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- Well what a week it has been especially in social media. People who followed the President and First Lady accounts of the leaders of the United States were shocked surprised and looking for a gunman on the grassy knoll instead of realizing with the administration change the new President and First Lady branding would appear.
- Where do the changes at Meta leave folks? No one really knows yet as the new content controls have not been completely felt. Any mention though of the terrorists who undertook the United States Capitol Attack and their recent pardons found those stories throttled and buried as content.
- This has been happening across META on Instagram, Facebook and Threads and mainly with topics opposed to the current leader of the United States and his actions. Twitter has been throttling accounts since the new ownership and really stepped things up during the later stages of the election cycle. An account we are familiar with who would routinely see hundreds of interactions on their tweets now sees less than a hundred interactions per tweet and has lost over 60 followers in the past four months.
- Blue Sky is seeing substantial growth (https://bsky.app) With a recent user number surpassing 30 million users. Blue Sky is a company created by the former CRO of Twitter Jack Dorsey in 2019 and now lead by Jay Graber, it launched to the general public in 2024. What will be interesting is how Blue Sky will pay the bills going forward. They will survive as the de facto alternative to Twitter, and Meta for the foreseeable future. People feel safe on the platform.
- Blue Sky also announced an alternative to Meta’s Instagram named Flashes. It has not been released to the public. It is close and the Beta to the public is only days away. (https://gizmodo.com/bluesky-is-getting-its-own-instagram-alternative-called-flashes-2000550787)
- One of the sources of information I use frequently for the notes is Wikipedia. Have you donated to Wikipedia? I routinely donate $25 at least twice a year, it is a line item in my annual budget. Wikipedia is also something the new administration in Washington and their supporters are trying to take over. So if you have an extra $5 or more make a donation to help protect the wiki’s.
- So one of the changes at Instagram we were made aware of was the grid. If you have visited thirteen letter on Instagram https://instagram.com/thirteenletter we prided ourtselves in how this grid presented. What has happened is the website version of Instagram and the mobile device version of your grid are two different things. On the website the grid looks perfect. On mobile it looks like someone without a guide was putting together a puzzle. So do we change our grid to the new format or do we maintain until the new mobile presentation is also the same for the website?
- What has been the question is what is the size of the thumbnail presented on this Instagram grid? We measured it, 1080 pixels wide x 1450 pixels high. Not quite 5×7 but close…
- There is a negative air to social media these days a bright spot with a sad ending but better future was Alba. Somehow the algorithm put Niall Harbison and his dog rescue Happy Doggo in Thailand in front of me and I was one of hundreds of thousands of people maybe even millions to meet Alba. Niall discovered this white female dog who had spent her entire life chained up living in a chair. Alba was a mess and they were allowed to rescue her and I followed what happened next. Niall was pretty clear he was not sure if she would survive a day in his care maybe even two days. By about the fifth day she started to enjoyed walking to a hilltop for sunset and sunrise. Hank, Niall’s house dog looked after her and slept by her side every night and was attentive to all of her needs. Sadly Alba lasted only 14 days but her ending was much better than it was going to be. https://youtu.be/mF4eEeGXFc8?si=nyjkZQYIWRkXgNq_
- Niall has Happy Doggo everywhere and you can understand why when you see the effectiveness of the charity with their numbers. https://www.happydoggo.com/our-story. They are generating income from social and it helps the charity just sharing the stories of these animals. Happy Doggo may not have saved Alba but they are making a difference. Even with Alba gone I check in everyday. So for all of the disinformation on social media there is Happy Doggo. It inspires you to do more…
- A good comparison this week was between misinformation and disinformation and I would say we have never been in the misinformation age but have been solely in the disinformation age. Worst offenders are politicians of a certain stripe and their supporters. Remember we are in the age of disinformation.
- For a few years the mindset of not needing a website or keeping your website current has been prevalent. With TikTok disappearing as a stunt for 16 hours, the changes at Meta and the hot dumpster fire Twitter has been, making your website your sole source of reliable current information is more important than it has been in a long time.
- Marques Brownlee or MKBHD is YouTube tech reviewer who has over 20 million followers. He was challenged by Carl Pei and the staff at Nothing to spec his 2025 dream phone. If Marques can pick his favourite parts from all of the manufacturers what would they be? Nothing would then price it out as to what that phone should cost to build. Final bill? $500.
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