SEO
Users Lose Confidence That Twitter Will Survive
Mass exodus of workers Thursday evening made it clear for many that Twitter was on the edge of disappearing, inspiring many to say goodbye as well as taking over ten of the top eleven trending topics.
After weeks of firings and resignations, Twitter was already running on essentially a skeleton crew.
The feeling that Twitter was nearing the end was heightened by Musk’s deadline for workers to commit to his “extremely hardcore” work demands of long hours and weekends in office.
Anecdotal reports surfaced of a mass exodus of workers.
Kylie Robison (@kyliebytes), a tech reporter for Fortune Magazine tweeted about the informal anecdotal perception that it seemed that 75% of employees were choosing to resign and walk away with a three month severance check.
“One point of clarification on the tweet about 75% of twitter employees leaving— this is chatter I’m hearing about the perceptions among people at twitter. It is not based on any official company data.
I will follow up on this thread with the official data once its known!”
Alex Heath (@alexeheath) of the Verge tweeted about anecdotal reports that entire infrastructure teams have resigned.
“Story to be updated soon with more: Am hearing that several “critical” infra engineering teams at Twitter have completely resigned. “You cannot run Twitter without this team,” one current engineer tells me of one such group. Also, Twitter has shut off badge access to its offices.”
Heath also shared in another tweet that many employees who resigned share the belief that Twitter is on the edge of “breaking.”
“Hearing from multiple employees that the odds of Twitter breaking in the near future are very high.”
Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) of news organization @platformer related in a tweet that the description of the employee situation is that it appears to be a “mass exodus.”
Perception that Twitter is Ending Grows
The feeling that Twitter was on the verge of ending was palpable on Thursday evening and into the early morning hours as many ex-Twitter employees and tweeps tweeted their goodbyes to Twitter.
Portland, Oregon-based Search marketer Scott Hendison (@shendison) tweeted:
“Could tonight actually be the end of Twitter? A lot of gleeful people sure seem to hope so.
If you’re going over to Mastadon please look me up – @[email protected]”
Many from all around the world came to Twitter to say goodbye.
everyone is coming to say their last goodbyes
— Aner 🪐 (@anershab) November 18, 2022
Journalist Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) tweeted:
“As someone who lived through the heyday of geocities, MySpace, blogspot, typepad, tumblr, and now twitter… it’ll be fine.”
Some Tweets Expressed Humor
Some tweets expressed a gentle or bittersweet humor.
For example, one tweep noted that his only regret was that the beloved Star Wars actor, Mark Hamill, never followed him on Twitter.
Mark Hamill responded with a follow.
Please have no regrets.#followingU https://t.co/NH6db26TKS
— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) November 18, 2022
Popular security researcher Jane Manchun Wong, reflecting a humorous “end of the world” vibe of the evening asked if any of her followers had a crush on her.
in case twitter is gone for good, reply if you have a crush on me
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) November 18, 2022
Search trends tracker, Google Trends, revealed that many people are searching for a Twitter alternative. Google searches for both Tumblr and Mastodon have shot up over the past days.
Apparently so many people were using Tumblr that the service temporarily crashed.
Tumblr tweeted a humorous response to their temporary predicament:
hold up like 12 new ppl joined.
we’re working on it. give it a sec 🙂 https://t.co/Upd5HEaIBq— tumblr dot com the website and app (@tumblr) November 18, 2022
Tweets About Twitter Trending Overnight
The trending tweets reflected concern over how long Twitter is going to be available, perhaps as many folks read about the mass exodus of employees.
Ten out of the top eleven trending topics were about Twitter:
1·#RIPTwitter
Trending with #TwitterDown
2·Elon
Trending with Twitter HQ
3·Tumblr
Trending with MySpace, Vine
4· Mastodon
222K Tweets
5· Discord
1.02M Tweets
6· Since Twitter
543K Tweets
7· Before Twitter
682K Tweets
8· Insta
282K Tweets
9· Space Karen
27.2K Tweets
11· #TwitterIsOverParty
The trending topic of Space Karen is a reference to a projection on the side of the Twitter headquarters yesterday evening that scrolled a series of amusing monikers for Elon Musk, with Space Karen inspring a great deal of mirth among Twitter users.
Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters has gone hardcore tonight. #TwitterTakeover pic.twitter.com/DoG5pDD4AD
— Muskrat McRatfu*ker needs to resign as CEO (@christoq) November 18, 2022
Space Karen will always be funny 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/CSw5ox3Whg
— Ciara Lashay (@CiCi_Lashay2) November 18, 2022
Is this the End of Twitter?
Considering that Twitter’s infrastructure teams are reported to be running at bare bones level or less, it’s not surprising that so many people feel that Twitter has reached the end.
A test of Twitter’s resilience will come this weekend with the start of the most popular sporting event in the world, The World Cup, which will bring a huge amount of activity to the platform.
The scary part is that employees are said to be locked out of the building this weekend.
I don’t think Twitter will last through the weekend. Twitter is restricting employee access to all its buildings through the weekend with no reason given. The entire android team resigned. The world cup,the largest sporting event in the world, starts this weekend.
— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) November 18, 2022
The feeling that a historic event is happening in slow motion was inescapable. The trending topics were dominated by tweets related to the demise of Twitter.
That so many people decided to say goodbye added to the perception that Twitter was dying or at least near breaking.
Although the trending topics imply that Twitter is on the way out, a better idea of how much longer Twitter may survive may be known by Monday and during the coming week as the World Cup causes increased traffic to Twitter.
Featured image by Shutterstock/ivan_kislitsin
SEO
Google Declares It The “Gemini Era” As Revenue Grows 15%
Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, announced its first quarter 2024 financial results today.
While Google reported double-digit growth in key revenue areas, the focus was on its AI developments, dubbed the “Gemini era” by CEO Sundar Pichai.
The Numbers: 15% Revenue Growth, Operating Margins Expand
Alphabet reported Q1 revenues of $80.5 billion, a 15% increase year-over-year, exceeding Wall Street’s projections.
Net income was $23.7 billion, with diluted earnings per share of $1.89. Operating margins expanded to 32%, up from 25% in the prior year.
Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s President and CFO, stated:
“Our strong financial results reflect revenue strength across the company and ongoing efforts to durably reengineer our cost base.”
Google’s core advertising units, such as Search and YouTube, drove growth. Google advertising revenues hit $61.7 billion for the quarter.
The Cloud division also maintained momentum, with revenues of $9.6 billion, up 28% year-over-year.
Pichai highlighted that YouTube and Cloud are expected to exit 2024 at a combined $100 billion annual revenue run rate.
Generative AI Integration in Search
Google experimented with AI-powered features in Search Labs before recently introducing AI overviews into the main search results page.
Regarding the gradual rollout, Pichai states:
“We are being measured in how we do this, focusing on areas where gen AI can improve the Search experience, while also prioritizing traffic to websites and merchants.”
Pichai reports that Google’s generative AI features have answered over a billion queries already:
“We’ve already served billions of queries with our generative AI features. It’s enabling people to access new information, to ask questions in new ways, and to ask more complex questions.”
Google reports increased Search usage and user satisfaction among those interacting with the new AI overview results.
The company also highlighted its “Circle to Search” feature on Android, which allows users to circle objects on their screen or in videos to get instant AI-powered answers via Google Lens.
Reorganizing For The “Gemini Era”
As part of the AI roadmap, Alphabet is consolidating all teams building AI models under the Google DeepMind umbrella.
Pichai revealed that, through hardware and software improvements, the company has reduced machine costs associated with its generative AI search results by 80% over the past year.
He states:
“Our data centers are some of the most high-performing, secure, reliable and efficient in the world. We’ve developed new AI models and algorithms that are more than one hundred times more efficient than they were 18 months ago.
How Will Google Make Money With AI?
Alphabet sees opportunities to monetize AI through its advertising products, Cloud offerings, and subscription services.
Google is integrating Gemini into ad products like Performance Max. The company’s Cloud division is bringing “the best of Google AI” to enterprise customers worldwide.
Google One, the company’s subscription service, surpassed 100 million paid subscribers in Q1 and introduced a new premium plan featuring advanced generative AI capabilities powered by Gemini models.
Future Outlook
Pichai outlined six key advantages positioning Alphabet to lead the “next wave of AI innovation”:
- Research leadership in AI breakthroughs like the multimodal Gemini model
- Robust AI infrastructure and custom TPU chips
- Integrating generative AI into Search to enhance the user experience
- A global product footprint reaching billions
- Streamlined teams and improved execution velocity
- Multiple revenue streams to monetize AI through advertising and cloud
With upcoming events like Google I/O and Google Marketing Live, the company is expected to share further updates on its AI initiatives and product roadmap.
Featured Image: Sergei Elagin/Shutterstock
SEO
brightonSEO Live Blog
Hello everyone. It’s April again, so I’m back in Brighton for another two days of Being the introvert I am, my idea of fun isn’t hanging around our booth all day explaining we’ve run out of t-shirts (seriously, you need to be fast if you want swag!). So I decided to do something useful and live-blog the event instead.
Follow below for talk takeaways and (very) mildly humorous commentary. sun, sea, and SEO!
SEO
Google Further Postpones Third-Party Cookie Deprecation In Chrome
Google has again delayed its plan to phase out third-party cookies in the Chrome web browser. The latest postponement comes after ongoing challenges in reconciling feedback from industry stakeholders and regulators.
The announcement was made in Google and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) joint quarterly report on the Privacy Sandbox initiative, scheduled for release on April 26.
Chrome’s Third-Party Cookie Phaseout Pushed To 2025
Google states it “will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4” this year as planned.
Instead, the tech giant aims to begin deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome “starting early next year,” assuming an agreement can be reached with the CMA and the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
The statement reads:
“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence, including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June.”
Continued Engagement With Regulators
Google reiterated its commitment to “engaging closely with the CMA and ICO” throughout the process and hopes to conclude discussions this year.
This marks the third delay to Google’s plan to deprecate third-party cookies, initially aiming for a Q3 2023 phaseout before pushing it back to late 2024.
The postponements reflect the challenges in transitioning away from cross-site user tracking while balancing privacy and advertiser interests.
Transition Period & Impact
In January, Chrome began restricting third-party cookie access for 1% of users globally. This percentage was expected to gradually increase until 100% of users were covered by Q3 2024.
However, the latest delay gives websites and services more time to migrate away from third-party cookie dependencies through Google’s limited “deprecation trials” program.
The trials offer temporary cookie access extensions until December 27, 2024, for non-advertising use cases that can demonstrate direct user impact and functional breakage.
While easing the transition, the trials have strict eligibility rules. Advertising-related services are ineligible, and origins matching known ad-related domains are rejected.
Google states the program aims to address functional issues rather than relieve general data collection inconveniences.
Publisher & Advertiser Implications
The repeated delays highlight the potential disruption for digital publishers and advertisers relying on third-party cookie tracking.
Industry groups have raised concerns that restricting cross-site tracking could push websites toward more opaque privacy-invasive practices.
However, privacy advocates view the phaseout as crucial in preventing covert user profiling across the web.
With the latest postponement, all parties have more time to prepare for the eventual loss of third-party cookies and adopt Google’s proposed Privacy Sandbox APIs as replacements.
Featured Image: Novikov Aleksey/Shutterstock
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