Dec 5 2023
4 TikTok Analytics Tools That Do the Math for You

Table of Contents

Ah, TikTok. What started as the domain of teenagers doing their teenager thing has become an important marketing channel – and not just for those marketing to teens. The platform now has more than a billion monthly users, and nearly a third of them are over 35. That means TikTok has become serious business for brands and organizations of all shapes and sizes.

TikTok analytics provide the information you need to take your TikTok strategy seriously, with insights into what works and what doesn’t for your business.

Before we jump into the details, here’s a quick overview of everything you need to know:

https://youtu.be/JMyRpoAOcAQ?si=p8KktDQCZP565Cks

What is TikTok analytics?

TikTok analytics are tools that allow you to track your performance on TikTok. They provide insights into which videos are seeing the most activity. On a deeper level, they help guide your TikTok marketing strategy, as you come to understand what resonates best with your audience.

Regularly reviewing the most important metrics for your TikTok account will allow you to grow strategically, rather than simply hoping for the best.

27 key metrics to track on TikTok

TikTok account metrics

  1. Video views. The total number of times your account’s videos were viewed over a given period.
  2. Profile views. The number of times your profile was viewed over the selected period. This TikTok metric is a good indication of brand interest. It measures the number of people who liked your video enough to check out your profile, or people who search for your brand on the platform.
  3. Likes. The number of likes your videos received in the selected date range.
  4. Comments. The number of comments your videos received in the selected date range.
  5. Shares. The number of shares your videos received in the selected date range.
  6. Content frequency. The number of videos you shared in the selected date range.

TikTok content metrics (for individual videos)

  1. Post views. The number of times a TikTok video has been viewed.
  2. Post likes. How many likes a post has received.
  3. Post comments. How many comments a post has received.
  4. Post shares. The number of times the post has been shared.
  5. Post engagement rate: Calculated as [(Number of likes + Number of comments + Number of shares + Number of content clicks in videos) / Number of viewers] * 100. Tip: Don’t like math? Hootsuite Analytics calculates engagement rate for you.
  6. Post average watch time. The average amount of time people spent watching this video.
  7. Video completion percentage. The number of times the video has been watched in full, as a percentage of viewers (identified in TikTok analytics as “watched full video”)
  8. Video reach. The total number of individual users who watched this video.
  9. Traffic sources. How people fi=ound your video. Traffic sources include the For You feed, your profile, the Following feed, sounds, searches, and hashtags.
  10. Video views by region. This section displays the top locations of viewers for the post. If you created a post or marketing campaign for a specific location, this is how to tell if it reached them.


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TikTok follower metrics (and demographics)

  1. Follower count: How many followers you have, total, at this moment in time.
  2. Net new followers: Total increase or decrease in your follower count during the selected time period.
  3. Gender distribution. A breakdown of the stated gender identities of your followers. While this isn’t necessarily critical information, any insight into your audience can help you build better audience personas.
  4. Country distribution. Where your followers are from, ranked by country. (Identified in TikTok Analytics as “Top Territories.”) Keep these places in mind if you’re looking to localize content and promotions.
  5. Follower activity. The times and days that your followers are active and scrolling on TikTok. Hootsuite uses this data to recommend best times to post based on your preferred goal.
Hootsuite best times and days to publish based on number of followers online in last 30 days

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TikTok Live metrics

  1. Total views. The total number of viewers present during your live videos in the selected date range.
  2. Total time. The total time you spent hosting live videos in the selected date range.
  3. New followers. The number of new followers gained while hosting a live video in the selected date range.
  4. Top viewer count. The peak number of users who viewed your live video at one time in the selected date range.
  5. Unique viewers. The number of users who viewed your live video at least once (in this stat, a viewer is only counted once, no matter how many times they replay the video).
  6. Diamonds. When you host a live video (and you’re 18+), viewers can send you virtual gifts, including “Diamonds.” You can exchange these diamonds for real money through TikTok—more info on that here. This stat shows how many diamonds you have earned in the selected date range.

4 TikTok analytics tools for 2024

First things first: Wondering how to turn on analytics on TikTok? To use a TikTok analytics tool, you’ll need to have a TikTok Business account. It’s free to switch. Just follow these steps:

  1. From your TikTok profile page, open the Settings and privacy tab (the three lines in the top right corner).
  2. Tap Manage account.
  3. Under Account control, choose Switch to Business Account.

1. Hootsuite

Hootsuite TikTok analytics reporting dashboard

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Hootsuite offers robust TikTok analytics reporting, with customizable reports and graphs that allow you to understand your current performance at a glance. If you want to dive into the details, you can do that too. Perhaps most importantly, Hootsuite allows you to analyze TikTok data for any timeframe you choose, whereas TikTok’s native tools are capped at 60 days.

The handy thing about Hootsuite’s highly customizable TikTok reports is that you can get as much or as little detail as you want. And you can create multiple reports for different shareholders with just a few clicks – so you can prove the success of your TikTok content strategy to senior stakeholders without having to walk them through every single stat.

You can also directly compare two time periods, so you can more easily identify trends.

Since most social marketers use TikTok as part of a multi-platform social strategy, it’s important to consider your TikTok insights in the context of your overall social performance. Hoostuite makes it easier to compare TikToks and Instagram Reels side-by-side, for example, so you can understand which is getting more traction.

Knowing where each platform fits into your social plan allows you to allocate resources more effectively and improve your entire social strategy, not just your TikTok results.

2. TikTok’s built-in tools

TikTok analytics mobile overview video views and followers

Source: TikTok

You can check your TikTok analytics for free using their native tools on your computer as well as within the mobile app. However, you can only download your data from the desktop dashboard. Here’s how to check TikTok analytics both ways:

  • On mobile: From your account page, tap the three dots icon and select Creator tools. Tap Analytics and you’re good to go!
  • On desktop: Navigate to tiktok.com and log in. Click your profile picture and choose Business Suite from the dropdown menu. This takes you directly to the Analytics page.

3. Sprout Social

Sprout Social video views graph report

Source: Sprout Social

Sprout Social offers a TikTok Analytics tool that provides access to many of the metrics above. It has graphical reports that make it easy to understand your TikTok activity. Like Hootsuite, it offers data beyond TikTok’s 60-day limit, but there are fewer customization options. It also offers recommendations on the best time to post, but they are not customizable by goal.

See how Sprout Social compares to Hootsuite.

4. Countik

Countik graph of average engagement rate for last 10 posts

Source: Countik

Countik is a free TikTok analytics tracker that lets you see insights for the most recent posts of any TikTok account. Just enter the Tik Tok handle in the search bar and click the magnifying glass.

You’ll get a lot of useful information, including average engagement rates, likes views, comments, and shares. You’ll also see the account’s most-used hashtags and mentions.

This is definitely a useful tool to research competitors and collaborators, but it does have significant limitations. The charts only include information on the last 10 posts, and the per-post analytics only include the most recent 20 posts.

How to use TikTok analytics tools for best results

Check in on a regular basis

While things move fast in general online, they move at light speed on TikTok. This is not a platform where you can afford to tune out of reporting for a few weeks.

Checking in regularly allows you to understand how TikTok user behavior is changing in near real time so you can adapt your strategy on the fly.

Hootsuite can keep you on track with your TikTok analytics tracking by automatically sending you (and other stakeholders) reports on a pre-set schedule, so the data comes right to your inbox.

Keep an eye on competitors – and potential collaborators

Within TikTok’s native analytics tool, there’s one stat in particular that can help you keep an eye on your competitors.

It’s called Videos your followers watched. It shows content your followers watched on TikTok when they were not watching your videos.

Videos your followers watched on TikTok last 7 days

Source: TikTok analytics

The creators of this content may very well be your competition. What are they up to?

Of course, these creators could also be potential collaborators. Is there anyone you might want to partner with to grow both of your audiences?

Look for patterns

Knowing whether each individual video flies or flops is a valuable exercise in itself. But if you really want to take your TikTok game to the next level, you need to look for the patterns and connections behind the data.

For example, if you notice your follower growth rate is significantly higher or lower than usual, narrow the date range of your new followers reporting to look for specific spikes or dips. What happened on that day? Make some notes about what you think might have led to the change.

You won’t necessarily be able to diagnose the situation in the first instance, but the next time you see a similar spike or dip, you might start to spot a pattern. In the meantime, you can test your theories to see if you can recreate success or correct a follower loss.

Over time, you’ll be able to tell what your audience wants to see from you. Give them more of that! Whether it’s how-to videos, product reviews, or stitches, you’ll soon get a sense of what kinds of videos get the most engagement and watch time.

Tip: If people watch a video more than once, they really, really like it (and so will the algorithm). To understand which videos get multiple views, subtract your reached audience from your view count. This gives you an estimate of how many times your video got multiple views.

Evaluate your hashtag and sounds strategies

Use the traffic sources analytics to get a sense of how many people are finding your videos through hashtags or sounds.

Sounds trends change lightning fast, but you can always see which sounds your audience has been listening to in the Followers tab of the native TikTok analytics tool. If you’re not seeing great results from your current sounds strategy, try one of these – but only if you can turn your video around almost right away.

Sounds your followers listened to on TikTok Daydream Acoustic and Blue Night

Source: TikTok

For hashtags, pay attention when you see a spike in traffic from hashtags and see if you can narrow it down to a particular hashtag that works well to bring in new viewers. Again, this might take a couple of tries, but over time you should be able to find some consistent winners.

Compare your results to industry benchmarks

The more context you have, the easier it is to understand your results. It’s incredibly helpful to know how the rest of your industry is doing on TikTok, especially during periods of change in activity on your account.

How to see TikTok analytics in the context of your industry as a whole? Hootsuite Analytics has a built-in industry benchmarking report that provides an analysis of how well you’re performing compared to others like you. You can choose the metrics that matter most to you, and select whether to display your data as a chart of a table for ease of use.

Hootsuite Analytics industry benchmarking profile impressions

Source: Hootsuite Analytics

Don’t forget to have fun

Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2023 is “authentic.”

https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/1729155477777559694

It’s an important reminder for brands that social media – and TikTok in particular – is a place for connection. TikTok is not a billboard, and it’s not even really like other social platforms. It’s a place where authenticity trumps all.

So, use the information from TikTok analytics to hone your strategy, spark content ideas, and understand your audience. But don’t let the numbers be the only thing that guides you. Allow room to experiment authentically and have fun. Just be sure to check your analytics reporting after you do so.

Grow your TikTok presence alongside your other social channels using Hootsuite. Schedule and publish posts for the best times, engage your audience, and measure performance — all from one easy-to-use dashboard. Try it free today.

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Dec 5 2023
Research Shows Tree Of Thought Prompting Better Than Chain Of Thought via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Researchers discovered a way to defeat the safety guardrails in GPT4 and GPT4-Turbo, unlocking the ability to generate harmful and toxic content, essentially beating a large language model with another large language model.

The researchers discovered that the use of tree-of-thought (ToT)reasoning to repeat and refine a line of attack was useful for jailbreaking another large language model.

What they found is that the ToT approach was successful against GPT4, GPT4-Turbo, and PaLM-2, using a remarkably low number of queries to obtain a jailbreak, on average less than thirty queries.

Tree Of Thoughts Reasoning

A Google research paper from around May 2022 discovered Chain of Thought Prompting.

Chain of Thought (CoT) is a prompting strategy used on a generative AI to make it follow a sequence of steps in order to solve a problem and complete a task. The CoT method is often accompanied with examples to show the LLM how the steps work in a reasoning task.

So, rather than just ask a generative AI like Midjourney or ChatGPT to do a task, the chain of thought method instructs the AI how to follow a path of reasoning that’s composed of a series of steps.

Tree of Thoughts (ToT) reasoning, sometimes referred to as Tree of Thought (singular) is essentially a variation and improvement of CoT, but they’re two different things.

Tree of Thoughts reasoning is similar to CoT. The difference is that rather than training a generative AI to follow a single path of reasoning, ToT is built on a process that allows for multiple paths so that the AI can stop and self-assess then come up with alternate steps.

Tree of Thoughts reasoning was developed in May 2023 in a research paper titled Tree of Thoughts: Deliberate Problem Solving with Large Language Models (PDF)

The research paper describes Tree of Thought:

“…we introduce a new framework for language model inference, Tree of Thoughts (ToT), which generalizes over the popular Chain of Thought approach to prompting language models, and enables exploration over coherent units of text (thoughts) that serve as intermediate steps toward problem solving.

ToT allows LMs to perform deliberate decision making by considering multiple different reasoning paths and self-evaluating choices to decide the next course of action, as well as looking ahead or backtracking when necessary to make global choices.

Our experiments show that ToT significantly enhances language models’ problem-solving abilities…”

Tree Of Attacks With Pruning (TAP)

This new method of jailbreaking large language models is called Tree of Attacks with Pruning, TAP. TAP uses two LLMs, one for attacking and the other for evaluating.

TAP is able to outperform other jailbreaking methods by significant margins, only requiring black-box access to the LLM.

A black box, in computing, is where one can see what goes into an algorithm and what comes out. But what happens in the middle is unknown, thus it’s said to be in a black box.

Tree of thoughts (TAP) reasoning is used against a targeted LLM like GPT-4 to repetitively try different prompting, assess the results, then if necessary change course if that attempt is not promising.

This is called a process of iteration and pruning. Each prompting attempt is analyzed for the probability of success. If the path of attack is judged to be a dead end, the LLM will “prune” that path of attack and begin another and better series of prompting attacks.

This is why it’s called a “tree” in that rather than using a linear process of reasoning which is the hallmark of chain of thought (CoT) prompting, tree of thought prompting is non-linear because the reasoning process branches off to other areas of reasoning, much like a human might do.

The attacker issues a series of prompts, the evaluator evaluates the responses to those prompts and then makes a decision as to what the next path of attack will be by making a call as to whether the current path of attack is irrelevant or not, plus it also evaluates the results to determine the likely success of prompts that have not yet been tried.

What’s remarkable about this approach is that this process reduces the number of prompts needed to jailbreak GPT-4. Additionally, a greater number of jailbreaking prompts are discovered with TAP than with any other jailbreaking method.

The researchers observe:

“In this work, we present Tree of Attacks with Pruning (TAP), an automated method for generating jailbreaks that only requires black-box access to the target LLM.

TAP utilizes an LLM to iteratively refine candidate (attack) prompts using tree-of-thoughts reasoning until one of the generated prompts jailbreaks the target.

Crucially, before sending prompts to the target, TAP assesses them and prunes the ones unlikely to result in jailbreaks.

Using tree-of-thought reasoning allows TAP to navigate a large search space of prompts and pruning reduces the total number of queries sent to the target.

In empirical evaluations, we observe that TAP generates prompts that jailbreak state-of-the-art LLMs (including GPT4 and GPT4-Turbo) for more than 80% of the prompts using only a small number of queries. This significantly improves upon the previous state-of-the-art black-box method for generating jailbreaks.”

Tree Of Thought (ToT) Outperforms Chain Of Thought (CoT) Reasoning

Another interesting conclusion reached in the research paper is that, for this particular task, ToT reasoning outperforms CoT reasoning, even when adding pruning to the CoT method, where off topic prompting is pruned and discarded.

ToT Underperforms With GPT 3.5 Turbo

The researchers discovered that ChatGPT 3.5 Turbo didn’t perform well with CoT, revealing the limitations of GPT 3.5 Turbo. Actually, GPT 3.5 performed exceedingly poorly, dropping from 84% success rate to only a 4.2% success rate.

This is their observation about why GPT 3.5 underperforms:

“We observe that the choice of the evaluator can affect the performance of TAP: changing the attacker from GPT4 to GPT3.5-Turbo reduces the success rate from 84% to 4.2%.

The reason for the reduction in success rate is that GPT3.5-Turbo incorrectly determines that the target model is jailbroken (for the provided goal) and, hence, preemptively stops the method.

As a consequence, the variant sends significantly fewer queries than the original method…”

What This Mean For You

While it’s amusing that the researchers use the ToT method to beat an LLM with another LLM, it also highlights the usefulness of ToT for generating surprising new directions in prompting in order to achieve higher levels of output.

  • TL/DR Takeaways:
  • Tree of Thought prompting outperformed Chain of Thought methods
  • GPT 3.5 worked significantly poorly in comparison to GPT 4 in ToT
  • Pruning is a useful part of a prompting strategy
  • Research showed that ToT is superior to CoT in an intensive reasoning task like jailbreaking an LLM

Read the original research paper:

Tree of Attacks: Jailbreaking Black-Box LLMs Automatically (PDF)

Featured Image by Shutterstock/THE.STUDIO

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Dec 5 2023
Explore Microsoft Bing Deep Search With GPT-4 & Generative AI Plans For 2024 via @sejournal, @kristileilani

Microsoft announced Deep Search, a substantial enhancement to Bing’s web search capabilities, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4.

What Is Microsoft Bing Deep Search?

Integrated with the advanced GPT-4 AI technology, Deep Search aims to deliver more relevant and comprehensive responses to complex search inquiries.

Rather than replacing, it enriches the current Bing web search, providing users with a more in-depth and nuanced web exploration.

How Deep Search Uses GPT-4 To Understand Intent

Deep Search capitalizes on Bing’s existing web index and ranking system, now enriched by GPT-4.

This advancement transforms a user’s query into a detailed description, more accurately capturing their intent.

The technology is particularly adept at clarifying queries that have multiple potential meanings.

For instance, a search about “how points systems work in Japan” might be expanded to encompass topics like loyalty card programs, their benefits, and how they compare to other payment methods.

microsoft bing deep search gpt-4 example previewScreenshot from Microsoft, December 2023

Rewriting Queries For Deeper Insights

Deep Search rewrites queries to explore various facets of a search topic, delving deeper into the web to retrieve results that might be overlooked in standard searches.

This approach allows Bing to tap into a broader array of web pages, increasing the chances of uncovering more informative and specific results.

These results are then meticulously ranked based on relevance, detail, credibility, and timeliness.

Extra Time For Better Results

Designed for complex queries requiring specific and comprehensive answers, Deep Search may take up to thirty seconds to complete.

It remains an optional feature, complementing Bing’s standard search, which delivers results in under a second.

Deep Search In Action: Perplexity AI Copilot Using GPT-4

If you want to get a feel for how Deep Search works, try the Copilot search feature powered by GPT-4 in the Perplexity Pro plan.

When you ask a question, you can review the steps Perplexity’s Copilot takes, including rewriting the search query to find the best answer to the question.

gpt-4 microsoft bing deep search perplexity copilotScreenshot from Perplexity, December 2023

Microsoft’s Generative AI Plans For 2024

In addition to Deep Search, Microsoft plans to expand access to more AI features powered by GPT-4.

Copilot AI Assistance With GPT-4 Turbo

Leading these updates is the integration of GPT-4 Turbo into Copilot, offering enhanced capabilities for handling complex and lengthy tasks.

Currently being tested by select users, GPT-4 Turbo will soon be widely available in Copilot.

Image Creation With DALL-E 3

Joining GPT-4 Turbo is the latest DALL-E 3 model, enabling Copilot users to create high-quality images that closely align with their prompts. The generative AI feature is available now for some users.

microsoft bing image creator designer dalle3Screenshot from Microsoft, December 2023

Inline Compose For Microsoft Edge Simplifies Writing

An upcoming addition is the Inline Compose with a rewrite menu for Microsoft Edge users, designed to simplify writing across most websites.

This tool, soon to be available to all Edge users, will enhance the browser’s functionality.

Multi-Modal Bing Image Search With GPT-4 Vision

In an innovative move, Microsoft is merging the power of GPT-4 with Bing image search and web search data, creating a Multi-Modal with Search Grounding feature.

Explore Microsoft Bing Deep Search With GPT-4 & Generative AI Plans For 2024Screenshot from Microsoft, December 2023

This fusion aims to improve image understanding in response to user queries, offering a more holistic AI experience.

Code Interpreter: Breaking New Ground In Task Simplification

Microsoft is also developing a Code Interpreter to simplify complex tasks like calculations, coding, data analysis, visualization, and mathematics.

code interpreter microsoft copilotScreenshot from Microsoft, December 2023

This feature is currently in the feedback phase and is expected to be available to everyone soon.

A New Year Of Working With AI

These advancements represent a glimpse into the expansive capabilities Copilot is poised to offer.

With feedback from its community of users, Microsoft is shaping Bing and Copilot to be not just a tool but an essential part of the digital experience, heralding a new era of AI-assisted productivity and creativity.

Featured image: Daniel Chetroni/Shutterstock

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Dec 5 2023
Emergency SEO: How To Recover When SERP Rankings Suddenly Drop via @sejournal, @hethr_campbell

With constantly evolving search algorithms and user behaviors, fluctuating search rankings are a common occurrence in the world of SEO.

But what happens when they suddenly drop? Do you know what steps to take to restore your rankings?

Watch this on-demand webinar for a practical guide to diagnosing and recovering lost Google rankings. You’ll learn how to navigate this common challenge, along with the best ways to assess the impact of the drop on affected pages. We’ll also show you the ways to identify if rankings have truly dropped or if it’s just an analytics issue.

You’ll takeaway:

  • The proper steps to take to evaluate the impact of changing Google rankings.
  • How to protect your website and stay ahead of sudden ranking drops.
  • How to identify the cause of lowered rankings.

With Ryan Maloney, SEO Success Manager at Conductor, we’ll explore how to take proactive steps to protect your rankings following the latest Google algorithm updates, so you can mitigate drops in the future.

Learn the ways to protect and rescue your rankings from sudden drops.

View the slides below or check out the full webinar for all the details.

Join Us For Our Next Webinar!

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Dec 5 2023
Microsoft Advertising Partners With Baidu Global For Chat Ads API via @sejournal, @kristileilani

In its monthly recap of significant developments, Microsoft Advertising shared the latest news about its new partnership with Baidu Global, advertising opportunities, and Bing’s rebranding to Copilot.

These advancements boost advertiser reach and efficiency, representing a notable expansion as the holiday season approaches.

Microsoft And Baidu: A Strategic Alliance

Microsoft Advertising advanced its commitment to generative artificial intelligence (AI) with a new partnership with Baidu Global, aiming to roll out in 2024 in markets like the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia.

This collaboration leverages Microsoft’s Chat Ads API, allowing Baidu Global Keyboard, a mobile app enriched with natural language processing and generative AI features, to deliver tailored and engaging sponsored content.

Microsoft Advertising Partners With Baidu Global For Chat Ads APIScreenshot from Microsoft, November 2023

This partnership provides a unique opportunity for advertisers to reach a broader and more diverse audience, particularly Gen Z, across various app environments.

Microsoft emphasizes the potential of this partnership to enhance user experiences with more relevant content and continues to explore innovative ways to utilize generative AI in advertising.

Expanded Advertising Opportunities

Microsoft Store Ads, now available globally, offer advertisers a way to boost app and game downloads. This feature allows for broad geographic targeting, including worldwide campaigns.

Microsoft has extended Video and Connected TV advertising to 32 Americas, EMEA, and APAC markets. This expansion underscores the growing relevance of video in advertising strategies.

In addition, Microsoft Advertising also introduced bulk management for predictive targeting to identify potential high-conversion audiences.

The platform has also upgraded its Google Import feature to facilitate importing discovery and demand gen campaigns from Google Ads.

Bing Becomes Copilot

In a significant rebranding, Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise have transitioned to Copilot, enhancing the AI-driven chat experience for users.

These updates highlight Microsoft Advertising’s commitment to innovation and customer empowerment in the digital ad arena, with the Baidu partnership emphasizing AI’s role in future growth.

Featured Image: Tada Images/Shutterstock

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Dec 5 2023
3 Books Essential To Master Link Building via @sejournal, @_kevinrowe

A link builder needs to look outside of the industry for inspiration to design a link building strategy.

If you want to design a link building initiative that is goal-focused and adheres to the Google Search Essentials guidelines, read these books that have nothing to do with link building.

The ideas in these books have had the most transformational impact on my approach to link building – and learning in general.

The impact was not because they helped me understand how to build links but because of the following:

  • “Loved: How to Rethink Marketing for Tech Products” shows that a “great” link builder should be a strategist, ambassador, storyteller, and evangelist.
  • “Made to Stick” frames how you communicate ideas and concepts so they resonate with the audience. This book has a model to demonstrate your expertise and experience.
  • “Mastery” provides a model to master skills by learning from the “master” and then customizing your approach with influences from other passions (e.g. learning Jiu-Jitsu or writing).

link building books that have nothing to do with link building

Before getting to the meat of the article, it’s important to understand why you should use the information in these books.

John Mueller says:

“I love some of the things I see from digital PR, it’s a shame it often gets bucketed with the spammy kind of link building. It’s just as critical as tech SEO, probably more so in many cases.”

Why These Books?

Did you know that the best link building strategies aren’t found in SEO guides but in books about communication and mastery?

To become great at something, you must know what “great” looks like.

In the link building space, there are not many clear examples of “great,” that genuinely follow the Google Search Essentials guidelines.

This lack of “what great looks like” is the biggest challenge for many link builders. Thus, these books have examples of what great looks like and a model for becoming great.

Great link building used to look like “how do I build links to improve ranking?” but now it’s “how do I secure links as a consequence of strategic communication for a specific customer archetype?”

Imagine the satisfaction when your content is genuinely appreciated, shared, and linked, not because of a direct ask but because it resonates with the audience.

These books are for professional beginners and advanced in link building. And if you genuinely seek to understand these books, every part of your link building game will evolve into strategic off-page communications.

Think of link building as a bridge. On one side, you have content creators; on the other, you have audiences seeking valuable content.

Your role? Be the architect of that bridge, ensuring it’s sturdy, valuable, and genuine. That bridge is easier to build when you have content and products that are loved.

Loved: How To Rethink Marketing For Tech Products

Product marketing is the new link building!

Historically, a link builder’s role has been to perform outreach or content strategy to obtain links to a site.

For example, a link builder will reach out to a site with listicles of similar products to theirs. The outreach can be a simple request to list the company and link to the homepage. This is a typical link builder tactic.

However, this book provides insights that can change the very essence of link building.

The book “Loved,” by Martina Lauchengco, is rooted in product management, providing insights into marketing great products. Link building is the marketing of great content or guiding the creation of great content based on the market’s needs.

Although the book provides many tools and guidance for product marketing, the four key disciplines provide inspiration to become a great link builder.

Ambassador

An ambassador understands the market and customers inside and out. They must also be able to articulate the product’s value proposition in a way that resonates with customers.

Strategist

A strategic thinker who can develop and execute marketing plans that align with the product’s business goals. They must also be able to track and measure the results of their marketing campaigns to ensure that they are effective.

Storyteller

Must be able to tell a compelling story about their products that will capture the attention of customers and persuade them to buy. They must also be able to adapt their story to different audiences and channels.

Evangelist

Inspire customers to become evangelists for their products. They do this by providing excellent customer service, creating valuable content, and building customer relationships. So, an Evangelist enables the users to tell the brand or product’s story.

Even great content doesn’t always succeed in the marketplace of ideas. One reason is that competitors have superior content marketing. Effective content marketing can make a significant difference in the success of a campaign.

How To Use This Book

Historically, the link builder’s role has focused on a simple request based on outreach, with the goal of obtaining links directly from that outreach. However, this approach can lead one to build links in a way that doesn’t align with the Google Search Essential recommendations.

Thinking about the link building role, based on the disciplines above, can lead you to build skills for digital PR and not just link building.

A link builder should be a link building strategist and an ambassador who uses storytelling to create evangelists for the content or experts.

The link builder then becomes an ambassador for the content team to guide content production as a result of the feedback.

This new role sets a link builder as a storyteller. Instead of asking for a link, the outreach can tell a story about how their product or content fits into the prospective site’s narratives.

This new description of a link builder’s role should guide your strategy and tactics, from building a link to distributing a message that results in links as a consequence.

Your role is to develop communications about the company or its content that are sticky.

Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Thrive And Others Die

This book by Chip Heath and Dan Heath is one of the first books I bought for myself after college and has changed how I handle all communication planning.

This concept of making things “sticky” improved everything from short emails to long-form articles.

“Made to Stick” explains why some ideas are memorable with a lasting impact while others are forgotten. By understanding and applying these principles, anyone can craft more effective and memorable messages.

For an idea to stick, it must have SUCCESs:

  • Simple: Distill the message to its core essence.
  • Unexpected: Capture attention by surprising the audience.
  • Concrete: Make sure the idea can be easily grasped and remembered.
  • Credible: Give the idea authority and believability.
  • Emotional: Connect with people on an emotional level.
  • Stories: Use narratives to make the message more relatable and compelling.

How To Use This Book

Realistically, the idea of SUCCESs should vibrate throughout every method of communication. However, I’ve found a few areas in communications for link building where this framework can change your entire approach.

Link building strategy is the process of planning the direction and steps of your approach to link building. One way the book can change your strategy is to widen your link building tool kit (i.e., techniques that can be used).

A successful campaign uses emotion to tell a simple, unexpected story supported by credible and concrete evidence.

For example, a standard guest posting strategy involves outreach to sites for guest post opportunities, which results in a link from your article back to your site. However, this strategy alone goes against the Search Essentials guidelines.

Instead of using the guest posts to generate an individual link, use the article contribution to share a message or content that is shared because it has “unexpected” insights that are currently relevant.

Email outreach for link building, by many, is defined as a process to email a content creator or webmaster (who owns the site) to “secure a link.”

This definition sets the link as the goal. But a SUCCESs approach to outreach focuses on sharing a message that people can easily understand, recognize and share. The goal isn’t’ the direct link but all the links and conversations around your sticky idea.

Linkable asset planning and design is the process of creating a sharable piece of content that can generate links on the merits of the content being shared with the right audience. A piece of content will be more linkable if it has all of the elements of SUCCESs.

With an example of “great” from “Loved” and a way to be great with “Made to Stick”, now you have to figure out how to master this new model.

Mastery

The book “Mastery,” by serial author Robert Greene, suggests that mastery is a process to find our potential.

Greene explains that the first step in the process is to discover a calling; a passion for that calling is critical to truly mastering a skill.

This couldn’t be more true.

When I started link building, I simply emailed sites and asked for a link through resource pages, broken links, or guest posting.

However, I found my passion was for crafting stories and messages that resonate with the audience. My passion came because of my background in integrated marketing communications and design.

I looked into my background to find a passion, naturally leading to advanced digital PR.

As you’ll see in the mastery process below, discovering your calling is a foundation for achieving mastery.

Here’s a simplified overview of Greene’s process:

  • Discover your calling: People have a unique inner force or inclination towards certain activities or subjects.
  • Find mentors: A good mentor can provide guidance, feedback, and ways to avoid pitfalls.
  • Apprenticeship: Skill acquisition through deep observation and experimentation.
  • Social intelligence: Learn to navigate the culture. As anyone learning a new skill will see, the experts tend to have unique cultural norms and idioms that can sometimes be difficult to accept.
  • Creative-active phase: After the apprenticeship, one enters a phase where they start producing original work from a deep foundation.
  • Achieve mastery: True mastery is the synthesis of knowledge, skills, and intuition. It’s when one’s work becomes an art.

How To Use This Book

Master link building by finding your passion, a mentor, and then making it your own. Greene’s process for this is a simple way to learn from experts by integrating into their culture and then creating something that’s your own.

However, I have personally found that finding the right mentor, developing social intelligence, and creating a unique strategy are the most difficult parts of mastering link building.

These recommendations are from my personal experience of finding a path to mastery.

Identifying The Master

Understand Google’s Search Essentials as the foundation for what link building techniques to avoid and generate links on the merit of the content.

Find link builders, SEO professionals, PR experts, and Google Search Advocates that get links as a consequence and not as the goal.

With the masters identified, you must now learn to fit in with the culture.

Social Intelligence

Traditional link builders tend to clash with Google Search Advocates or SEO professionals who follow their guidance. But, any link builder should have empathy for these SEO and search advocates.

By truly listening, you will quickly discover that certain content marketing, digital PR, and influencer marketing techniques can be valid.

Additionally, by learning from traditional link builders, you’ll find a culture of growth hackers. Link builders are wildly efficient at building simple processes to get placements.

After finding a master and then learning to operate inside that community to learn the necessary skills, it’s time to get creative.

Creative-active Phase

Using everything learned from master link builders, PR, SEO, and search advocate professionals, test unique approaches to build links that fit your passions.

“Discover your calling” is an important step in designing creative strategies, which coagulates in this creative-active phase.

I discovered one of my callings (I have many) when studying Integrated Marketing Communications at the Roy H. Park School of Communications & Journalism.  However, I didn’t even realize it until years later.

At the Park School, I was exposed to journalism, graphic design, communication strategy, advertising campaign development, media planning, and even financial management.

Later in life, I was exposed to product management, which further fueled my passion for product planning and marketing.

This background always tainted my approach to building links. I found that content marketing, design, and digital PR techniques changed how I approach link building.

Becoming Rounded

The evolution of link building requires a shift in perspective.

While traditional tactics may have their place, the true essence of effective link building lies in understanding the broader landscape of digital communication and marketing.

By drawing inspiration from outside the realm of SEO, one can craft strategies that both align with Google’s guidelines and resonate deeply with audiences.

Books like “Loved,” “Made to Stick,” and “Mastery” provide invaluable insights that can redefine the way we approach link building. They emphasize the importance of storytelling, emotional connection, and continuous learning.

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, it’s crucial for link builders to adapt, innovate, and strive for mastery in their craft.

Only then can they truly harness the power of links as genuine endorsements rather than mere SEO tactics.

More resources: 

Featured Image: Ollyy/Shutterstock

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Dec 5 2023
Users are doling out justice on a Chinese food delivery app

There are no jury trials in Chinese courts—but if you think the noodles you just got delivered were too hot, a jury of your peers will quickly determine guilt in the app where you ordered it. 

Jury trials, in fact, are plentiful on Chinese apps—especially Meituan, the country’s most popular food delivery service, where millions of users have volunteered to arbitrate complaints between customers and restaurants. Offering it as a way for restaurants to appeal bad reviews they believe are unreasonable, Meituan crowdsources help from users by showing them the review, details of the order, and supplementary notes from the restaurant. Then users can vote on whether to take down the review from the restaurant’s public page.

The vast majority of cases are trivial: the steamed rice was too firm, there were not enough utensils, the portion was too small. And then there’s the perennial complaint: the food is always too spicy or not spicy enough. 

For example, a customer left a one-star review for one restaurant, saying that the “medium-spicy river snail rice noodle” ended up being not spicy at all. Yet the order detail showed that the user actually asked for the noodles to be “not spicy.” Bang: 91% of the jury voted that the customer was the guilty party. The review would be removed.

Lately, judging who’s in the wrong in these situations has become a favorite pastime for young Chinese users, who are increasingly sharing particularly ridiculous cases on social media. It’s not all that different from laughing at a ridiculous “Am I the Asshole” post on Reddit and contributing your two cents, except it has been institutionalized by a major tech company as a content moderation mechanism.

While a few other Chinese apps have similar features, Meituan’s is arguably the most popular at the moment. Meituan first introduced this feature in 2020 and called it “Kangaroo Juries,” since the app’s mascot is a yellow kangaroo. But perhaps because that sounded too close to the pejorative term “kangaroo court,” the feature has since been renamed “Little Mei’s Juries.” 

Today, more than 6 million users have participated in “jury duty,” a Meituan spokesperson tells MIT Technology Review, the majority of them college students. (That may sound like a lot of people, but the app’s annual active user base is 677 million people.) Some minor rules have changed since the feature launched, but the essence remains the same: the juries help the platform sift through thousands of petty fights every day and uphold meal-related justice.

The fun of passing judgment

Even though it has existed for a few years, many people have only recently become aware of Meituan’s public jury feature. It’s now frequently a viral topic on social media—and a source of joy for those nosy enough to weigh in on other people’s business.

Yu Mingyao, a college student living in Dalian, first started judging these cases last winter and would occasionally jump into a jury when she was using the app to order food. But she says she didn’t think the feature was really that popular until mid-November, when she screenshotted a few ridiculous cases she had judged, including the spicy rice noodle saga. In another case she posted about, the user gave a restaurant three stars out of five because of a breakup experienced after eating there. The restaurant complained that it wasn’t to blame. 

She posted these on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media app, and asked her dozens of followers: “Does anyone have anything funnier to share?”

To her surprise, the post attracted much more attention than she’s ever received. She soon got more than 2,000 comments, many of which were other screenshots of particularly bewildering complaints. People have kept replying to her, and she’s now at the point where she’s getting tired of reading Meituan reviews.

“At least 90% of the [jurors] are doing it for the fun,” Yu says. “If the complaints by the restaurants and the customers were boring, I don’t think there would be many participants.” 

Meituan has clearly designed the feature to require only a light commitment from individual jurors. There are few qualifications needed other than having a verified, active account and passing a “test” that includes judging five simulated complaints. After that, each juror gets a maximum of three cases every 12 hours—meaning it’s more a casual game to keep them in the app than any serious form of crowdsourced platform management. They also don’t get any compensation for their participation, just the mental satisfaction. 

But this doesn’t mean some jurors don’t take their duty very seriously. In one case that was posted on social media, a bubble tea vendor argued that contrary to the complaint, it did place a straw in the delivery package. But some jurors realized that the time stamp in the security camera footage uploaded by the merchant didn’t match the time of the delivery. The restaurant had seemingly fabricated evidence, and in the end, 51% of the jurors sided with the customer.

Meituan encourages the activity of these more serious jurors. In an October announcement, the app said it would reward 20 “quality jury comments” with a gift bag of Meituan merchandise every month. To explain who qualifies, the app offered an example of a juror not just casting a vote, but going above and beyond by consulting catering professionals on pricing standards. 

Weeding out fake or unfair feedback

The public jury function can improve efficiency in resolving disputes and bring more transparency to the platform’s decision-making process, says Angela Zhang, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, who has done extensive research on what she calls “crowd-judging” features. “Since these decisions are crowdsourced, they align more closely with community norms, helping platforms better understand and integrate these standards,” Zhang says.

Most of the cases up for trial are initiated by the merchants, according to reposted screenshots and Yu’s personal experience. Though the Meituan spokesperson says a user can open a case in some specific situations, for example if they have an issue after they’ve purchased one of the app’s coupons. “I think the main target of this feature is to reduce the number of malicious [customer] reviews,” Yu says. 

The juries may even help uncover reviews that are fraudulent. Food delivery vendors, like any online service, rely heavily on reviews to attract potential customers, which has inspired a black market in both fake five-star reviews for themselves and one-star complaints for competitors.

Chen, a fast-food restaurant owner in Fujian province who has operated a store for more than a year, says that it’s important to retain 4.7 stars out of 5.0. “If it’s lower than [that], you don’t get any traffic, and you can’t make any money,” Chen says. (She asked to be identified by only her last name in order to speak more freely.)

But in practice, it’s not that easy for the merchants to utilize the public jury feature. Chen has had a lot of frustrating experiences with bad reviews, and she says Meituan requires multiple rounds of appeals and attempts to dial up a customer representative to actually open a jury trial. 

In August, Chen received a review that claimed the delivery was missing one portion of rice, and she responded that the rice was merely buried under other food. After failing several times to get the platform to remove this review, she finally got the case to a jury. Twenty-two jurors voted for her, and nine voted for the customer.

“I just have one humble request: whenever a vendor provides enough supporting evidence, a trial by Little Mei’s Juries can be opened,” she says.

A wave of democratic experiments 

Meituan is not the only Chinese consumer tech company that has invited users to weigh in on conflicts. Idle Fish, a secondhand marketplace operated by Alibaba, has a similar “court” system where any dispute between buyers and sellers can be decided by a panel made up of 17 volunteer jurors. Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, also allows users to become jurors and help the platform screen out content that violates its rules. 

Like Reddit’s downvote system or X’s community notes, these features let the users participate in enforcing platform policies. But at the same time, some users complain that these features are designed to offload the responsibilities of the platform. 

There have been similar user-governance experiments in the past, but they didn’t last long. WeChat once had a system in which volunteers could decide whether articles had been plagiarized, and Weibo also recruited volunteer content moderators who could suspend other users. 

“Operating a crowd-judging platform isn’t free,” Zhang says. In particular, it takes human resources to maintain the platform. And if it doesn’t attract enough user participation, the system won’t be efficient. Still, Zhang believes that having such a system in place is good for the users and the platform: “Essentially, platforms are delegating some of their authority to their users, creating a more collaborative and democratic governance structure.”

In some cases, the activity of these juries can have pretty serious consequences. The example with the largest scale and highest stakes was probably Xianghubao, a discontinued online mutual-aid product from Alibaba that tried to challenge commercial health insurance in China. 

The idea was that millions of users would each pitch in a few bucks so that when one of them got sick, the pool of money would be used to pay their medical bills. But first, to decide whether a medical bill qualified for payment, Xianghubao asked everyone to study the case details and cast a vote. In 2019, the first-ever case was judged by over 250,000 users. The patient was a man in his 40s who fell down a hole, broke his legs, and lost consciousness. The majority eventually decided, on the basis of his previous health history, to deny paying him 100,000 RMB (about $14,000). The service shut down in 2022.

Meituan has chosen a more entertaining approach with its public jury feature. It certainly doesn’t deal with life-or-death situations like Xianghubao, and by centering the arguments between customers and merchants, it carefully avoids the more controversial problems of the food delivery business—namely, the rights of delivery workers. (“A delivery worker can become a juror as a Meituan user. They can also initiate a trial by Little Mei’s Juries as a consumer,” says the Meituan spokesperson.) 

Meituan’s public jury is ultimately more of a light-hearted activity for users who have placed an order and are waiting for it to arrive. Many users who talk about their experiences on social media compare it to a fun and addictive game. In five seconds, they can laugh at some ridiculous user complaints or examples of a delivery that went wrong. Plus, who doesn’t like to feel that you’re doing the right thing and acting in the name of justice?

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Dec 5 2023
Meet the 15-year-old deepfake victim pushing Congress into action

This article is from The Technocrat, MIT Technology Review’s weekly tech policy newsletter about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. To receive it in your inbox every Friday, sign up here.

I want to share a story about an inspirational young woman and her mother, who have stepped into the fray on AI policy issues after a horrific incident. Too often, new technologies disproportionately harm women and girls without drawing enough attention or bringing about change. In reporting out a recent story, I was so impressed with this family’s drive to fix that. 

In October, Francesca Mani was one of reportedly more than 30 girls at Westfield High School in New Jersey who were victims of deepfake pornography. Boys at the school had taken photos of Francesca and her classmates and manipulated them with artificial intelligence to create sexually explicit images of them without their consent. (Westfield High School said in an email that “matters involving students are confidential” but claims that “far fewer” than 30 students were affected.)

The practice is actually stunningly commonplace, but we rarely hear such stories—at least in part because many victims of sexual harassment very understandably don’t want to talk publicly about incidents that are so private. But within just a day of learning about the violation, which she calls “shocking,” 15-year-old Francesca started speaking out and calling on lawmakers to do something about the broader problem. Her efforts are already starting to pay off with new momentum behind proposals for state and federal legislation, which I wrote about in a story published this morning. That includes a bill cosponsored by New Jersey state senators Jon Bramnick and Kristin Corrado that would establish civil and criminal penalties for the nonconsensual creation and sharing of deepfake porn.

Francesca and her mother, Dorota, say that their activism aims particularly to support women and girls who might not have their own ability to make change. I spoke with the Manis earlier this week to more deeply understand what this experience has been like, and I want to share parts of my conversation with them, which has been edited for length and clarity. 

Could you walk me through what happened to you and how you found out?

Francesca: Every single girl was worried on October 20. Rumors were going around, people were worried, and all the girls thought they were going to be one of the AI victims. And at the end of the day it was confirmed by the administration that I was one of many AI deepfake victims. Of course, I was shocked, because me and the other girls were betrayed by our classmates. We didn’t know our own classmates would do that to us. 

It’s really brave what you’re doing by speaking out and talking to all these people about your experience. What made you want to take action?

Francesca: Until I was one of the victims, I didn’t really know how complex and scary AI technology is. So it’s made me understand the importance of self-education in regards to the technology, because AI is here to stay, and we need to learn how to live with it without hurting ourselves and others. So this is actually why I have created a website called AI Help, which will help educate and protect us from AI. And this tool will provide resources that will help AI victims self-advocate. I also want to make sure that we have state and federal laws to protect us—children and women—from deepfakes, and that’s already being put into action.

What are some of the key things that you think other girls and women should know about the risks when it comes to AI?

Francesca: It’s important to know that it can happen to anyone, by anyone; like, it could be your classmates. That’s what happened to me. People should realize when they start posting stuff on Instagram or any type of social media that it can happen to you. Protect your image, make your account private, and have only certain followers on it, like people you know, instead of having a public account.

Can you tell me about the conversations you’ve been having with lawmakers about this issue? 

Francesca: I spoke to Senator Bramnick—he’s actually from Westfield—to help me advocate for our state and to [make] new AI laws. We actually spoke in person and he promised that he will do all he can to protect our state from deepfakes. He also immediately cosponsored Senator Corrado’s bill. And if everything goes well with the joint effort, we’ll be able to protect New Jersey with an AI bill by January 2024. And this makes me incredibly happy, to know that my own town senator cares enough to fight for the important cause. 

Congressman [Joe] Morelle [of New York] also invited us to Washington, DC, to meet with other congressmen [from both parties]. 

Dorota: We are hoping after our visit in Washington we’re gonna be able to have more and more support and make sure that we start with something. Then we can always better it.

What has this taught you about politics or the way the American government works? 

Francesca: I was so happy to know that—well, when I reached out I was 14, I just turned 15—but I’m, like, a 14-year-old, and [the lawmakers] listened to me and they helped me. They were willing to protect me and other girls. Something I learned from this is to speak up and not to be afraid. 

I know you filed a police report about this, but what is the legal recourse you are hoping for? 

Francesca: I would really like for whoever’s doing this to be suspended or expelled, because I think it’s important for everyone to feel comfortable if it’s someone from your school. And I would also like an apology. I would forgive that person, but, you know, I would never forget. 

Dorota, you mentioned you haven’t been pleased with the school’s response. Is there anything you would like schools to do differently to either respond to situations like this or prevent them from happening in the first place? 

Dorota: I think education is so important on this matter—educating our children, educating ourselves—and then taking responsibility. I think we should use this [opportunity] to educate our girls that they’re worth it; even though they have been victimized, it doesn’t mean they should be ashamed and they should just accept things as they are and hope for them to pass. We have a wonderful school district. Our teachers are fantastic. Francesca wouldn’t be able to go through this whole situation without the support of her teachers. I cannot say good enough things. 

But the administration simply is hoping for things to die down. I have no report. There’s no consequences, there’s no accountability, there’s no apology. I’m an educator myself. I own a private school in Jersey City. And I think as a mother and as a woman, I’m advocating for something different. I’m supporting my daughter, but as an educator, I’m advocating to create a safe place for our children, because it could happen to anybody. It does not necessarily have to be a woman, and I think we should send a clear message that this is not acceptable. 

[In a statement to MIT Technology Review, Westfield superintendent Raymond González said, “The Westfield Public School District has safeguards in place to prevent this from happening on our network and school-issued devices. We continue to strengthen our efforts by educating our students and establishing clear guidelines to ensure that these new technologies are used responsibly in our schools and beyond.” The school also said it conducted an immediate investigation and is working with police.]

Do you think there’s a role for education that also teaches kids what’s appropriate and inappropriate, as well as how to protect themselves from the harms? 

Dorota: Oh, absolutely. I think on many occasions [digital education] will be given to a, you know, physical education teacher, and they will be teaching the dangers of AI. Let’s be honest with each other: this is such a complex and sophisticated technology, and it’s ever changing. We should make sure that a specialist is teaching that class, and it shouldn’t be just at the beginning of the school year. It should be at least twice or three times, and it should be delivered in a meaningful way. 

It really affects people’s lives. And Francesca has such a strong personality. She always has been a fighter. And I applaud her for speaking for herself. At the beginning, when she told me, Mom, I wanna fight, I said, Francesca, I want you to know that it can go either way. You’re going to hear people that are happy and you’re going to hear people that are really against you, and you have to be prepared for it. And she said, I am not a child. I can take people’s opinions and I want to speak up. But not everybody’s gonna have the same character as Francesca. Not everybody’s going to have the same support at home as Francesca. And there are going to be girls or boys who will not see the light at the end of the tunnel and will go for suicide or self-harm. And I don’t think we should wait for that. Education in a meaningful way is the most important thing.

Francesca: I also want to urge all school districts to update their policies on cyber-harassment to add a definition of AI and to add defined consequences if deepfakes are being created by a student. Laws can take time to be passed, but school policies can and should be updated immediately.

It feels like you really have created a lot of momentum. Have you had any negative reactions? 

Francesca: No, not really. It’s so cool to know that I have such a great community and support from my friends and teachers, and I just want to thank them. I’m so proud to be an American. I live in a country where the voice of a now-15-year-old girl can make positive change. 

What I am reading this week

  • Instagram influencers in India are being paid by political campaigns to sway local elections. It’s part of a growing trend in which smaller and nonpolitical social media personalities are tapped for campaign messaging. 
  • The EU AI Act is entering its final stage of negotiations, and some people are worried that the discussions are not going great. The EU Parliament, Commission, and Council have a preliminary deadline of December 6 to finalize the deal, and apparently tech lobbyists are making discussions sticky. 
  • The US government will no longer notify Meta when foreign disinformation campaigns are operating on its platforms. This reversal of a years-long policy is a result of a conservative legal campaign. And in the run-up to the US elections, it’s not good news for the health of the internet. 

What I learned this week

Using AI to generate an image uses a ton of energy, according to a new research study from Hugging Face and Carnegie Mellon University. As my colleague Melissa Heikkilä reported, “Their work, which is yet to be peer reviewed, shows that while training massive AI models is incredibly energy intensive, it’s only one part of the puzzle. Most of their carbon footprint comes from their actual use.” The research marks the first time the carbon emissions associated with using AI for different purposes, like image or text generation, have been calculated. 

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Dec 5 2023
The Download: cleantech 2.0, and ‘jury duty’ on Chinese delivery apps

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Climate tech is back—and this time, it can’t afford to fail

A cleantech bust in 2011 left almost all the renewable-energy startups in the US either dead or struggling to survive.

Over a decade on, the excitement around cleantech investments and manufacturing is back, and the money is flowing again. A recent analysis estimates that total green investments reached $213 billion in the US during the 12 months beginning July, 2022.

However, as ‘cleantech 2.0’ startups inch towards commercialization, many of them still face the same issues that tripped up the green revolution a decade ago. Can they succeed where their predecessors failed? Read the full story. 

—David Rotman

Users are doling out justice on a Chinese food delivery app 

Jury trials are plentiful on Chinese apps—especially Meituan, the country’s most popular food delivery service. 

Offered as a way for restaurants to appeal bad reviews they believe are unreasonable, Meituan crowdsources help from users by showing them the review, details of the order, and notes from the restaurant. Then users can vote on whether to take down the review from the restaurant’s public page. More than six million users have now participated in ‘jury duty’ on the app.

Even though it has existed for a few years, many people have only recently become aware of Meituan’s public jury feature. It’s now frequently a viral topic on social media—and a source of joy for those nosy enough to weigh in on other people’s business. Read the full story. 

—Zeyi Yang

Meet the 15-year-old deepfake victim pushing Congress into action

In October, Francesca Mani was one of reportedly more than 30 girls at Westfield High School in New Jersey who were victims of deepfake pornography. Boys at the school had taken photos of Francesca and her classmates and used AI to create sexually explicit images of them without their consent.

The practice is actually stunningly commonplace, but we rarely hear such stories—at least in part because many victims understandably don’t want to talk publicly. But, within just a day of learning about the violation, 15-year-old Francesca started speaking out and calling on lawmakers to do something about the broader problem. Her efforts are already starting to pay off with new momentum for legislation. 

Francesca and her mother, Dorota, say that their activism aims particularly to support women and girls who might be less equipped to push for change. Our senior reporter Tate Ryan-Mosley spoke to them both—read her write-up of their interview.

This story is from The Technocrat, our weekly newsletter all about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Friday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Inside the bitter feuds that will shape the future of AI
It seems most of today’s top AI companies were born out of arguments between rich, egomaniacal men. (NYT $)
+ How Microsoft navigated the recent OpenAI board turmoil. (New Yorker $)
+ OpenAI agreed to buy $51 million of AI chips from a startup backed by Sam Altman. (Wired $)
+ Adam D’Angelo helped to fire Altman. Now he has to work with him. (WSJ $)
+ Not every AI expert thinks superintelligence is on its way. (CNBC)
 
2 Satellite images suggest nearly 98,000 buildings in Gaza are damaged
The pictures were taken before the seven-day suspension of hostilities, which has now ended. (BBC)
+ Inside the satellite tech being used to reveal the extent of Gaza’s destruction. (Scientific American $)
 
3 A group of 56 nations have agreed to phase out coal
Including the US, which sends a strong signal. (AP $)
+ Why the UN climate talks are a moment of reckoning for oil and gas companies. (MIT  Technology Review)
+ Climate experts are furious with the head of COP28 for spreading misinformation. (Sky)
 
4 We badly need to regulate AI in medicine
Here’s how we might approach that mammoth task. (Proto.Life)
+ Artificial intelligence is infiltrating health care. We shouldn’t let it make all the decisions. (MIT Technology Review)
 
5 Ozempic makes people want to drink less alcohol 🍷
Researchers need to collect more data to understand why, but it’s a potentially promising finding. (Wired $)
+ Weight-loss injections have taken over the internet. But what does this mean for people IRL? (MIT Technology Review)
 
6 As X descends into chaos, news outlets are turning to Reddit
The trouble is, it’s a very different beast. (WP $)
+ X is still struggling to lure back advertisers. (The Guardian)
 
7 What it’s like to get your hamburgers delivered by drone
Fun… but probably not economically viable, in the long-run. (The Information $)
+ Food delivery by drone is just part of daily life in Shenzhen. (MIT Technology Review)
 
8 Kiss is becoming a ‘virtual-only’ band
Their avatars can stay on tour forever, while the actual members of the group put their feet up. (BBC)
 
9 You probably don’t need that shiny new tech gadget this Christmas 📱
The days of constant, rapid advancements in consumer tech are over. (The Guardian)
 
10 Inside the audacious plan to bring the dodo back from the dead
The plan is to reintroduce it to its once-native habitat in Mauritius. (CNN)
+ It might never work out. But wouldn’t it be cool if it did? (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Other states are going to be watching and learning.”

—A former White House security official tells The Guardian that other nations are taking a keen interest in how Israel is using AI to select bombing targets in Gaza.

The big story

Ghost ships, crop circles, and soft gold: A GPS mystery in Shanghai

November 2019

On a sultry summer night in 2019, the MV Manukai was arriving at the port of Shanghai. The city would be the American container ship’s last stop in China before making its long homeward journey to California.

As the crew carefully maneuvered the 700-foot ship through the world’s busiest port, its captain watched his navigation screens closely. According to the Manukai’s screens, another ship was steaming up the same channel at about seven knots (eight miles per hour). Suddenly, the other ship disappeared from the AIS display. A few minutes later, the screen showed the other ship back at the dock. Then it was in the channel and moving again, then back at the dock, then gone once more.

Eventually, mystified, the captain picked up his binoculars and scanned the dockside. The other ship had been stationary at the dock the entire time. Now, new research and previously unseen data show that the Manukai, and thousands of other vessels, are falling victim to a mysterious new weapon that is able to spoof GPS systems in a way never seen before. Read the full story.

—Mark Harris

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ All aboard the booze train!
+ Treat yourself to these amazing BBC music performances, showcasing some of the best musicians of the past 50 years.
+ Gen Z is doling out dating advice to millennials, and it is savage.
+ Fortune telling with cheese? It doesn’t get much crazier than that. 🧀
+ The Conway Library archives are really quite remarkable.

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Dec 5 2023
I received the new gene-editing drug for sickle cell disease. It changed my life.

On a picturesque fall day a few years ago, I opened the mailbox and took out an envelope as thick as a Bible that would change my life. The package was from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and it contained a consent form to participate in a clinical trial for a new gene-editing drug to treat sickle cell disease.

A week prior, my wife and I had talked on the phone with Haydar Frangoul, an oncologist and hematologist in Nashville, Tennessee, and the lead researcher of the trial. He gave us an overview of what the trial entailed and how the early participants were faring. Before we knew it, my wife and I were flying to the study site in Nashville to enroll me and begin treatment. At the time, she was pregnant with our first child.

I’d lived with sickle cell my whole life—experiencing chronic pain, organ damage, and hopelessness. To me, this opportunity meant finally taking control of my life and having the opportunity to be a present father.

The drug I received, called exa-cel, could soon become the first CRISPR-based treatment to win approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, following the UK’s approval in mid-November. I’m one of only a few dozen patients who have ever taken it. In late October, I testified in favor of approval to the FDA’s advisory group as it met to evaluate the evidence. The agency will make its decision about exa-cel no later than December 8.

I’m very aware of how privileged I am to have been an early recipient and to reap the benefits of this groundbreaking new treatment. People with sickle cell disease don’t produce healthy hemoglobin, a protein that red blood cells use to transport oxygen in the body. As a result, they develop misshapen red blood cells that can block blood vessels, causing intense bouts of pain and sometimes organ failure. They often die decades younger than those without the disease.

After I received exa-cel, I started to experience things I had only dreamt of: boundless energy and the ability to recover by merely sleeping. My physical symptoms—including a yellowish tint in my eyes caused by the rapid breakdown of malfunctioning red blood cells—virtually disappeared overnight. Most significantly, I gained the confidence that sickle cell disease won’t take me away from my family, and a sense of control over my own destiny.

Today, several other gene therapies to treat sickle cell disease are in the pipeline from biotech startups such as Bluebird Bio, Editas Medicine, and Beam Therapeutics as well as big pharma companies including Pfizer and Novartis—all to treat the worst-suffering among an estimated US patient population of about 100,000, most of whom are Black Americans.

But many people who need these treatments may never receive them. Even though I benefited greatly from gene editing, I worry that not enough others will have that opportunity. And though I’m grateful for my treatment, I see real barriers to making these life-changing medicines available to more people.  

A grueling process

I feel very fortunate to have received exa-cel, but undergoing the treatment itself was an intense, monthslong journey. Doctors extracted stem cells from my own bone marrow and used CRISPR to edit them so that they would produce healthy hemoglobin. Then they injected those edited stem cells back into me.

It was an arduous process, from collecting the stem cells, to conditioning my body to receive the edited cells, to the eventual transplant. The collection process alone can take up to eight hours. For each collection, I sat next to an apheresis machine that vigorously separated my red blood cells from my stem cells, leaving me weakened. In my case, I needed blood transfusions after every collection—and I needed four collections to finally amass enough stem cells for the medical team to edit.

The conditioning regimen that prepared my body to receive the edited cells was a whole different challenge. I underwent weeks of chemotherapy to clear out old, faulty stem cells from my body and make room for the newly edited ones. That meant dealing with nausea, weakness, hair loss, debilitating mouth sores, and the risk of exacerbating the underlying condition.

Jimi Oleghere leans on the fence beside his home

MATT ODOM

My transplant day was in September 2020. In a matter of minutes, a doctor transferred the edited stem cells into me using three small syringes filled with clear fluid. Of course, the care team did a lot to try and make it a special day, but for me that moment was honestly deflating.

However, the days and months since have been enriching. I’ve escaped from the clutch of fear that comes from thinking every occasion could be my last. Noise and laughter from my 2-year-old twin daughters and 4-year-old son echo through my home, and I’ve gained immense confidence from achieving my goal of being a father.

It’s clear to me from my experience that this treatment is not made for everyone, though. To receive exa-cel, I spent a total of 17 weeks in the hospital. Not everyone will want to subject themselves to such a grueling process or be able to take time away from family obligations or work. And my treatment was free as part of the trial—if approved, exa-cel could cost millions of dollars per patient.

Another potential barrier is that some people become enmeshed with their chronic disease. In many ways, your disease becomes part of your identity and way of life. The community of people with sickle cell disease—we call ourselves warriors—is a source of strength and support for many. Even the promise of a better life from a novel technology may not be strong enough to break that bond.

From few, to many

Other challenges are society-wide. In advancing new treatments, the US medical industrial complex has too often left a trail of systemic racism and unethical medical practices in its wake. As a result, many Black Americans mistrust the medical system, which could further suppress turnout for new gene therapies.

Global accessibility has also not been a priority for most of the companies developing these new treatments, which I feel is a mistake. Some have cited the lack of health-care infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa, which houses about 80% of all sickle cell disease cases globally. But that just sounds to me like a convenient excuse.

The options for treating sickle cell disease are very limited. Denying access to such a powerful and transformative treatment based on someone’s ability to pay, or where they happen to live, strikes me as unethical. I believe patients and health-care providers everywhere deserve to know that the treatment will be available to those who need it.

Conducting gene therapy research and clinical trials in African populations could allow for a more comprehensive understanding of the genetic diversity of sickle cell disease. This knowledge may even contribute to the development of more effective and tailored therapies—not only for Africans, but also for people of African descent living in other regions.

Even as a direct beneficiary of gene therapy, I often struggle with not knowing the full consequences of my actions. I fundamentally, at a cellular level, changed who I am. Where do we draw the line at playing God? And how do we make the benefits of a God-like technology such as this more widely available?

Jimi Olaghere is a patient advocate and tech entrepreneur. 

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