As ByteDance approaches the latest U.S. deadline to sell TikTok or face being banned here, it continues to add new features, with barely a ripple of news concerning a sale. The legislation that contained the sales clause became law in April 2024. The most recent of several extensions was issued in June, pushing the deadline to September 17. In July Reuters reported a deal was “close,” with TikTok building a new U.S. version of its app ahead of a planned sale “to a group of investors.” Now the platform is adding voice notes to DMs and image uploads in chats. Up to nine images or video clips can be added to individual or group chats. Continue reading TikTok Adds Voice Notes for DMs and Image Uploads in Chats

Meta Platforms has agreed to a six-year deal with Google Cloud valued at $10 billion as part of its push into artificial intelligence. Use of Google Cloud data centers are expected to help the social media giant bring leading-edge AI tools to market more quickly. This is the first agreement between Google Cloud and Meta, which continues to work with the number one and two global cloud providers by market share, Amazon Web Services (30 percent) and Microsoft Azure (20 percent). Third-place Google has been aggressively pursuing big cloud contracts as it seeks to grow its 13 percent share. Continue reading Meta Secures $10 Billion Deal with Google Cloud for AI Efforts

Instagram has started to let creators link multiple Reels, effectively creating their own “series.” The new capability, which TikTok already offers, makes it more convenient for viewers to discover and follow related content. The new “Link a Reel” feature lets creators sequentially either link generally related content or connect specific, sequentially related material, as in Part 2, Part 3, etc. Meta Platforms has also added a free AI-powered voice translation feature. Now available globally on Facebook and Instagram, it automatically dubs and lip syncs Reels into other languages using the sound and tone of the creator’s own voice. Continue reading Meta Updates Features for Reels on Facebook and Instagram

Meta Platforms has released an update for its Brand Rights Protection tools, which help businesses find and report misuse of their brand across advertising and user-generated content posted on popular social platforms Facebook and Instagram. Simultaneously, the company is expanding scam ad reporting to all Brand Rights Protection accounts, enabling businesses to report suspected scam ads at scale, and rolling out a simplified takedown request protocol to save brands time. The new features “include some of the most requested” tools by businesses who rely on these brand safety suites. Continue reading Meta Expands Brand Rights Protection on Its Social Platforms

YouTube is testing a new collaboration feature that allows creators to link other users’ content to their videos, enabling recommendations to followers of each account as a means of driving visibility and engagement. Creators can tag collaborators, who must approve before their name and audience reach is added to the clip. In addition to a collective graphic, a designation along the lines of “and three more” appears next to the name of the host account holder. When clicked, the “more” opens to display the hot-linked channels that are collaborating. Instagram and TikTok already have similar features in place. Continue reading YouTube Collaboration Tool Helps Creators Expand Audience

Meta Platform reported another strong quarter, with profit up 36 percent to $18 billion on revenue of $47.5 billion, a 22 percent increase. Justifying to investors why the company spent billions restructuring AI operations as part of the new AI Superintelligence Lab and recruiting talent to run it, company CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasized his desire “to build personal superintelligence for everyone in the world.” Zuckerberg said he believes AI superintelligence “has the potential to begin an exciting new era of individual empowerment.” Meta plans to more than double spending to build AI infrastructure, including server-filled data centers, and initiatives supporting model training and cloud computing. Continue reading Meta Profit Is Up 36 Percent, Fueling Superintelligence Race

Google’s YouTube is adding new age-verification methods designed to protect teens. The streaming video platform is using AI to interpret “a variety of signals” to identify users under 18, regardless of the birthdate used to create the account. If the system identifies a user as a teen, age-appropriate protections will automatically take effect. These include disabling personalized advertising, restricted recommendations, limits on repetitive viewing of certain content and screen-time reminders. If the system incorrectly categorizes a user as under 18, they will have the option to correct the situation with a credit card or a government ID. Continue reading YouTube Deploying AI to Identify and Safeguard U.S. Minors

Startup Decart AI is showcasing MirageLSD, a “world transformation model” that can change the look of a camera feed, recorded video or game in real time. Built on the company’s Live-Stream Diffusion (LSD) model, Mirage debuted last week as a demo on the company website with iOS and Android apps scheduled for release this week. Mirage makes it possible to manipulate video continuously, in real time with zero latency. The technology has created buzz as a potential disruptor in the live-streaming space, and it looks like it could be an impactful special effects tool as well. Continue reading Decart AI’s Mirage Transforms Live-Stream Video in Real Time

Meta Platforms is expanding AI support for WhatsApp, adding voice calling to customers for enterprise accounts, a feature that’s been available to small businesses for years. “In the coming weeks, larger businesses using the WhatsApp Business Platform will be able to receive a call from a customer when they want to talk to someone live or call a customer directly” on request. Meta announced in Miami at its fourth annual Conversations business messaging conference, saying the move “paves the way for AI-enabled voice support in the future.” The company also added WhatsApp to centralized marketing across Facebook and Instagram. Continue reading Meta Is Increasing WhatsApp Ad Capabilities and AI Support

In an effort to be more brand and creator friendly, TikTok is launching a broadcast channel feature called Bulletin Boards that shares in-app message updates. Essentially serving as one-to-many DM chats that fans can follow, Bulletin Boards can include text, images and video, with text limited to 1,000 characters and 20 bulletins daily. While fans can react by posting emoji to Bulletin Board posts, they cannot otherwise reply. The move comes as TikTok seeks to expand its brand toolkit, even updating its Symphony advertising suite to allow brands to create content that mimics material posted by influencers. Continue reading TikTok Offers Bulletin Boards for Direct-to-Many Broadcasts

Meta Platforms has announced new generative AI features developed for marketers that produce video advertisements. Announced as part of Meta’s Advantage+ ad suite, marketers can now use up to 20 product stills to create multi-scene video ads with music and text overlay. The company has also added generative AI voices and virtual try-ons to its Advantage+ marketer toolkit. The upgrades were announced at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where the topic of Meta using AI not only to create ads but to algorithmically serve them to target audiences was a topic of conversation. Continue reading Meta Unveils New AI Advertising Tools as Part of Advantage+

Meta Platforms is opening its WhatsApp messaging service to advertising. The company revealed that three ad modules will roll out gradually. The ads will be positioned under WhatsApp’s Updates tab, a section discreet from WhatsApp’s users’ message inboxes and private chats. The Updates tab is also the entry point to WhatsApp’s Status feature, which lets users share photos, videos and text that disappear after 24 hours, similar to Instagram Stories. Meta says the Updates tab gets 1.5 billion visitors per day. The company is also seeking to monetize WhatsApp’s Channels feature by offering paid subscriptions and promoted Channels. Continue reading Meta Platforms Is Gradually Bringing Advertising to WhatsApp

Snapchat has introduced new editing tools designed to make it easier for creators to produce and share content on its platform. Capabilities of the new “Timeline Editor” include generating videos from saved Memories and viewing video content in a chronological way, making it simpler to move and rearrange clips. The “Create a Video” feature provides templates that let users select Memories vids, pick a song from the Snapchat Sounds library and generate a custom video compilation. The ability to auto-save public Stories to profiles has been added as Snapchat seeks to build-out creator tools to compete with Instagram and TikTok. Continue reading Snapchat Expands Its Video Editing Tools and Adds Analytics

Meta is launching a generative AI video editing tool, available in the Meta AI app, via the Meta.AI website and in the Edits app for Facebook and Instagram. Users are now able to transform 10 seconds of video using preset AI prompts that can change an outfit, location, style and more. The company says the feature is “inspired by” its Movie Gen models and promises it is the “first step toward our goal of bringing you AI video generation and editing across our apps and products,” with Meta AI video editing able to handle individualized text prompts later this year. The free tool is now available in the U.S. and about a dozen countries around the world. Continue reading Meta Rolls Out AI Video Editor Available via App and the Web

YouTube has loosened its rules regarding content moderation, instructing its moderators to prioritize “freedom of expression” over perceived risks of harm in assessing what to take down for the popular video platform. Although the move hasn’t been widely publicized, it was gleaned through leaks of moderator training material that made its way to the media. YouTube becomes the latest in a string of social platforms that have relaxed content moderation standards. Unlike Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook and Instagram owner Meta, YouTube and its parent Google have refrained from public comment on the move. Continue reading YouTube Latest Social Platform to Loosen Content Moderation