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The Top Three 🏆

The industry’s most important stories today.

🥇 ARE SHORT TITLES COSTING YOU TRAFFIC?

👋 Forget the 60-character rule: Joy Hawkins of Sterling Sky has found that longer title tags, even ones with 200+ characters, can actually improve rankings.

• Do not fear the dot dot dot: While Google cuts off title tags after about 60 characters, adding an ellipsis (…) in search results, it still reads the entire title.

• More relevant keywords mean more chances of matching multiple search queries, improving visibility.

• While some SEO tools warn about readability and click-through rates for long titles, Hawkins reports no evidence that long tags hurt user experience or conversion rates.

🥈 DEEPSEEK-R1 COMES FOR CHATGPT

🤖 There's a new AI in town: This morning, the DeepSeek AI app rocketed to the top of the app stores, shocking the existing players and offering a free, open-source alternative to ChatGPT. more

• Open Source: Anyone can use and modify its code, making it appealing to businesses, startups, and developers.

• Affordable: Free to use via chat.deepseek.com, and if you have the right specs, you can run it locally on your computer at no cost.

• But… Is It Any Good?: Opinions on its performance vary, with benchmark tests showing it performs similarly to OpenAI’s o1 model in areas like logical reasoning and problem-solving.

🥉 YOUTUBE’S 2025 ALGORITHM

YouTube has given some insight into how its recommendation system works in 2025, explaining how factors like time of day, device type, viewer satisfaction, and the use of large language models (LLMs) are reshaping its algorithms. more

• Personalized Recommendations: YouTube’s home feed prioritizes content tailored to each viewer's preferences in real-time, “pulling” videos specifically for them rather than pushing content broadly.

• Metrics & Satisfaction: Click-through rate (CTR) and watch time still matter, but YouTube also tracks user satisfaction via surveys and feedback.

• Context Matters: The time of day and device type directly influence what content gets recommended, with the algorithm adapting to viewer patterns based on whether they’re watching on a phone or TV.

Today’s Other News ☑︎

Everything else that matters.

Advertising 📣

• 👀 Don't be suspicious, don't be suspicious: Bing is testing bold black URLs for organic (free) results and bold green URLs for sponsored (paid) results, making it clear which results are ads and which are free listings. more

  • An interesting difference from Google, which has for years now made the visual difference between ads and organic as tiny as possible.

Industry Insights 💡 

• 📺️ DIY slime tutorials>SpongeBob: YouTube is set to overtake traditional children’s programming, with cable networks like Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and Cartoon Network losing more than half of their viewership in the last decade. While Gen Alpha still spends about an hour daily with linear TV in 2025, eMarketer forecasts YouTube will surpass it by 2026. more

• Despite President Trump’s pullback on Spanish-language resources, Hispanic consumers’ $2.8 trillion purchasing power continues to rise. eMarketer warns brands that neglecting this group risks alienating a key market, especially as DEI efforts face setbacks. more

Social Media 📱

• Bluesky's push to video continues: The platform is adding a video tab to user profiles, letting users showcase uploaded videos, whether original or from other social networks. This follows last week's launch of a TikTok-like custom video feed. more

• Oracle and Microsoft are reportedly in talks to take over TikTok’s global operations, with ByteDance keeping a minority stake. Oracle would oversee the app's algorithm, data, and updates. Microsoft's role is not yet clear. more

  • Also not clear: how U.S. president Trump is able to just bypass a bipartisan law that’s been upheld by the country’s Supreme Court

• TikTok still dominates the short-form video space, with users spending 55% of their time watching content on the app. more

  • Instagram Reels comes in second at 37%.

  • YouTube Shorts at 25%.

  • Facebook at 21%.

• TikTok still isn't in Apple or Google's app stores, more than a week after being pulled due to the U.S. ban-or-divest law. While the app works for existing users, new installs or updates are blocked, and no word yet from Apple or Google on when it might return. more

• Instagram DMs will now include “Business Chat” labels in the top title bar to separate them from personal chats. Unlike personal chats, business messages can be shared with Meta for future ad targeting and marketing purposes. more

Influencer Marketing 🤳 

• Influencer marketing platform ShopMy raised $77.5 million in Series B funding to expand. The platform connects advertisers with microinfluencers for campaigns and affiliate links, with plans to expand into wellness, maternity, family, and food & beverage markets. more

Bugs and Glitches 🪲 

• 🔕 A case of the Mondays: Some Slack users are reporting that their notifications aren’t showing up today. The issues also seem to be affecting tags, so if a colleague hasn’t responded, try DMing them directly. Slack is aware and working on a fix. more

Today’s Trivia Question 🧠

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Spotted on Social 🔍

The social web’s best posts in the last 24 hours.