Where We're Going, Marty, We Don't Need Headlines

In This Issue:

🚫 X/Twitter removes headlines from shared news links

🎥 YouTube offers wider monetization and introduces AI effect for Shorts

🛍️ TikTok halts retail operations in Indonesia due to social media shopping ban

💻 Adobe predicts 4.8% YoY growth in online holiday shopping

🐟 TikTok trend highlights tinned fish as more than just affordable luxury

X/Twitter Removes Headlines from Links Because Reasons

One of the most important parts of a post on social media is the headline. Whether you want people to be intrigued enough to read the post it’s linking to, or whether you want people to buy the product it’s selling — the headline is a key piece of that puzzle.

But that puzzle piece has been removed from the game on X — the site today removed all headlines from all link posts on the web and on Apple devices. (Well, some Apple devices. You can still see headlines on the Mac app, which is still called Twitter, and hasn’t been updated in a year.)

The only thing left is whatever text was in the post and the metadata image from the link. There is a tiny indicator of the domain name overlaid on the image. But for the most part — link posts are now practically indistinguishable from image posts.

The timing of this for marketers couldn’t be worse, of course. Brands are in the final stages of planning for Black Friday, and this quarter is the most important for consumer-facing brands.

There was no announcement or warning this was going to happen — other than Musk tweeting back in August that he thought the idea would make the site look nicer. I actually think it’ll make posts look even more cluttered, if we now have to include the body copy AND the headline AND the description text all in the post text area.

Also, as Gizmodo noted in its coverage today:

Indeed, when Musk first floated this idea a couple of months ago, an inside source told Fortune:

It’s possible this is X’s way of deprioritizing news publishers in the feed — something that most social platforms have been doing in the last year or two.

But you don’t have to be on social media long to know that most people don’t even read the articles there anyway. They see the headline, get angry about it, and reply to the post. It’s the headline they’re responding to, not the article.

Killing off headlines — the one thing people rally around — seems like a weird strategy for a platform desperate to increase engagement.

YouTube’s First Shorts AI Filter is Underwhelming

YouTube has added a new filter to its Shorts camera — that’s the tool brands and creators use to record vertical videos for their platform — and this filter is the company’s first that uses generative AI for Shorts.

It’s an effect called Bloom — it gives you a three-second countdown, then takes a still image, and turns you into a flowery topiary.

It’s fine, I guess, though it doesn’t use generative AI on actual live video, which TikTok has been doing for a while now. It also doesn’t really have any kind of brand marketing application I can see — unless you’re a flower shop, I guess.

Here’s a test of it I did:

More like this are coming — the company last week announced a whole slew of generative AI on its way early next year, including custom video backgrounds based on a text prompt like “pile of puppies” or “school hallway.”

YouTube is also expanding access to its Partner Program, bringing 23 more countries into the fold with lower qualification thresholds.

TikTok Pulls Its Shop Out of Indonesia

TikTok has pulled its ecommerce business out of Indonesia, after the country last week banned social media platforms from getting into the retail business.

Specifically, social platforms are no longer allowed to do e-commerce transactions on their sites. They can still promote products, just not actually sell them.

Indonesia is surprisingly important for TikTok — it’s its fastest growing market, for one thing, and adoption of live shopping has had a strong uptake.

The Indonesian government says this move will shield small businesses from the competition posed by large e-commerce companies. It also accused the industry of using predatory pricing tactics.

In a statement released on its website, the Chinese-owned TikTok confirmed it had stopped selling on TikTok Shop in Indonesia at 5:00 PM local time yesterday.

Online Spending to Grow 5% This Season: Adobe

After a couple of slow years in the commerce space, Adobe forecasts that marketers will see an uplift in spending this quarter.

In November and December, the company expects almost 5% growth in online spending compared to last year. And Adobe has the numbers to run those kinds of forecasts — it tracks one trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories.

Sales using “Buy Now Pay Later” models are expected to increase almost 17% compared to 2022.

They also named some specific categories they expect to perform exceptionally well: Electronics, apparel, furniture and home goods, and toys will make up more than half the online spend this season.

They’re also expecting to see record discounts of up to 35% off, especially during Cyber Week.

And, perhaps most notably, mobile will beat desktop for the first time as the preferred channel for online shopping.

And finally…

TikTok has been host to a number of foodie trends — remember the feta-tomato-bake? Or the flavored water? Or the butter boards?

Well, friends, it’s time to welcome a new competitor to the ring: Tinned fish.

Yeah, apparently videos about canned seafood are trending — videos tagged with #sardines, #tinnedfish, and #tinnedfishtok are closing in on 500 million views.

And we know who to blame for it — at least partially: the TikToker who goes by the account name DayWithMei. Some of her videos are past one million views.

I’ll be honest, this was one of those things that I thought “Well, that’s just dumb. Who’d watch a video of people opening tuna cans?”

But I have to tell you, it’s oddly entrancing. Because it’s not only tuna. We know what tuna looks like when you peel the metal lid off. But I genuinely did not know how some tinned fish looked like when they were packaged this way, and I found myself watching about a dozen of them before I finally snapped out of it.

Business Insider did a piece on this trend, and speculated that it’s popular because of how inexpensive tinned fish is, compared to other protein alternatives. And also, much of the North American audience may not have seen some of these international staples.

So there you go — your next viral video is waiting for you.

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