Greetings, everyone. Sorry we couldn’t get this blog post out on Friday. Busy day. The worst thing about this situation is that we didn’t need to research anything because this newsletter wrote itself when the “From the owner” section of some Google Business Profiles began vanishing on Wednesday.
That was a confusing time because some GBP posts for some businesses were visible and others weren’t. They were all gone on Thursday. There wasn’t much information available then because Google hadn’t commented about what was going on. Asking ChatGPT for answers turned into a self-referential circlejerk because all of its sources were articles that people clearly generated with ChatGPT. This LinkedIn post is a good example (beyond the recognizable writing style, emoji bullet points are always a dead giveaway– come on, people). Searching Reddit only turned up speculation.
Everything was back to normal on Friday. Still no word from Google, but every post is back where it should be. All things considered, this issue was handled much more quickly and completely than the millions of business reviews that disappeared earlier this year. Review systems involve spam detection and complicated algorithms that interplay with public trust, so that could explain why Google quickly got out in front of that glitch but hasn’t issued a statement on this one. We’re the ones speculating now though.
YouTube is now testing AI Overviews for its search results. It’s possible that no one reading this newsletter has seen this feature yet because it is currently only visible to a small percentage of YouTube Premium subscribers in the United States who are using their accounts via desktop browser. So, despite the fact that YouTube is now the biggest streaming platform for connected TVs (CTVs) in the world, most people who are eligible to be in this testing pool are not utilizing their subscriptions on the right device type to see it in action. There’s a small blurb about it in the YouTube Help forum.
Anyway, if you’re one of the 1.5 billion people per month who get exposed to a Google Search AI Overview, you should have a good idea of what this feature looks like. If you’re the one person who finds this feature helpful, then maybe you’re excited about it migrating to YouTube.
No one yet knows what will follow last week’s antitrust ruling against Google, but our first closing link takes a deep dive into what its break-up could look like. Next, Buffer posted an article about scheduling a month’s worth of content in a single day. It’s not a guide per se, but it does have interesting tips for people who need to update accounts on various platforms, multiple times per week. Third: 4chan is back. Finally, there is a 14-page PDF report posted to youtube.com about the rise of virtual influencers. These are animated celebrities drawing large audiences and commanding big endorsement bucks. So, yeah.. that’s a thing now.
That’s all! Enjoy the weekend.