'm one of them → [Get it sent to you]
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SPONSORED ▶︎ AI + CREATORS |
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Elon Musk threatens legal action over hostile new documentary, makers hit back [HATING] Facebook is reportedly awash with AI-generated videos depicting horrific violence against children [DISGUSTING] Australia could give everyone the ability to opt out of algorithmic feeds [OPTING] Apple and Google miss deadline to block child nudity on their phones in the UK [MISSING]
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SPONSORED ▶︎ TRENDING NEWSLETTER |
To every social media manager who wants to think like a CMO 🧠 |
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If you want to grow beyond social and understand the whole marketing machine, then you need to start seeing how every channel connects.
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Stacked Marketer is the FREE newsletter that gives social marketers the full marketing picture — paid, email, ecom, SEO, and AI. |
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Are we ready to hand over our lives to an AI personal assistant? |
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Is this Meta’s biggest consumer product launch since Threads? I reckon so. |
But Muse is a far bolder release than a Twitter clone. In fact, it’s a rare case of Meta going first into a rapidly emerging space. |
Muse brings easy access for normal folk to something the bleeding-edge geeks in Silicon Valley have been doing for months - letting an AI agent handle your digital life. |
Out now in early public testing in the US, Muse lets you hook up things like your calendar, email, bank accounts, as well as Instagram and WhatsApp. It can send emails, book travel, fill forms, negotiate bills and make purchases. |
What’s more, Muse keeps working after you close the app, and can proactively suggest what you should do next. |
Given how unpopular both AI and Meta are among the general population, the company has been keen to build trust around this product that must have access to your personal data to be useful. |
Mark Zuckerberg published a video talking about how the platform has been designed to keep your private information away from prying eyes. Muse cannot directly see passwords or payment details, and Meta says your data from this app won’t feed its ad systems. |
The PR push also included this interview with Alex Heath (well worth a watch!): |
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Mark Zuckerberg on Muse, Meta's biggest AI bet yet |
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It’s showing signs of early success. And that’s understandable. Early adopters to Muse get a ridiculous amount of free AI compute - 100 million tokens every week to burn through. |
One tester built games, music, animations and websites, yet used only 6% of their allowance. Even after building a fake browser-based Mac, usage had reached just 11%. |
Don’t expect it to stay that way. Meta is going to have to make a profit on this once users are hooked. Muse is currently free to start, with $20 and $100 monthly plans if you need more compute and heavier usage. |
The big question is… will it stick? Given AI models have a current habit of going rogue, it’s not a massive leap to imagine Meta having to deal with some embarrassing examples of Muse doing things its users really didn’t want. |
Either way, it’s almost certain to make more of a bang than ‘M’ did in 2015. Meta’s first personal assistant app came from the days when the “AI” was simplistic, and humans often jumped in behind the scenes to carry out complex actions the software couldn’t handle. |
Apps like M (there were a bunch of them from different companies) were a decade early. Now Meta’s going to find out if we’re finally ready to let AI take control of our lives. |
I’m not sure I am… but I still really want to give it a go (hint-hint, Meta!). |
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Meta  / Facebook  |
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[Credit: @lunayian on X] |
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Meta’s next-generation mixed reality headset appears to have leaked. ‘Phoenix’ is almost the size of a pair of glasses Mark Zuckerberg reportedly called Trump to push back on the idea of a national AI regulator Meta has been accused of running 300+ ads containing suspected AI CSAM Meta is finally facing a Cambridge Analytica trial, nearly a decade later Meta smart glasses are worrying US police over the possibility the public could covertly record their behaviour Meta is opening mini ‘Meta Lab’ stores inside more than 50 Best Buy stores in the US Meta is testing Community Notes in Latin America (and fact checkers are worried) Facebook is testing a ‘Recently viewed’ button to jump to the last post you saw before you closed the app. Handy!
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Instagram  |
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[Credit: Instagram] |
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WhatsApp  |
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[Credit: @WABetaInfo] |
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X / Twitter  |
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[Credit: tweet.app] |
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TikTok  |
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[Credit: @jonahmanzano] |
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TikTok is rolling out a built-in Teleprompter directly in the camera TikTok has been found liable for misleading users about its child-safety controls in Texas TikTok announced new community guidelines from 24 September TikTok Shop has banned sellers from slipping marketing and review requests into packages TikTok returned to the Toronto Film Festival with 30 creators and a much bigger film push
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YouTube  |
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[Credit: YouTube] |
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YouTube is rolling out account locks on smart TVs (some users have had this for a while). Handy to stop kids polluting your recommendations! YouTube has a new metric for creators that estimates how many people watch their videos together on televisions YouTube is expanding Watch With to more mobile livestream creators YouTube Shorts now has a dedicated Templates option directly in the Shorts camera YouTube is opening personalised ad targeting to alcohol brands YouTube is experimenting with alternative retailer options for tagged affiliate products YouTube has added a new paid promotion disclosure option: “This is a political paid promotion relevant in the European Union.”
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Snapchat  / Bluesky  / IMDB  |
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[Credit: Snap] |
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Snapchat launched ‘Plans’, a new feature that lets you organise private IRL events for up to 200 friends Snap’s Evan Spiegel revealed where he’s taking Snapchat next. The tldr: TikTok owns trends, Meta owns scale, Snapchat knows you Snap is beefing up its commerce ads, with Dynamic Product Ads now run inside Sponsored Snaps, and more Bluesky added three new features: a ‘Starter Packs’ tab, the option to remove yourself from Starter packs, and numbered threads IMDb is officially recognising digital creators as entertainment professionals
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Threads is giving creators much smarter analytics, powered by Meta AI. |
AI summaries explain why individual posts overperformed, underperformed or landed somewhere average. |
In addition, new benchmarks label views and engagement as higher, typical or lower. |
The new insights also reveal follower versus non-follower reach and the communities driving people to discover your posts. |
Account insights can also surface stronger posting days, times and audience trends. |
But… link-click data has disappeared from the Insights dashboard. |
A spokesperson says Threads is “exploring” bringing the metric back.
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[Credit: Meta] |
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Also spotted this week… |
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An Apple event is always a good bet for creating some tech-focused memes… |
And this week’s launch of the iPhone Duo was no exception. |
Brands leapt all over the event. Not least Duolingo, and its owl mascot… Duo. |
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And Samsung, which has been doing folding phones for years, dropped this grenade on X to remind Apple of the fact…
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And Samsung empathised with Duolingo…
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But the Internet was left asking one question… Are aliens working at Apple? |
The length of those fingers… 😆
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The US Open approved nearly 100 creators, roughly double last year’s total… but some disrupted matches with filming, selfie lights, and loud content creation 🙄 |
Critics say brands need clearer briefs explaining appropriate filming and behaviour. |
The All English Club says it will take a stand at its own tournament next year. |
It won’t introduce a dedicated accreditation category for influencers or content creators, while ring lights and other potentially disruptive equipment will potentially be confiscated |
Influencers can still attend Wimbledon. They just won’t get the special VIP media treatment. |
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More brand news and views: |
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"His most complicated relationship is with the truth" |
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| – Elon Musk’s ex Ashley St. Clair on why she felt the need to speak out about him in the new ‘Musk’ documentary |
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Also quoted this week: |
“A hit piece that misses, and makes the fatal sin of being boring for 4 hours.” |
- Elon Musk is no fan of the new documentary about him |
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“I would say he has a very difficult time with empathy, especially cognitive empathy, which is putting himself in the shoes of others… He seems incapable of doing that.” |
- ‘Musk’ director Alex Gibney on why Elon is so cold |
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“What ends up happening is the best way to get more reach is just to post more often and those who can afford to post the most often do and then therefore get the most reach. And it turns out your friends post a lot less than creators, who post a lot less than brands and companies.” |
- Instagram boss Adam Mosseri on why people don’t like chronological feeds, even if they claim they do |
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“There is a tremendous amount of AI and endless garbage being posted everyday and it’s been challenging to absorb or ignore.” |
- Dolly Parton’s sister Stella speaks out about the amount of tasteless slop produced since Dolly’s death |
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“If Ofcom is going to be the vehicle to protect our children… we need them to be getting ahead of the harms. And I don't think they have. So when I talk around the country to children, what's worrying them are things around AI, things around the nudifying apps… there are new harms, and we need Ofcom to be getting ahead of those. I don't think they are." |
- England's Children's Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, says the Online Safety Act isn’t making the impact it needs to |
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The first teaser for Alex Gibney’s Elon Musk doc is out, ahead of the film’s theatrical release this autumn. |
The 48-second trailer frames Musk as both visionary builder and deeply divisive figure. |
One voice calls him “one of the greatest builders of all time.” |
Another describes him as “manifestly cruel and selfish.” |
The teaser also warns: “In a science fiction novel, he would not be the hero.” |
Subtle, it is not. |
The movie looks like a must-watch that really goes for the jugular… But you’ll need to sit comfortably. It’s almost 4-hours long! 😳 |
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Musk | Official Teaser | Bleecker Street |
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No matter your politics, there’s no denying the success of NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani on social media. |
This article looks into some of how he does it, through a City Hall influencer network reaching 1,200+ creators |
More than 250 influencers receive City Hall updates through a private Signal group Creators get talking points, exclusive events, interviews and access that traditional reporters sometimes don’t City Hall says influencers aren’t paid directly, although city agencies sometimes pay creators
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He’s not the only politician doing this kind of thing, but it’s interesting to see how it works. |
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Yikes! A mother discovered just how much Meta AI could piece together about her children. |
Hint: a LOT. |
Meta says it has fixed the prompts that surfaced her daughters’ details and a deep dive into her whole family! |
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Spotting AI images isn’t easy… |
Instagram’s AI labels are flagging real photos while missing actual AI. |
Users have reported original photos receiving AI labels after basic editing tools. |
Canva’s Background Remover appears responsible for some incorrect AI classifications. |
Meanwhile, fully AI-generated Gemini images escaped Instagram’s labels during testing. |
Some unlabelled test images even contained C2PA and SynthID authenticity signals. |
Predictably, Meta’s own AI-generated images were the only consistently detected content tested. |
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More fails spotted: |
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Is Pinterest a big part of your marketing strategy? |
Its latest guide could be a useful read… |
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More social stats: |
SHADY: Nearly 1 in 5 creators say brands asked them to hide sponsored posts SUCH SWEET SORROW: Dolly Parton’s songs exploded on YouTube following her death, generating at least 14.1 million measured views across seven countries PRO-ALGO: Adam Mosseri says engagement can fall 50% when users ditch its algorithm TOO BIG: YouTube’s new public view counts may overstate real engagement by 40%, according to new analysis PEER REVIEW: 86% of Gen Z trust peers and experts more than branded marketing messages GAME ON: Gaming creators earn around 23% more overall from YouTube brand deals than Twitch
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Also spotted this week… |
LinkedIn has beaten ‘BrowseGate’ lawsuits over scanning users’ browser extensions. [Ars Technica] Ofcom is giving tech platforms weeks to stop intimate deepfakes spreading in the UK. [Ofcom] The US issued a ‘censorship’ warning over a UK plan to boost ‘problem service’ news on social media. [Press Gazette] Meta is doing ANOTHER reorganisation, introducing more managers, after it previously cut them. [Business Insider $$$] Snap is reshuffling its leadership as advertising growth and Specs take centre stage. [Axios] The White House is warning Australia over its planned social media algorithm rules. [The Guardian] Australia’s top bureaucrats want politicians banned from sharing edited hearing clips on social media. [The Guardian] A proposed law in Australia would give everyone the ability to opt out of algorithmic feeds. [Financial Times $$$] Meta is losing one of its star AI researchers less than a year after hiring him back. [Wall Street Journal $$$] After Meta killed CrowdTangle, a new app called Arbiter wants to fill the void for understanding harmful social narratives as they develop. [NiemanLab] Broadcasters and streamers are moving from rivals to partners as old TV divide breaks down and YouTube rises fast. [Variety] YouTube launched a content series for emerging artists on building a career in music. [YouTube Blog]
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New features and tests: |
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As the Australian government turns against algorithms, a British journalist switched off Instagram’s algorithm for 24 hours. |
Things quickly got boring…! |
But for Australian regulators, maybe that’s the whole point. |
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Plug into this, baby…! |
Meta’s new Muse AI has apparently taken rock band Muse’s social handles. |
Meta’s new Muse AI now owns the coveted @muse handle on both Instagram and X, while the band has moved to @museband on Instagram and @musetheband on X. |
Nobody has confirmed whether Meta bought, requested or simply claimed the handles. |
Muse spent decades singing about dystopian technology. The punchline practically wrote itself. |
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Right… Time to get my ass away from this laptop, and starting packing for Ibiza. |
The question is, what to pack? |
Do I dress my actual age, or go full Ibiza Boss? |
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Watch now on TikTok |
@ibizahq |
Ibiza Final Boss 😎 #ibizafinalboss #ibizaviral #ibiza |
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We’ll find out on my Instagram Story next week. |
Goodbye, geeks! |
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P.S. This newsletter is edited by Martin SFP Bryant |
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