Jul 5 2024
Google Gives Exact Reason Why Negative SEO Doesn’t Work via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google’s Gary Illyes answered a question about negative SEO provides useful insights into the technical details of how Google prevents low quality spam links from affecting normal websites.

The answer about negative SEO was given in an interview in May and has gone unnoticed until now.

Negative SEO

Negative SEO is the practice of sabotaging a competitor with an avalanche of low quality links. The idea is that Google will assume that the competitor is spamming and knock them out of the search engine results pages (SERPs).

The practice of negative SEO originated in the online gambling space where the rewards for top ranking are high and the competition is fierce. I first heard of it around the mid-2000s (probably before 2010) when someone involved in the gambling space told me about it.

Virtually all websites that rank for meaningful search queries attract low quality links and there is nothing unusual about, it’s always been this way. The concept of negative SEO became more prominent after the Penguin link spam update caused site owners to become more aware of the state of their inbound links.

Does Negative SEO Cause Harm?

The person interviewing Gary Illyes was taking questions from the audience.

She asked:

“Does negative SEO via spammy link building, a competitor throwing tens of thousands of links at another competitor, does that kind of thing still harm people or has Google kind of pushed that off to the side?

Google’s Gary Illyes answered the question by first asking the interviewer if she remembered the Penguin update to which she answered yes.

He then explained his experience reviewing examples of negative SEO that site owners and SEOs had sent him. He said that out of hundreds of cases he reviewed there was only one case that might have actually been negative SEO but that the web spam team wasn’t 100% sure.

Gary explained:

“Around the time we released Penguin, there was tons and tons of tons of complaints about negative SEO, specifically link based negative SEO and then very un-smartly, I requested examples like show me examples, like show me how it works and show me that it worked.

And then I got hundreds, literally hundreds of examples of alleged negative SEO and all of them were not negative SEO. It was always something that was so far away from negative SEO that I didn’t even bother looking further, except one that I sent to the web spam team for double checking and that we haven’t made up our mind about it, but it could have been negative SEO.

With this, I want to say that the fear about negative SEO is much bigger than or much larger than it needs to be, we disable insane numbers of links…”

The above is Gary’s experience of negative SEO. Next he explains the exact reason why “negative SEO links” have no effect.

Links From Irrelevant Topics Are Not Counted

At about the 30 minute mark of the interview, Gary confirmed something interesting about how links evaluated that is important to understand. Google has, for a very long time, examined the context of the site that’s linking out to match it to the site that’s being linked to, and if they don’t match up then Google wouldn’t pass the PageRank signal.

Gary continued his answer:

“If you see links from completely irrelevant sites, be that p–n sites or or pure spam sites or whatever, you can safely assume that we disabled the links from those sites because, one of the things is that we try to match the the topic of the target page plus whoever is linking out, and if they don’t match then why on Earth would we use those links?

Like for example if someone is linking to your flower page from a Canadian casino that sells Viagra without prescription, then why would we trust that link?

I would say that I would not worry about it. Like, find something else to worry about.”

Google Matches Topics From Page To Page

There was a time, in the early days of SEO, when thousands of links from non-matching topics could boost a site to the top of Google’s search results.  Some link builders used to offer “free” traffic counter widgets to universities that when placed in the footer would contain a link back to their client sites and they used to work. But Google tightened up on those kinds of links.

What Gary said about links having to be relevant matches up with what link builders have known for at least twenty years. The concept of off topic links not being counted by Google was understood way in the days when people did reciprocal links.

Although I can’t remember everything every Googler has ever said about negative SEO, this seems to be one of the rare occasions that a Googler offered a detailed reason why negative SEO doesn’t work.

Watch Gary Illyes answer the question at the 26 minute mark:

Featured Image by Shutterstock/MDV Edwards

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jul 5 2024
Consumer Usage Of Social Media Platforms Is Shifting (Again) via @sejournal, @gregjarboe

According to a new Consumer Pulse survey from Sprout Social, usage of social media platforms is shifting again – in ways that will significantly impact brands.

According to the new data, Instagram (65%) has just passed Facebook (64%) as the No. 1 platform among the 2,059 consumers surveyed.

It’s worth noting that the participants of this survey included 1,009 US consumers and 1,050 UK consumers who have at least one social media account and follow at least five brands on social media.

So, this isn’t a global sample. And since the US population (335 million) is almost five times larger than the UK population (68 million), the survey isn’t a representative sample of either country. Plus, focusing on consumers who follow at least five brands on social media skews the results, too.

Nevertheless, when it’s broken down by age group, there are significant differences in usage that marketers will want to analyze and consider using in their social media campaigns.

For example, 519 participants were classified as Gen Z (18-24), 757 were Millennials (25-40), 502 respondents were Gen X (41-56 years old), and 281 were Baby Boomers (57-75 years old).

The consumer survey was conducted online by Cint on behalf of Sprout Social from May 17-27, 2024.

Usage Of Social Media Platforms By Age Group

Segmenting by age shows:

  • Gen Z uses Instagram most frequently, followed by TikTok, Snapchat, and Facebook.
  • Millennials use Instagram most frequently, followed by Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube.
  • Gen X uses Facebook most frequently, followed by Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
  • Baby Boomers use Facebook most frequently, followed by YouTube, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter).

It’s also worth noting that 45% of the consumers surveyed have taken a “social media detox” in the past six months, and 51% plan to in the next six months.

So, it appears that a significant percentage of the “consumers” who follow at least five brands on social media need to take temporary breaks from “consuming” for a variety of reasons, including mental health, feeling overwhelmed, or wanting to reflect on their social media usage.

The Sprout Social Q2 2024 Consumer Pulse survey also found:

  • Gen Z has been most engaged with Instagram Reels (83%), Instagram Stories (81%), and TikTok posts (78%) over the last six months. Despite TikTok’s uncertain future in the US, this segment says it will be most engaged with TikTok posts (75.5%), Instagram Reels (74%), and Instagram Stories (74%) over the next six months.
  • Millennials have been most engaged with Instagram Reels (77%), Instagram Stories (77%), and TikTok posts (68%) in the last six months. This segment says they’ll be most engaged with Instagram Stories (75%), Instagram Stories (73%), and TikTok posts (66%) over the next six months.
  • Gen X has been most engaged with Facebook videos (67%), Instagram Reels (59%), and Instagram Stories (59%) over the last six months. This segment says it will be most engaged with Facebook videos (59%), Instagram Stories (60%), and Instagram Reels (59%) over the next six months.
  • Baby Boomers have been most engaged with Facebook videos (61%), Facebook Live (41%), Instagram Reels (41%, and Instagram Stories (41%) over the last six months. This segment says they’ll be most engaged with Facebook video (67%), Facebook Live (47%), Instagram Reels (46%), and Instagram Stories (42%) over the next six months.

With YouTube Shorts now averaging over 70 billion daily views, it may seem odd that this video format didn’t appear in the survey findings above.

But, as we reported, the platform’s recommendation algorithm shows videos that align with that specific user’s watching history and preferences.

In contrast, Sprout Social defines engagement as any interaction between a brand and its target audience on social media. This includes actions that show how actively involved an audience is with a brand’s content, such as clicking on links, sharing content, or commenting.

So, the skew in the sample combined with different key performance indicators (KPIs) explains this apparent discrepancy.

The Formats Of Brand Content That Consumers Find Most Entertaining

According to the Sprout Social Q2 2024 Consumer Pulse survey, they are:

  • “Edutainment,” which educates consumers about a product or service in a fun way (65.5%).
  • Posts using memes (40%).
  • Serialized content (38%).
  • One-off video skits (38%).
  • Interactive content like polls and stickers (34%).

And despite what marketers may have heard about the popularity of “lo-fi content” that’s intentionally rough, unpolished, and authentic, the survey found that most consumers say that production value does impact whether they engage with a brand’s content.

Many consumers surveyed agree that artificial intelligence (AI) is contributing to the already incredible saturation of content on social media and will exacerbate the challenges of misinformation going forward.

AI-Generated Content Should Be Disclosed

In addition, most consumers surveyed agree that AI-generated social content needs to be disclosed – but they’re somewhat split on who bears the responsibility for doing that.

Despite previous data showing that AI-generated content can be eye-catching or entertaining, the new data finds that it may negatively impact consumer buying decisions.

Consumers are closely split on believing brands (33%) or social networks (29%) are responsible for disclosing when AI generates social content. Only 6% think AI-generated content doesn’t have to be disclosed.

And 46% of consumers are less likely to buy from a brand that posts AI-generated content on social, while 31% are neither more nor less likely.

Plus, the new survey of 2,059 consumers in the US and UK found:

  • 83% of consumer agree that AI-generated content will make their social feeds more saturated than they already are.
  • 80% agree that AI-generated content will add to misinformation on social media.

Consumers Most Likely To Unfollow Brands

Finally, the Sprout Social Q2 2024 Consumer Pulse survey found that 43% of consumers are most likely to unfollow brands for having an unoriginal content strategy (i.e., their content has become repetitive or unoriginal).

And 42% of consumers are most likely to unfollow brands for collaborating with the “wrong” influencer (i.e., “they partner with influencers that don’t align with my values”).

While posting frequency isn’t a significant deal-breaker, it’s worth noting that younger consumers are more likely to unfollow influencers for posting too little (17% Gen Z vs. 10.5% all consumers). In comparison, older consumers are more put off by posting too much (24% Baby Boomers, 21% Gen X, 16% Millennials, and 14% Gen Z).

This trend holds true for unfollowing brands as well.

The Alternatives To Using Demographics For Targeting

Many marketers believe that a person’s age tells us where they fall in the life span and indicates what social roles and responsibilities they may have. Which generation they belong to may also tell us what events in history influenced their social thinking.

However, marketers should also read “How Pew Research Center will report on generations moving forward.”

It notes:

“A typical generation spans 15 to 18 years. As many critics of generational research point out, there is great diversity of thought, experience, and behavior within generations.”

What are the alternatives to using demographic groups for targeting?

Well, that’s a good topic for another column on another day. But let’s just say that there are more options than you can shake a stick at.

Disclaimer: All statistics above are from a gated Sprout Social report, unless otherwise indicated by a link.

More resources: 

Featured Image: Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jul 5 2024
42 Facebook Statistics & Facts For 2024 via @sejournal, @annabellenyst

Don’t believe what you may have heard; Facebook is still a dominant social media force in 2024.

With over 3 billion active users, it remains a key player for businesses, marketers, and social media enthusiasts.

And despite the rise of newer, shinier platforms, Facebook’s expansive reach and diverse user base are still unrivaled, making it a powerful channel for both personal and business engagement.

In this article, we’ll highlight the latest Facebook statistics and facts, providing a comprehensive overview of its reach, user behavior, and influence.

Facebook Overview

1. Facebook is the world’s most-used social platform in 2024, with over 3 billion global active users.

2. It is the third most-used app globally among mobile users, trailing only WhatsApp and YouTube.

3. Facebook ranks third in terms of time spent (behind TikTok and YouTube), with users spending an average of 19 hours and 47 minutes on Android app per month.

4. 64.1% of Facebook Android users open the app every day.

5. Facebook is the third most visited website in the US, with an estimated 2.90 billion monthly visits in April 2024.

6. Of its monthly US visitors, roughly 50.07% are mobile users, and 49.93% are using a desktop.

7. Globally, users spend an average of 3 minutes and 42 seconds on Facebook per app session.

8. Facebook is the second most searched query globally, with a search volume of 584.9 million.

9. Facebook is the fourth most downloaded social networking app in the US, behind Threads, WhatsApp, and Telegram.

(Source) (Source) (Source) (Source) (Source) (Source) (Source)

Facebook Company Background

10. Facebook was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.

11. The platform was originally launched as ‘TheFacebook’ on February 4, 2004. In August of 2005, it rebranded to Facebook.

12. Mark Zuckerberg is the current CEO of Facebook.

13. Facebook is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.

14. Facebook has 69,329 employees in 2024, a decrease of 10% year-over-year.

(Source) (Source) (Source)

Facebook Financial Performance

15. As of May 2024, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has a market cap of $562.19 billion.

16. Meta generated $36.46 billion in revenue in Q1 2024, reflecting a 27% increase year-over-year.

17.  The company reported a net income of $12.37 billion in Q1 2024 – a significant 117% uptick from Q1 of 2023.

(Source) (Source)

Facebook User Statistics

18. Facebook had an average of 2.11 billion daily active users (DAUs) in 2023.

19. Facebook has approximately 3.07 billion monthly active users (MAUs).

20. That figure represents 37.7% of the total population and 57% of total internet users.

21. Facebook saw a 3.4% increase in MAUs between April 2023 and April 2024.

22. More than two-thirds of the world’s total internet users visit Facebook monthly.

23. English is the most represented language among Facebook users (53.8%), followed by Spanish (14.9%) and Hindi (8.5%).

24. Approximately seven in 10 US adults report ever using Facebook, second only to YouTube (83%).

25. A third of US teens aged 13-17 use Facebook, a decrease from 71% in 2014-2015.

26. More than 56.8% of Facebook users are male in 2024.

(Source) (Source) (Source) (Source) (Source)

Facebook Statistics By Location

27. 1.37 billion of Facebook’s MAUs are based in the Asia Pacific, making it the largest segment of the app’s users.

28. Europe and the US & Canada make up the next largest user groups.

29. Facebook’s global audience size, April 2023:

Country Active Facebook Users
India 369.9 million
US 186.4 million
Indonesia 135.1 million
Brazil 114.2 million
Mexico 93.3 million
The Philippines 91.9 million
Vietnam 75.6 million
Bangladesh 54.2 million
Thailand 51.6 million
Egypt 47.0 million

(Source) (Source)

Facebook Advertising

30. Advertisers can reach 2.24 billion users on Facebook in 2024, representing 41.3% of all internet users and 27.7% of the total population.

31. Among active Facebook users, 53.8% say they use the platform to follow or research brands and products. This ranks the platform second behind Instagram (62.7%) and ahead of TikTok (47.4%).

32. Male users aged 25-34 years old make up the largest portion of Facebook’s advertising audience (18.4%), followed by those aged 18-24 years old (13.5%).

33. Ad impressions on Meta’s Family of Apps (FoA), which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, increased by 28% YoY in 2023.

(Source) (Source) (Source)

Facebook User Activities And Engagement

34. Active users use the app to message friends and family, with 72.6% doing so regularly.

35. Posting or sharing photos or videos is a common activity for 63.2% of Facebook users.

36. Almost 60% of users leverage Facebook to keep up to date with news and current events.

37. Facebook is the go-to platform for news for three in 10 Americans, making it the most popular social platform for this purpose.

(Source) (Source)

Facebook Content And Engagement

38. Link posts account for 44.5% of Facebook posts.

39. Photo posts follow at 33.4%.

40. Video posts make up 18.9% of content.

41. Photo posts receive an average engagement rate of 0.35%, followed by video posts at 0.23%, and album posts at 0.22%.

(Source)

Most Followed Facebook Pages

42. The top 10 most followed Facebook pages are:

Brand Followers*
1 Facebook App 188 million
2 Cristiano Ronaldo 168 million
3 Samsung 161 million
4 Mr. Bean 140 million
5 5-Minute Crafts 126 million
6 Shakira 124 million
7 Real Madrid C.F. 121 million
7 CGTN 121 million
9 Will Smith 116 million
9 Lionel Messi 116 million

*Facebook followers as of January 2024

(Source)

In Summary

Say what you will about Facebook, but its enduring relevance is undeniable.

With extensive reach, a broad user base, and significant advertising potential, Facebook will remain a cornerstone of any social media strategy in 2024.

By understanding these trends and user behaviors – and leveraging many of the insights covered above – you can maximize the potential of Facebook to drive engagement, awareness, and impact.

More resources: 

Featured Image: Kaspars Grinvalds/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jul 5 2024
Organic SEO Strategy Guide: How To Boost Search Visibility & Drive Growth via @sejournal, @idigitalinear

This post was sponsored by Digitalinear. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

In a world where consumers search online for nearly everything – from product recommendations to local service providers – your brand’s digital presence is everything.

The right organic SEO strategy can boost your search visibility and drive sustainable business growth.

SEO is becoming increasingly complex with sweeping algorithm changes, intense competition, and the recent flood of AI-generated content.

So how can you navigate these challenges to enhance your site’s visibility and raise brand awareness?

Here, we’ll break down a strategic approach to organic SEO, focusing on building a solid foundation and continuously optimizing and analyzing performance.

Step One: Web Inspection

The first step to address is the core user experience of your website.

SEO strategies should always begin with the end user, how you solve their problems, and how you communicate your value to them.

If your website is a new obstacle to them, they’ll find solutions elsewhere. So, your first job is to clarify your intended user experience and make it seamless. This will take both audience research and technical optimization.

The audience research portion of inspecting your website should include:

  • Identify Success Metrics and Conversion Points: Your website must do its job well. You need a clear understanding of what you want users to do, which target audiences are likely to take those actions, what questions and pain points those users have, and how you can address them. Much of that strategy work comes later in the process, but for now, you need a clear view of your goals and intended user journeys. This will help you prioritize the most impactful technical fixes.
  • Assess Content Coverage and Quality: High-quality, relevant content is crucial for engaging users and ranking well in search results. Moreover, you need content that addresses the real needs of your target audiences at multiple stages of their journey. Understanding users’ needs and questions is critical to their experience and to lead them toward desired actions. Conduct a content audit to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement: identify low-engagement pages and analyze competitors to see what content you’re missing.

A comprehensive technical website audit should include:

  • Technical SEO: Ensure your site is technically sound by checking for issues like broken links, duplicate content, and proper use of meta tags. Many tools can assist with this, but individual tools may not provide a complete view. You may need to combine reports from multiple different tools.
  • Site Speed and Core Web Vitals: Slow-loading websites can deter visitors and negatively affect search rankings. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify speed issues.
  • Mobile-Friendliness: Google uses mobile-first indexing. This means that mobile-friendliness isn’t only important for mobile users. Your website’s indexing and ranking depend on its mobile performance, no matter what device is being used to view it. The content of your pages should be the same and provide the same experience between desktop and mobile. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test can help you assess your site’s performance on mobile devices. If you want to lean into mobile trends, then mobile app development allows you to provide mobile users with unique, seamless experiences.
  • User Experience (UX): A positive user experience encourages visitors to stay on your site longer, reducing bounce rates and improving SEO. Evaluate your site’s navigation, layout, and overall usability, keeping your success metrics and conversion points in mind. Users should be able to find the next steps quickly.

A full website audit is both technical and strategic. Sometimes, you need an external perspective to accurately identify the UX and communication issues you might be encountering. This is where an SEO agency can provide the perspective, research, and dedicated resources a website needs for long-term success.

Digitalinear specializes in organic SEO, and packages begin with deep research into your business and niche alongside technical audits.

With a team of dedicated SEO professionals, Digitalinear performs a thorough website inspection using the best tools available, ensuring no stone is left unturned in your audit.

Step Two: Deep Optimization

Once you’ve identified the areas of your site that need improvement, the next step is to optimize.

Optimizing your website ensures that it meets search engines’ technical requirements while providing a seamless and engaging user experience.

This is where you should get into the fine details of keyword research and query intent matching, ensuring that your SEO goals align with the business goals of your website that you identified in step one.

Top rankings for keywords won’t have a business impact if you haven’t matched them to your core audience. Traffic won’t result in signups or sales if you’re not effectively engaging those users.

Research is one area where an SEO consultancy can be particularly helpful in providing objective competitor and industry analysis.

Here are some key research elements for optimization:

  • Keyword Research: Identify the most relevant and high-performing keywords for your industry. Use tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs to find keywords that your target audience is searching for.
  • Content Optimization: Intent has been a big deal in SEO lately, and you must optimize for it as well as keywords. Matching your content to users’ needs and intents is where all your research will pay off in engagement, retention, and conversion. Use keywords naturally and ensure your content answers your audience’s questions and needs. Ensure you have wide and deep coverage of relevant topics demonstrating your unique expertise. Build strong networks of internal links to help users and search engines navigate and parse your content.

Key optimization techniques that lead to higher search rankings include:

  • On-Page SEO: This broad category includes content-focused and technical implementations to make individual pages shine. Your research and analysis thus far should culminate in a page with exceptional user experience. The elements load quickly and provide a consistent experience. The content demonstrates your experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). You implement keywords, metadata, and linking effectively.
  • Link Building: Build high-quality backlinks to your site from reputable sources. This can help improve your site’s authority and search rankings. Creating content people share and want to link to is the first step. Then, you can actively seek links through many outreach strategies, such as digital PR, email, and social channels.

A full optimization process is a ton of work. Digitalinear is an SEO agency with services designed to simplify your process.

Their expert team uses advanced tools and techniques to ensure your site is fully optimized for search engines and users alike.

Additionally, Digitalinear provides web design and development solutions to enhance user interface and overall experience.

Step Three: Analyze Growth

After optimizing your website, it’s important to continuously analyze its performance to refine and improve your strategies over time.

This involves monitoring key metrics to evaluate the success of your SEO efforts and make data-driven decisions for continuous improvement.

By regularly analyzing your growth, you can better understand what’s working and what’s not.

Here are some key SEO metrics to monitor:

  • Organic Traffic: Track the number of visitors coming to your site through organic search.
  • Engagement Rate: Monitor the percentage of visitors who do not engage with content.
  • Keyword Rankings: Keep an eye on how your targeted keywords are ranking over time.
  • Conversion Rates: Measure the percentage of visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase, filling out a form, etc.
  • Backlink Profile: Analyze the quantity and quality of backlinks pointing to your site.

Digitalinear offers ongoing SEO consultancy. They can help you select the best metrics for your business goals and track and analyze them.

Their expertise ensures you make informed decisions that lead to tangible results, helping you drive continuous growth and stay ahead of the competition.

Start Meeting & Exceeding Your Growth Goals With Digitalinear

To navigate the complexities of SEO and achieve your growth goals, it’s essential to have a strategic partner that takes the time to understand your business, where you are now and where you want to be.

This involves a holistic approach to organic SEO through comprehensive site audits, deep optimization techniques, and continuous performance analysis. The audience research and testing involved are ongoing processes of learning.

Digitalinear offers expert guidance and tailored SEO solutions to help you enhance your online presence and drive sustainable growth.

With a team of professionals dedicated to exceeding your business objectives, they ensure that every SEO strategy is optimized for success.

Learn more about how Digitalinear’s tailored SEO services can make a difference for your business.

LEARN MORE

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Digitalinear. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jul 5 2024
The Download: recycling clothing, and fish-friendly hydropower

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.

A polyester-dissolving process could make modern clothing recyclable  

The news: Less than 1% of clothing is recycled. Most of the rest ends up dumped in a landfill or burned. A team of researchers hopes to change that with a new process that breaks down mixed-fiber clothing into reusable, recyclable parts without any sorting or separation in advance.

How they did it: Many garments are made of a mix of natural and synthetic fibers. Once these fibers are combined, they are difficult to separate. To tackle this problem, the team used a solvent that breaks the chemical bonds in polyester fabric while leaving cotton and nylon intact. To speed up the process, they power it with microwave energy and add a zinc oxide catalyst. 

Why it matters: While similar methods have been used to recycle pre-sorted plastic, this is the first time they’ve been used to recycle mixed-fiber textiles without any sorting required. Read the full story.

—Sarah Ward

What new hydropower tech says about climate action

Back at MIT Technology Review’s ClimateTech event in 2022, Gia Schneider, a cofounder of Natel Energy, spoke about her company’s mission to design hydropower turbines that are safer for fish.

To illustrate her point, she shared grisly images of fish that had been hit by conventional turbine blades. On the other hand, the fish swimming through Natel’s turbines seemed relatively unbothered, curving around the blades and going on their merry way downstream. 

Recently, our climate reporter Casey Crownhart had a chat with Schneider about how Natel is working to change hydropower technology and juggle climate action with freshwater ecosystems to make hydropower a bit more fish-friendly. Read the full story.

This story is from The Spark, our weekly newsletter covering innovations in climate and energy tech. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

The must-reads

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

1 Google’s plan to ditch tracking cookies is not going well
Adtech firms are worried the replacement program will pose major risks to publishers. (Insider $)
+ The new project could slash publisher ad revenue by 60%. (Press Gazette)

2 NASA is launching a gamma-ray telescope

In the hopes of studying the creation and destruction of chemical elements. (Ars Technica)
+ Inside NASA’s bid to make spacecraft as small as possible. (MIT Technology Review)

3 We need more alternative fuels
Planes, trains, and automobiles are getting leaner and greener. (Knowable Magazine)
+ Clean fuels are a hugely expensive moonshot. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Tom Hanks’ son has become a face of online white supremacy
He claims his phrase “white boy summer” has been hijacked by the far right. (NYT $)

5 Threads is weighing up selling ads
A year after launch, it still hasn’t toppled its bitter rival X. (Bloomberg $)
+ Threads’ aversion to hard news could make or break it. (WP $)
+ The platform has recently hit 175 million users and is still going. (The Verge)

6 The UK’s general election has descended into a cringe meme war
Young voters aren’t falling for it. (Wired $)

7 Inside the great air conditioning debate
There’s no rule saying you have to keep it at 72 degrees. (Vox)
+ AC units aren’t a long term defense against heat waves. (CNN)
+ Why air-conditioning is a climate antihero. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Thinking of changing your life? Try it in The Sims first
From testing out bold interior design choices, to learning new languages. (WP $)
+ How generative AI could reinvent what it means to play.  (MIT Technology Review)

9 A teenager discovered her identical twin on TikTok
The revelation sparked the unraveling of a long-held family secret. (Vice)

10 The world’s most-delayed video game has finally been released
It’s been 22 long years in the making. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“We have won the war on floppy disks!”

—Taro Kono, Japan’s digital minister, tells Reuters he has succeeded in his mission to rid his government of its reliance on floppy disks.

The big story

The new US border wall is an app

June 2023

Keisy Plaza, 39, left her home in Colombia seven months ago. She walked a 62-mile stretch with her two daughters and grandson to reach Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, on the border with Texas.

Plaza has been trying every day for weeks to secure an appointment with Customs and Border Protection so she can request permission for her family to enter the US.

So far, she’s had no luck: each time, she’s been met with software errors and frozen screens. When appointment slots do open up, they fill within minutes. A new app, called CBP One, is supposed to help alleviate the sorts of issues Plaza has encountered. But will it? Read the full story.

—Lorena Rios

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.)

+ If you’re traveling today, here’s how to avoid the worst of the traffic and crowds—whether that’s by car, plane, or train.
+ Similarly, if your pets aren’t enjoying the fireworks as much as you are, there’s plenty of ways to calm them down.
+ It’s the general election here in the UK, which can only mean one thing—dogs at polling stations!
+ What comes after Gen Z? Why, Gen Alpha, of course.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments