A new month brings us no shortage of new with it from the world of all things digital. Is artificial intelligence on a path to see graphic designers an endangered species? Is Twitter running out of revenue? Why you might want to be a little nicer to your web developer this week. Read this month’s Digital Roundup to find out more:
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Generative Fill: The Bane of Graphic Designers?
Adobe is the latest large corporation to throw its hat into the ring of AI implementation when recently it released a desktop beta version of Generative Fill. This advanced model takes the user’s prompt and an existing image to extend, edit, and remove objects from it. The results are undeniable, but as we are seeing become a trend – the reaction to another leap in AI capability is mixed.
Some say it is the death of all creativity and graphic designers, others that it’s not nearly up to the task. Who’s overreacting? Well, it’s hard to say. People who underestimate artificial intelligence seem doomed every time to be proven wrong. In this case, the early AI creations (if only 2 years ago) by now outdated and sometimes hilariously bad models like Dream now look like brick phones in an Apple shop.
Artificial intelligence has consistently shattered all expectations quicker than it seems they can be formed, and there is no reason this version of it won’t eventually be adapted to applications of Adobe software aside from photo editing – namely graphic design, video editing or animation.
These kinds of features could see demand for specialists and agencies built around these services decline, even evaporate if the pros of speed and cost of generated art begin to outweigh anything else – the ‘self-checkout till’ process.
With progress of this speed looming it’s hard to come up with positives, but the optimistic conclusion is that results can be slightly flawed, that the emotion and intent behind human creation are far more difficult to replace, and that real people with real stories will always hold the most meaning.
Twitter’s Ad Revenue Drops 59%
“The most respected ad platform” – that was Elon Musk’s promise for Twitter’s future when in October the platform changed hands in the now somewhat infamous $44 billion dollar deal. Now, the headline speaks for itself – internal documents acquired by the New York Times have revealed a year-on-year drop of no less than 59% in gross US advertising revenue.
To use perhaps a slightly snarky analogy, Musk’s SpaceX is another of his ventures used to watching its efforts crash and burn – more understandably, though, and through a process of incremental refinement and experimentation they were successful. In Twitter’s case, the screws came loose, one of the engines was removed and the stabilising fins were scrapped. Not to fear, a new coat of paint and it’ll all be fine!
It’s harsh but true: an explosion of hateful and explicit content paired with the return of reams of banned Twitter accounts could only really end one way for advertising on the platform. Not to mention the stripping of several features, the continued decimation and walkouts of staff, and the clumsy handling of new verification features.
General Motors, Volkswagen, Apple, Amazon and Disney – just to name a few. These are the major players who have already pulled or greatly reduced their ads on the site, to the effect of a more than $2 billion projected loss in ad revenue from the $5.1 billion generated in 2021.
Whether the new CEO Linda Yaccarino will be able to bring this vanity project of a test flight safely back to earth remains to be seen. What is assured is that it would be no small step for CEO-kind.
The New WordPress Update is Breaking Sites
“It’s broken” – two words seared into the minds of every web developer, breaking even the most weathered out into a Pavlovian response of fear and nail-biting stress. The recent, ill-fated release of WordPress 6.2.1 surely saw nothing short of pandemonium when devs and their clients began to realise their sites had lost functionality or stopped working altogether.
So where did the problem come from? In one word – shortcodes. These handy little guys save us from having to configure a contact form or other user input on every page; instead, the single-line shortcode embeds the function within the page in one easy step. The shortcodes themselves still worked, and that’s where the issue comes in.
It was shortly discovered that these shortcodes could be turned into double agents. Users intent on causing a little trouble could enter shortcodes in user-generated content blocks, such as blogs or comments, and the code would actually execute. This quick get-around effectively gave any user contributor-level permissions. The resulting coffee-fuelled outcry was something to behold, demanding an immediate response across social media and support forums.
So how did WordPress fix this exploit that was rendering many plugins and whole sites unusable? They removed shortcodes altogether. It’s one way of fixing the issue, and one widely lambasted, as without shortcodes many websites are just as well-off as they were being exploited and broken.
All in all, it’s expected a fix must be around the corner soon. Many devs are choosing to revert to the previous version in the meantime, and those forced to stick with the new update are frantically searching for workarounds. If your site is experiencing issues, the WordPress support thread is a good place to start.
Google Introduces the Helpful Content System Into its Algorithm
Google search has come a long way from the days of keyword stuffing and link spamming. It seems always intent on refining its algorithm to reach a point where the goal is no longer ‘How do we rank well on Google?’, but instead ‘How do we provide people with the most relevant and helpful knowledge for their search?’.
Recent years have seen algorithms develop immensely, becoming able to more richly analyse content for things like readability and relevance. Now, Google has stated it will be developing its helpful content system to more deeply understand content “created from a personal or expert point of view”.
They plan to reduce the prominence of low-quality content that frustrated users because it was written to appease search engine rankings, and not appeal to humans seeking answers. Google defines helpful content as that which:
- Was created for a specific audience – this evaluates the human quality of the copy; whether a site has a primary focus or is throwing lots at the algorithm to see what does well; whether automation is being used, and generally whether the content is written to appeal to the standards of word count, keyword density etc. that people think Google has.
- Features relevant expertise – here Google looks at how insightful the content is and how knowledgeable and original what it’s saying is for users. This aspect also evaluates how far product recommendations go beyond just what manufacturers say, indicating a high level of cross-examination with other popular or official pieces of content for certain products, topics and more.
- Is trustworthy – is information well-sourced? Are there glaring mistakes or huge gaps in knowledge missing because certain keywords have had to be hit in favour of quality information? This factor takes into account a wide array of factors, that seem to be in part targeting clickbait articles that aim for shock and little substance.
- Meets the wants and needs of the searcher – as well as the basics like mobile performance, this metric seeks to understand whether a user is going to leave a piece of content feeling as though their questions have been provided satisfying answers. To rank highly here, it seems Google wants to see content that could stand alone well on its own to provide answers, rather than content that merely acts as a directory for other blogs, product pages, or articles.
There is much here to consider for our content moving forward. The bottom line is that if you follow the advice we have been seeing for a long time, your content is likely future-proof: work to deliver quality content that answers questions the user might have. Use frameworks like See, Think, Do, Care to really understand your different audiences, and try to tailor each piece of content with them in mind.
