Meta Platforms is combining Facebook and Instagram support into a single hub and using AI to improve outcomes for customers seeking help. “In the past year, new account hacks decreased by more than 30 percent globally on Facebook and Instagram and recovering an account is now faster and simpler with the help of AI,” Meta said announcing the change. Users can now report account issues, find answers by querying Meta AI-powered search, and more. The update is coming to iOS and Android for both platforms. Meta is also testing an AI support assistant for Facebook that offers “instant, personalized help.” Read more

The Entertainment Technology Center at USC launched ETCentric in March of 2011 as a news and commentary forum designed to provide our community members with the most vital information impacting media and entertainment. Over the years we experimented with a variety of delivery methods, eventually settling upon an online portal and associated daily email alert, teamed with a social media presence, highlights of ETC projects, and live reporting from key industry events. While it has been our great pleasure to provide this service to our valued members, we now find ourselves in a different era, one that features a much wider collection of targeted news services and social media tools that serve similar objectives. With that in mind — and as a key part of our larger initiative to refocus information-sharing on ETC projects — we have decided to shutter ETCentric and The Daily News Brief in their current forms and launch a new, more dynamic ETC website on January 5. The final day for ETCentric will be Friday, December 12. Read more

YouTube has issued its first annual YouTube Recap. The feature is available to users worldwide and takes the form of a shareable YouTube Short that highlights favorites based on your watch history from the year. “You’ll get a set of up to 12 different cards that spotlight your top channels, interests, and even the evolution of your viewing habits, or which personality type you fall into based on the videos you loved to watch,” YouTube explains of the highlight reel. Along with YouTube Recap, the streamer also released its 2025 U.S. trending lists covering creators, songs, podcasts and cultural moments. Read more

Spotify’s Wrapped 2025 is here, and as usual, the streaming service is mixing up its annual lists including Top Global Artist (Bad Bunny), Top Global Podcast (“The Joe Rogan Experience”) and Top U.S. Artist (Taylor Swift) with some surprises. The company has included top audiobook genres for the first time, also adding “author clips” — messages from authors populated for those who’ve listened to their books. The platform is also extending the traditional Wrapped playlist — a list of each Spotify account holder’s most-played tunes — with the Wrapped Party, which lets friends go head-to-head to see who is the bigger fan. Read more

Apple Music Replay 2025 is here, and this year the platform takes a more granular approach to its users’ listening habits, an attempt to keep pace with Spotify Wrapped. The usual song stats are amplified with a deeper look at each subscriber’s personal music journey. This year, Apple highlights artists discovered this year, loyalty to favorites and comebacks. The company has also morphed its Apple Music for Artists analytics to Artist Replay, which includes the usual business intelligence but adds visual shareable insights encouraging performers to participate in the viral year-end celebration. Read more