TLDR: Social Media Headlines – 29 September 2025

• TikTok has narrowly avoided a U.S. shutdown with a $14 billion deal approved by President Trump. Under the agreement, a new joint-venture company would oversee TikTok U.S., with ByteDance retaining less than 20% ownership if China signs off. Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX would control roughly 45% of the company, while ByteDance investors and other new holders would own 35%.
• Google is still 210x bigger than ChatGPT in search: ChatGPT handles 66 million search-like prompts daily vs. 14 billion Google searches. AI is growing, but Google search still dominates.
• Google Ads tweaks default conversion goal behavior: Google Ads will stop automatically making all new conversion goals account-default, helping campaigns avoid bidding toward irrelevant signals.
• Meta to launch no-ads subscriptions in the UK: Meta’s new no-ads subscription in the UK could shrink ad reach and force advertisers to rethink targeting and budget strategies.
• When SEO becomes just content production – and how to break free: Low-value, duplicative content drags down visibility. Break free from content-only SEO and build a smarter approach to AI-era optimization.
• The global E-E-A-T gap: When authority doesn’t travel: Search and AI systems demand more than global reputation. Scale E-E-A-T with local expertise, trust signals, and structured authority.
• Threads is looking to spark more topical engagement with dedicated community discussions.
• The latest usage data suggests that Threads will soon overtake X in total users.
• You’ll now be able to keep all o your old Snaps, for a price.
• Apple Builds a ChatGPT-Like App to Help Test the Revamped Siri: Apple is currently using an internal ChatGPT-like iPhone app code-named Veritas to help test and prepare for a Siri overhaul planned for next year. The app is being used to quickly evaluate new features, including the ability to search through personal data and perform in-app actions. The internal tool marks a new phase in Apple’s preparations for the Siri revamp, which could help reshape perceptions of its AI efforts.
• Meta Wants To Become the ‘Backbone’ of Humanoid Robots: Meta’s chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, recently said in a meeting that he wants to focus on licensing Meta’s software to other manufacturers instead of being a hardware manufacturer. Meta’s new Superintelligence AI lab is working with the company’s robotics group to build a ‘world model’ that can do software simulations to animate dexterous movements. Bosworth says that robotics will be Meta’s next ‘AR-sized’ bet. The company has so far spent over $100 billion in cumulative investment into its augmented and virtual reality portfolio.
• Evolving the Multi-User Spaceport: SpaceX currently launches and lands its Falcon family of rockets every two days on average without interrupting the operations of other launch providers. Launch sites of the future will need to be fully operationalized like an airport, with multiple launches a day from multiple providers. SpaceX is working with federal regulators, the federal ranges, and industry partners to realize this vision. Its goals will advance the entire launch industry’s ability to fly rapidly and reliably, ideally from multiple locations to increase resilience.
• Why Today’s Humanoids Won’t Learn Dexterity: Current projects developing humanoid robots will fail at teaching them dexterity because, in order to succeed, they need both the right data and for the robots to learn the right thing. Human dexterity relies on a rich sense of touch, and it often involves elbows, the front of the body, legs, and feet. Just using visual data is not enough. In the future, there will likely be a lot of robots with different forms for different specialized jobs that humans can do. They won’t look human, but they will probably all still be called humanoid robots.
• What is “good taste” in software engineering?: Taste is the ability to adopt the set of engineering values that fit the current project. It’s different from skill – it’s possible to be technically strong but have bad taste or be technically weak with good taste. Almost every decision in software engineering is a tradeoff. Often, you have to make tradeoffs between engineering values, such as resiliency, speed, readability, correctness, and flexibility, and that’s where taste comes in. Bad taste is when your preferred values are not a good fit for the project.
• Small Data: Small Data is a movement away from Big Data toward much simpler and cheaper solutions. It is being driven by improvements in hardware and organizations that don’t use that much data. Distributed systems are more overkill than ever. Developers should be considering what technologies they know well, are good enough, and are the least toilsome for the task at hand. Modern hardware will likely handle the workload just fine.
• Failing to Understand the Exponential, Again: Many people look at the current state of AI, see the mistakes it makes, and then somehow jump to the conclusion that AI will never be able to do tasks at a human level. A few years ago, our current AI models were just science fiction. AI is improving at an exponential rate. It will be surprising if these improvements suddenly stop. Even a relatively conservative extrapolation of the trends suggests that by the end of 2027, models will frequently outperform experts on many tasks.
• Open Social: Open source has clearly won, but this wasn’t a foregone conclusion 35 years ago. There were many powerful forces that wanted open source to lose. We are now at a similar juncture with social apps. Projects like Bluesky’s AT Protocol are changing the relationship between the user, the developer, and the project. What open source did for code, open social does for data.
• Accenture plans on ‘exiting’ staff who can’t be reskilled on AI amid restructuring strategy: Accenture’s main strategy is upskilling, and it will exit people so it can get more of the skills it needs.
• Amazon’s AWS CEO chides staff for slow product rollouts: Amazon has been grappling with a reputation for slipping behind rivals in developing AI products.
• Called It: The Anti-Adobe Coalition Is Here: Figma proved design doesn’t need Illustrator, Descript proved editing doesn’t need Premiere, and Omarchy and Framework proved developers don’t need macOS.
• Is it a vibe?: Meta AI has launched a new feed of AI-generated videos called Vibes, designed to encourage users to remix those that come from “creators and communities”.
• Pinterest introduces Top of Search ads and new advertising tools.
• Meta to launch ad-free Facebook and Instagram to the U.K.
• The New York Times tests personality-led cooking videos.
• Liquid Death x Amazon take on Smartwater with even smarter water.
• Beware coworkers who produce AI-generated “workslop.”
• The death of social in social media.
• Envelope is the first AI assistant for event planning: It automates repetitive tasks and lets you manage every aspect of an event in one unified platform.
• The Children’s Place relaunches its loyalty program to deepen engagement: Every member can redeem points for discounts, with higher-tier customers earning perks like expedited order processing.
• Lancôme loyalty members take center stage with revamped website: Lancôme’s designated rewards program portal aims to build deeper relationships with customers and offer them more reasons to come back.
• Depop debuts Outfits feature for style inspiration: The resale platform aims to make itself a daily destination with a shoppable, in-app collage tool.
• Doritos dials up ‘80s-style telethon for ‘Stranger Things’ final season: David Hasselhoff, Paula Abdul and ALF are featured on a hotline and in digital spots as the Frito-Lay brand taps into fandom and nostalgia.
• Athletic Brewing makes a play for nonalcoholic beer this football season: To drive visibility, the brand invested seven figures into a media plan that spans CTV, streaming audio, podcasts and targeted digital placements.
• Omnicom, IPG agree to finalized FTC order with stricter ad rules: Omnicom needs to appoint a commission-approved monitor to ensure it is staying complaint with the FTC’s directives around ad spending.
• Gen Alpha’s $5.46T economic impact: Here’s what the numbers say: Gen Alpha members increasingly act as a “family CMO,” experts say, and 76% would like brands to gamify their consumer experiences.

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