- A social proxy war has broken out after a Turkish TikTok influencer mocked the makeup of the diaspora living in Germany, igniting rifts over gender, class, politics, nationalism and economic power.
- ChatGPT is sending less traffic to websites – down 52% in a month: Reddit and Wikipedia now dominate ChatGPT citations, as OpenAI experiments with answer-first sources with new citation weighting.
- Google launches AI Mode in 180 countries and territories: Google also added new agentic and personalization features in AI Mode.
- Meta rolls out new AI ad tools to boost holiday sales: Meta is giving advertisers new AI-driven tools for creators, Reels, and omnichannel ads to help turn holiday shoppers into buyers.
- Seize the AI search opportunity with site health: AI search is redefining visibility. Proper site health ensures your brand is ready to be discovered, understood, and recommended by AI systems.
- Google Thinks Its Pixel Phones Are Much Bigger Than Their Sales Numbers: While Google’s new Pixel lineup doesn’t look too different from the previous generation, a lot has changed under the hood. The company now believes that real evolution will come from software and connected devices rather than hardware. It is already finalizing its 2026 phones and has begun work on its 2027 lineup. The Pixel’s share remains small, accounting for roughly 3% of the market.
- Oracle Rides Major Deals With OpenAI, Nvidia to Turn Around Cloud Business: OpenAI is slated to become Oracle’s largest customer, with the companies having struck deals for more than 5 gigawatts of computing power, an unprecedented sum. Another of Oracle’s largest customers is Nvidia, which rents capacity from an Oracle cluster of H100 chips in Japan and from a data center being built in Indonesia. While Oracle’s cloud business is still orders of magnitude smaller than Amazon’s, there’s plenty of room for growth. With all of its recent spending, Oracle recorded a negative annual cash flow for the first time since 1990. Questions about the longevity and margins of offering infrastructure to train AI models remain.
- Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s rBio uses virtual cells to train AI, bypassing lab work: The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, an organization established and owned by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, has launched rBio, an artificial intelligence model trained to reason about cellular biology using virtual simulations. The breakthrough has the potential to dramatically accelerate biomedical research and drug discovery. The model uses a novel approach called ‘soft verification’, which uses predictions from virtual cell models as training signals instead of relying solely on experimental data. The paradigm shift means researchers can test biological hypotheses computationally before committing time and resources to costly laboratory work.
- SpaceX has built the machine to build the machine: SpaceX opened its massive Starfactory facility earlier this year. Measuring at about a million square feet, Starfactory is two times as large as SpaceX’s main Falcon 9 factory in Hawthorne, California. SpaceX has now built the machine to build the machine, but its Starship rocket is still not yet ready for prime time. Starship’s consecutive failures this year were a major setback for the program. The vehicle’s tenth test flight is scheduled to take place no earlier than August 24.
- Dynamic Chrome Themes: A change that adds the ability to change Chrome’s theme colors dynamically from the command line is currently under review. If approved, it would give power users complete control over their environment through simple, scriptable interfaces and make the Classic theme as flexible as GTK/Qt integration.
- Elon Musk asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to join xAI bid to buy OpenAI, filing shows: Elon Musk asked Mark Zuckerberg to help him finance a $97.4 billion takeover of OpenAI earlier this year. Musk was incensed that the company was pushing to transform into a for-profit entity when he floated the proposal. Musk and xAI had approached Zuckerberg with a letter of intent, but neither Zuckerberg nor Meta signed it. The story was revealed in court filings in a legal case between Musk and OpenAI initiated last year to stop the startup from converting to a for-profit entity.
- Instagram considers counting screenshots in its engagement metrics.
- Meta further consolidates ad-targeting options.
- Meta’s AI translations automatically dub and lip sync Reels into other languages.
- Search.com just outbid Perplexity with a $35B Chrome takeover offer.
- Duolingo social guru Zaria Parvez exits.
- Google AI Overviews linked to 25% drop in publisher referral traffic, new data shows.
- Buffer analyzed over 2 million posts from 100,000+ accounts and found that the more you post, the more likely you are to grow. But the sweet spot isn’t necessarily “as much as possible.” Data reveals that posting 3–5 times per week is the ideal balance between reach, growth, and sustainability.
- B2B marketers are notorious for overcomplicating copy (while users are quietly bouncing). Instead of leaning into features, jargon, and company backstory, try a sharper, more modern formula: What do I get? > How can I use it? > Why should I believe you?
- Effective content research goes far beyond quick Google searches. It means deeply understanding your audience’s needs, analyzing competitors, spotting gaps in the market, and sourcing trustworthy data.
- High traffic might look good on a slide deck, but if the majority of those visitors bounce or never intend to buy, the value is close to zero. What matters more is intent. When you attract people who genuinely align with your product or service, you’re far more likely to see meaningful results.
- Walmart’s AI assistant will be ‘primary vehicle’ for shopping, CEO says: The technology will power Sparky, the retailer’s customer-facing agent, while helping the retailer better understand and react to shopper needs, Doug McMillon said.
- DoorDash adds loyalty program for partner restaurants: Restaurants can choose from visit-based or spend-based rewards programs, and customers can accrue points across multiple channels, including in-store.
- Duolingo went ‘AI-first’ and then came the consumer backlash: CEO Luis von Ahn acknowledged that the company’s customer growth, while still impressive, was dampened by his AI commentary.
TLDR: Social Media Headlines – 22 August 2025
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Dear Editor This is indeed an exciting story for the community. Congratulations to the winner and may this bring positive change to Nomathamsanqa. As someone from KwaMashu, I understand the impact such winnings can have on township communities. Wishing the grandfather all the best. Regards Themba Zulu In Response to/From: R8.5 Million Lotto Winner Claims…
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Hayibo! – wow! [Hai-bo] Derived from the Zulu word meaning “definitely not!” This word is usually expressed on its own, at the start or end of a sentence when something seems amazing.Example: “Hayibo! Ha! Ha! I can’t believe that!”
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Fun South African Fact: For nearly 50 years, there was a state of apartheid – white minority rule – in South Africa.