Each week the insights team at The Goat Agency pull together the latest news from the social space in a weekly social media news round-up. This week we cover Microsoft’s $10 Billion OpenAI investment, the AI-controlled VTuber that’s been banned on Twitch and OpenAI reveals plan to monetize ChatGPT.
Don’t forget you can follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter for real-time announcements of all our new blog content!
Contents
Microsoft’s $10 Billion OpenAI Investment
Twitter Rolls Out Swipeable ‘For You’ and ‘Following’ Tabs
New YouTube Shorts Monetization Expected in February
AI VTuber With 70,000 followers Banned on Twitch
OpenAI Opens Waitlist For ‘Experimental’ Paid Version of ChatGPT
Microsoft’s $10 Billion OpenAI Investment
Microsoft is in the final stages of a deal to inject $10 billion into OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT. A complete move would see the software giant take a significant ownership stake within the AI company.
We could also see these tools integrated into Microsoft’s suite of products, or LinkedIn for that matter. Microsoft has been exploring ways to integrate ChatGPT with its Bing search engine.
A mouthwatering investment from Microsoft is a massive boost for OpenAI’s ambitions. At some stage, the company will need to monetize its tools, an integration with Microsoft would change its direction, and can enable the integration of AI tools to become more common across apps, search engines and tools alike.
Microsoft will reportedly take a 75% share of OpenAI’s profits until it makes back the money on its investment, after which Microsoft would then take a 49% share in OpenAI. Microsoft’s investment would propel the value of OpenAI to $29 billion.
Twitter Rolls Out Swipeable ‘For You’ and ‘Following’ Tabs
Twitter has launched a new swipeable timeline option making it easier for users to see the tweets they want to see. The ‘For You’ tab enables Twitter users to switch between the main algorithm-operated feed, and a chronological feed of followed accounts, named under a ‘Following’ tab.
Twitter can benefit from a ‘For You’ page in the same way that TikTok has. Twitter is now filling the app with as many recommended updates as it can in order to encourage users to explore the app’s offerings, keeping them engaged for longer sessions.
This is how TikTok has seen continued success on a large scale, by showing users a constant stream of things they may like, instead of forcing unnatural follows. The algorithm learns about the user, which gives it the advantage of highlighting the best content from across the app.
Now, Twitter’s algorithm isn’t anywhere near the quality of TikTok’s, so on Twitter the content can be vague and unaligned with a user’s genuine interests due to the content being based loosely upon past engagements.
The new swipeable feed means Twitter users can simply swipe across to get rid of this type of content.
New YouTube Shorts Monetization Expected in February
YouTube Shorts’ new monetization process will see revenue from ads displayed between Shorts clips shared amongst eligible creators. The format will take effect from February 1st.
“Starting February 1st, 2023, monetizing partners will be able to earn money from ads that are viewed between videos in the Shorts Feed. This new revenue sharing model will replace the YouTube Shorts Fund.” States YouTube.
Creators on YouTube have been anticipating the change since September last year, and now, with its introduction, the development has the potential to change to way short-form video is monetized across all platforms.
YouTube’s payment model could offer a more sustainable, and equitable process, with cumulative funds from Shorts ads being allocated to a bigger pool, with YouTube then split 45% of that fund across Shorts creators depending on their views.
This process will of course be the subject of refinement over time, and it’ll be interesting to see how creators react to the new format.
AI VTuber With 70,000 followers Banned on Twitch
Neuro-sama is essentially a neural network in the V-Tuber space (Virtual YouTuber). Streaming titles like Minecraft on Twitch has helped the AI-controlled creator amass more than 70,000 followers on Twitch.
The surge in popularity across Neuro-sama’s profile highlights the shift towards AI throughout social media and online technologies.
However, Neuro-sama has since been the subject of a Twitch ban due to “hateful conduct,” following comments around the denial of the Holocaust.
People have long questioned the pitfalls of an AI built on the corpus of internet text and viewer prompts, those same pitfalls are now clear. One user asked Neuro-sama about the Holocaust, to which it responded with “I’m not sure if I believe it.”
The VTuber’s creator, Vedal, claimed he had immediately worked to improve the Twitch channel filters and Neuro-sama’s responses after the incident in order to iron out any similar situations in the future.
OpenAI Opens Waitlist For ‘Experimental’ Paid Version of ChatGPT With Faster Answers
ChatGPT is enjoying the limelight but, at the same time, it’s burning a hole in OpenAI’s pocket. Its thought the parent company is paying millions of dollars each month to keep the chatbot free to use. Unsurprisingly, OpenAI is closing in on a significant investment from Microsoft.
In the company’s official Discord, OpenAI highlighted a waitlist for “ChatGPT Professional,” which would be an experimental paid version of the chatbot, containing some added benefits not featuring in the free to use version.
One of ChatGPT’s main pain points is that the system is frequently at capacity, meaning that users must wait in order to access the app’s features. It makes sense then, that ChatGPT Professional will be “always available,” offer “fast responses” with no throttling, and give users “at least” twice the daily number of answers in comparison to the free version.
By offering a pay to use service, OpenAI hopes to “continue improving and maintaining the service, and monetization is one way to ensure its long-term viability.”
Anyone can sign up for ChatGPT’s Professional rollout, with a requite form including questions regarding intended usage, and what price they would consider fair.
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And that’s all for this week, but don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter for real-time announcements of all our new blog content!
