"TwItTeR iS EnFoRcInG LoNg StAnDiNg API RuLeS"

New Tool For Peeping Inside Walled Ad Gardens

A new AI tool could help advertisers peer beyond the walled gardens of major retailers. 

Horizon Media's e-commerce division Night Market recently launched a new tool called Neon, which is designed to help advertisers optimize their media spend across retail media networks, including:

• Amazon

• Walmart

• Kroger

As Marketing Brew points out, the problem is that these retail media networks are typically walled gardens, which can make it difficult for advertisers to compare and predict where to allocate their budgets. 

👉 Neon Enters the Chat

Horizon aims to fix that. According to the media agency, its AI platform can predict quarterly ROI based on:

• Client sales data 

• Retailer-reported campaign performance

• Historical marketing mix modeling ROI

An executive for the agency explained that if, for instance, a company is selling candy across different e-commerce platforms, Neon could make a prediction about which retailers, and which channels within those retailers, would drive the most revenue.

Horizon claims that the new platform is designed to increase advertisers' revenue by 20%.

"TwItTeR iS EnFoRcInG LoNg StAnDiNg API RuLeS"

Twitter has officially pulled the plug on third-party apps. 

Last week, we reported that the company had started locking out third-party apps like Tweetbot and Twitterific. After days of silence, Twitter seemed to confirm that it was blocking all those apps. A tweet from its developer account read: 

Twitter is enforcing its long-standing API rules. That may result in some apps not working.

❓Uh, What Rules, Exactly?!

Except, that wasn't true. There weren't any rules prohibiting the apps. If there were, Twitter wasn't saying. And certainly wouldn't those apps have had action taken against them long before now?

Twitter realizing, apparently, they didn't in fact have any long-standing API rules, yesterday wrote some — and, without announcement, snuck them into its developer rules. That text said that you can't use its API:

🧑‍⚖️ The Case for Banning Apps

To be fair, this is the same policy that Facebook and Instagram and many other social platforms have. There aren't any third-party Facebook apps because Facebook shuts them down.

And considering those third-party Twitter apps weren't pulling any ads down from the API, honestly — and I can't believe I'm about to say this — I understand Elon's position here.

But, like most moves in his tenure, it was clumsy, done without any communication, and burned bridges. One of the most popular such apps, Tweetbot (which, by the way, predated Twitter's own app and was the first to use the word Tweet in Twitter context) has shut down. When you go to its web site, you get an image of an elephant looking at a gravestone with Tweetbot's name on it.

🐘 App Developers Moving to Mastodon

Why an elephant? Because that's the logo for their new app, which is days from release, which is dedicated to the Mastodon platform. That app is called Ivory and it's basically Tweetbot for Mastodon.

For us marketers, I should be clear that Twitter is not closing the API entirely. It still lets you use third-party tools to schedule content, review analytics, and book ad campaigns.

At least for now it does.

Google: AI-Powered Shelf Checking For Retailers

An interesting use of Artificial Intelligence is blending the digital world with the in-store world.

Google Cloud has designed an AI-powered shelf-checking tool that lets retailers use cameras to automatically track items on store shelves. 

The inventory scanning system uses machine learning models to translate data into actionable insights that can improve:

• Product availability

• Price accuracy 

• Increase visibility into the current inventory

• Identify where restocks are required

According to the company, the AI system can work with images taken by cameras installed on the ceiling of a store or carried by robots that move up and down aisles. Stores can also upload photos taken using a phone to the engine.

The tool is currently in preview but it will be available to retailers worldwide in the coming months. Google added that a retailer’s images and data remain their own, and the AI can only be used to recognize products and price tags.

Incidentally, a bit of adjacent Google news — today, the company announced it would lay off 12,000 employees. That's about 6% of its global workforce and is the largest layoff in its history.

Image: Google 

YouTube Tests Location Tagging in Shorts

YouTube is testing a new location tagging feature that could help your brand reach local consumers.

Up until now, location tagging has only been available on the Shorts metadata editor post-upload, meaning that creators had to retroactively edit their Shorts metadata and add a location to it. Now it’s experimenting with letting brands and creators add locations to their Shorts during the upload process on mobile – similar to Reels. 

As Social Media Today points out, location data can, of course, add contextual information to uploads, enabling YouTube's systems to highlight clips that are more relevant to users based on their location. TikTok, for example, uses location info to show users more localized clips and updates.

Meta: Changes To Ad Controls

Meta wants you to bundle all of your account settings. 

The company's updated Accounts Center lets you manage your preferences across all of your accounts, like Instagram, Facebook and Messenger from one place. 

Meta doesn't appear to automatically add all of your accounts to the Accounts Center, so if this is something that will make your life easier, you'll need to add them manually. 

🛑 Beware of the Bundle

However, keep in mind that while you can adjust your ad settings across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, the company says these settings will need to remain the same across all apps. Meaning, you can only retain different ad settings if you use the Accounts Center separately for each app. If you add another account that has different ad settings to the Accounts Center, Meta says it will “adjust these settings to match across your accounts.”

The tech giant is also making changes to its ad settings.

First, it's updating its Data about your activity from Partners’ control. This is now called Activity information from ad partners to help people better understand how their activity sent from other apps and websites is used to power the ads they see.

Finally, Meta said it's exploring new ways to give people more control over the ads they see. However, it did not elaborate on what exactly those new ways will be.

Images: Meta

In Brief 

MAILCHIMP was hacked – again. The email marketing company confirmed a data breach that exposed the personal information of 133 customers. It's the second time the company has been hacked in the past six months. 

TUMBLR has started rolling out polls. Those with access to the feature can click the orange poll icon and write their question and add between two and 10 options for voters to choose from. Polls can be set to run for one day or one week.

LINKEDIN has banished its 'curious' emoji reaction. Several users have noticed the 'curious' emoji reaction has gone missing as a way to respond to posts. The platform hasn’t provided any official confirmation regarding its removal. 

WIKIPEDIA has a new look. The web site's desktop interface got its first update in over a decade that includes improved search. The update features a table of contents on the left side of the Wikipedia page and a relocated search bar at the top.

Images: Tumblr/LinkedIn/Wikipedia