SEJ Sum-Up: Weekly News Recap for Search, Social, And AI via @sejournal, @kristileilani

Keeping track of the latest industry news is hard to do. Enter: the SEJ Sum-Up.

Every Friday, we condense the top stories you need to know – from search to social to AI and beyond – into one easy-to-digest post.

This week’s top stories include an update to Google desktop search, Bing reaching new heights, the RESTRICT Act (and how it may affect TikTok users in the U.S.), new AI tools for Slack, and WordPress plugin vulnerabilities.

Search News Recap

Google updated its desktop search UI to display favicons and site names, making it easier for users to identify websites in search results and ads.

Google Search Central published the transcript for its latest SEO Office Hours discussing WEBP images, duplicate content in different markets, moving large quantities of indexed pages, and more. (Google Search Central)

Google Trends has been updated with a new interface to make it easier to find real-time trending topics and see how other industries utilize Google Trend data. (The Keyword)

Microsoft reported that Bing search reached 100 million daily active users, with approximately one-third new it, in both the Edge browser and the Bing search engine.

DuckDuckGo launched DuckAssist, an AI-assisted feature that generates natural language answers using Wikipedia.

Brave Search announced a new AI feature summarizing webpages in 17% of their search results in rich results.

PPC News Recap

Google Ads introduced a new feature providing direct access to the GA4 audience builder and Performance Max for travel goals. The new AI-powered feature enables hotel advertisers to create multi-format ads and reach more travelers across channels.

Microsoft announced several updates to its advertising platform, including local search ads for Bing to improve visibility in Bing’s local search results and a code-free conversion setup wizard.

Social Media News Recap

Question of the Week: Will the new RESTRICT Act ban TikTok and other technologies from a select list of countries?

TikTok introduced Series, a new way for creators to monetize premium video content behind a paywall.

YouTube relaxed its rules on the profanity in monetized videos. Moderate profanity is eligible for full ad revenue, while strong profanity may receive limited ads.

Meta announced a new top-level product group focusing on generative AI features for Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.

Facebook announced upcoming changes, including making Messenger accessible inside Facebook again. (Facebook Newsroom)

LinkedIn unveiled new collaborative articles with AI-powered prompts to encourage creators to share knowledge and insights.

Reddit introduced new features, including the ability to search post comments and separate feeds for users to read or watch trending topics. (upvoted)

Discord announced new AI integrations for Clyde, its platform’s bot assistant. (Discord blog)

Spotify introduced a new interface with a TikTok-like feed and new tools for podcasters – free hosting, recording and editing tools, and monetization features. (Spotify Newsroom)

AI News Recap

Slack introduced a beta ChatGPT app for Slack from OpenAI that can summarize conversations, instantly find answers, and draft new messages. (Salesforce)

HubSpot announced new AI tools to assist with content creation and managing tasks. (HubSpot)

WordPress News Recap

WP Statistics, a WordPress plugin with over 600,000 active installations, patched the CSRF vulnerability.

An Elementor Contact Form Builder plugin XSS vulnerability affected up to 200,000 WordPress websites.

Wrapping It Up

It’s been a busy news week for search marketers and social media marketers. With the fast-paced nature of AI development, we expect to see many more changes coming to search and social networks in the coming weeks.

Featured Image: sebra/Shutterstock