Follow TiDM: Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, others 
Follow Tod: Bluesky, Threads, LinkedIn, and others

The Top Three 🏆

The industry’s most important stories today.

🥈 YOUTUBE CRACKS DOWN ON CLICKBAIT

Is an end coming to YouTube videos titled “You’ll Never Believe What I Ate!!”? YouTube has started, first tackling clickbait videos in India. They’re looking for misleading titles and thumbnails that overpromise but underdeliver. The new policy focuses on content in current events and breaking news, but this could come to marketing videos at some point as well. more

• Indian creators will see enforcement in the coming months, serving as a trial for a worldwide rollout.

• YouTube says violations won’t lead to account strikes, but they might take the video down.

🥉 GOOGLE SEARCH ADDS AI MODE

We knew it was coming. Google is said to be working on an "AI Mode" for its search engine, which would look like its Gemini AI chatbot. This would appear alongside existing tabs like "All," "Images," and "Videos." In AI Mode, users will receive conversational answers accompanied by relevant webpage links and a search bar for follow-up questions. more

• Earlier reports suggested upcoming voice command function.

🥇 SHOPIFY ON THE ENSHITTIFICATION PATH?

The Information has a great wrap-up of Shopify's recent changes to its checkout policies — changes that have rattled startups reliant on the platform. The e-commerce giant banned automatic add-on charges during checkout, as an example, limiting third-party providers. more

• Startups like Bolt and Fast, which provided unique checkout features, face an existential threat due to Shopify's dominance.

• Critics argue the policy might stifle innovation, but Shopify defends the move as a way to improve user experience and security.

Today’s Other News ☑︎

Everything else that matters.

Kind of slow news day today — I think everyone’s getting ready for the holidays.

Advertising 📣

• Be very careful about the pricing you’re advertising. An increasing number of lawsuits are being filed against merchants who are “faking” discounts. In one case, the charge reads “Defendants advertise a seemingly original price (the false reference price) with a "strikethrough," which tells customers that Defendants' previously offered the Products at the strikethrough price. However, the Products are never sold at the strikethrough price because the Products are perpetually on sale.” more

Search 🔍

• A Vercel study reveals AI crawlers like GPTBot and Claude now account for 28% of Googlebot's traffic, making nearly 1 billion monthly requests. The study has suggestions for brands that want to be found in the crawls: more

  • ChatGPT and Claude don't execute JavaScript, so any important content should be server-rendered.

  • Feel free to use client-side rendering for non-essential dynamic elements like view counters, interactive UI enhancements, live chat widgets, and social media feeds.

  • Maintain proper redirects, keep sitemaps up to date, and use consistent URL patterns across your site.

Social Media 📱

• Bluesky's latest mobile app update (version 1.96) introduces a mentions tab in notifications, offers customizable reply settings, and preserves users' old .bsky.social usernames when switching to custom domains. The platform recently reached 25 million total users and plans to launch a subscription service more.

  • 🦋 Follow Today in Digital Marketing on Bluesky: @todayindigital.com

  • 🦋 Follow Tod on Bluesky: @todmaffin.com

Commerce 🛒 

• Brands selling on TikTok Shop should stay put for now, posits an eMarketer analysis, despite potential US ban in 2025. If TikTok disappears, users will likely move to YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. eMarketer says companies must build brand loyalty and be ready to follow consumers across platforms more

• The American Occupational Safety and Health Administration settled with Amazon, withdrawing citations at nine warehouses and imposing a $145,000 fine on the tenth. The settlement addresses previous accusations about worker injury risks related to lifting items in Amazon's warehouses more

Fun 🎲

• Now here are some metrics we want! LinkedIn now offers users a performance summary for its puzzle games, showing which games you’ve played most, when you’ve played, and how you rank against other players. The platform says 80% of users return to the site daily. more

Predictions 🔮

• Platformer’s Casey Newton has his annual predictions piece out. This time around he covers potential TikTok bans, AI culture wars, and shifts in social media platforms like Threads and Bluesky. He also reflects on 2024's tech landscape more

More Bullshit 💩 

• Wordpress’s somewhat chaotic CEO Matt Mullenweg is threatening to stop WordPress.org services like plugin and theme submissions. In an announcement detailing a holiday “pause” of those services, Mullenweg said restarting the services after the holidays depended on if he could find the “time, energy, and money” in 2025. more

Marketing Tool of the Day 🔨

Cool stuff we found on the web (not a paid placement)

I’ve been playing around with Kagi — a search engine you have to pay for. I know, with all the free options (Google, Bing, Brave, DuckDuckGo, etc.) why would you pay? I have found it to be simply a better search engine.

1. There is no tracking of what you search at all.

2. There are no ads. None. Zero.

3. You can demote or block shitty sites that keep appearing in your searches that might rank high elsewhere but actually provide almost no value (I’m looking at you, Pinterest).

4. They have “Lenses” which are like custom GPTs but for search. You tell it what sites or filetypes you want to restrict its search to (all academic sites, or only PDF, etc.) and that shortcut is right up top.

5. Rather than using Google’s engine (fewer good results) or Bing’s (like DuckDuckGo does), your search is sent anonymously to all the major search engines, then Kagi assembles them for you.

Anyway, we don’t get any compensation if you try it out, but I’m definitely finding it to be a much better search experience.

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