It’s Digital Digest time! Here we have it – our latest round up of all the hottest digital news from around the globe. This week’s update includes news of visual hashtags on Twitter, artificially intelligent Pinterest product searches, the world’s first robot lawyer and much more…
**Twitter launches Stickers (aka visual hashtags)**
This week, Twitter began to roll out a brand new feature that allows anyone who posts a picture via the mobile app to tack on fun emoji-style images. However this is much more exciting than it sounds as these ‘stickers’ are searchable – when you tap on them you are taken to a search showing how others have used that same sticker on their images. Described officially as a ‘visual spin’ on the hashtag, this will surely open up new opportunities for brands and businesses to target users by interest.
> Connect your photos to the world with a visual spin on hashtags: tap (link: https://twitter.com/hashtag/Stickers?src=hash text: #Stickers) to peel back a fun new way to search. (link: https://t.co/YVy7r53Nja text: pic.twitter.com/YVy7r53Nja)
>
> — Twitter (@twitter) (link: https://twitter.com/twitter/status/747429936726573056 text: June 27, 2016)
**The world’s first… robot lawyer!**
News of (link: http://www.donotpay.co.uk/ text: ‘DoNotPay’ – a chat bot designed by a British teenager to help people dispute parking tickets in just 30 seconds) spread through the media like wildfire this week. Initially designed as ‘pet project’ for friends and family, the bot soon gained traction. Its creator estimates that is has been used by a quarter of a million people to overturn £3m worth of parking tickets, 150,000 of which were in London. Currently only available through the (link: http://www.donotpay.co.uk/ text: DoNotPay site), there are rumours that it could soon be incorporated into Facebook Messenger.
**New tweaks to Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm**
Facebook has announced that it is about to make a series of changes to its newsfeed algorithm that will result in users being served more content posted by their friends and family and less content from Pages. As is almost the case with these updates, these will mean Pages will have a harder time reaching their audiences organically. To minimise the impact of this, Pages must focus more than ever on creating content their audience will want to share.
**Pinterest reveals new shopping features**
In a bid to become even better than rivals Amazon and Google at helping people to find things to buy, Pinterest will be adding a range of new shopping features, some pretty standard (the inclusion a shopping cart and merchant profiles) and others a little more exciting (artificially intelligent product search capabilities). Interestingly, they’ll be using computer vision to automatically detect objects within an image so that when someone’s looking at a pin (from their iPhone or iPad initially), they will be able to click on a dot corresponding to a single item (say a shoe) and see similar products on Pinterest. They are also working on a reverse search feature whereby instead of users going to Pinterest to find a product, they’ll be able to submit a photo and have Pinterest show them similar items.
**LinkedIn auctions off desktop banner ads**
LinkedIn is planning to auction off its desktop-only display ads, making it easier for brands to buy them and cheaper and easier for the social network to sell them. It is clear LinkedIn see these ads less of a strategic focus than their sponsored content arm (aka posts that businesses can pay to place in people’s feeds and pin on their own pages).
**New tools from Google to provide more user control over ads**
Google has started to roll our a new panel within their ‘My Account’ section – ‘My Activity.’ This will give users a more holistic view of their search and browsing histories. In parallel with this, in a move to improve ad quality and the overall ad experience (to combat the rise of ad blocking and increasing consumer ad avoidance) Google is also launching ‘Ads Personalisation’, an evolution of ‘Ads Preferences Manager’ allowing users to influence the types of ads they see by indicating areas of interest or disinterest or by entirely opting out. Whilst this will be turned off by default, Google will be encouraging users to opt in. Its impact of course will depend on take-up.
**The best search engine for song lyrics**
Made possible thanks to a deal made between Google and LyricFind, the next time your search for lyrics to a song, they will display directly in your search results. The idea is not only that this will make searching for lyrics a better experience, but that it will also add a layer of legitimacy with artists receiving the royalties they deserve. Plus, each lyric will have a purchase link to the song on Google Play, driving further revenue for the musicians (and, of course, for Google).
**We’re on a boat! An UberBOAT….**
It all started with taxis… then came food delivery (hello ‘(link: https://ubereats.com/ text: UberEATS – food delivery at the tap of a button)’), now ‘(link: https://newsroom.uber.com/turkey/uberboat/ text: your UberBOAT is arriving)’. If you live in Istanbul that is.