Real News You Can Use: April 2025 📰

I know what you’re thinking… “Oh god” really? More of that news I cannot use, or, action within my business because it’s just marketing jargon! 🙅🏻‍♂️

NOPE! Here are some of the TOP bits of 2025 news I’ve digested for you that WILL actually help you!

Google Upgrades Gemini: Google has upgraded its Gemini AI chatbot with the 1.5 Flash model, promising faster responses and improved content processing. The update enhances quality, latency, reasoning, and image understanding while quadrupling the context window to 32K tokens. Available now on no-cost web and mobile versions, Gemini also adds related content links for fact-seeking prompts.

OpenAI Tests SearchGPT: OpenAI has unveiled SearchGPT, an AI-powered search engine prototype that summarises and organises web information. Initially available to 10K testers, it allows follow-up questions and provides clear source attribution. Developed in collaboration with news partners, SearchGPT aims to eventually integrate with ChatGPT. The prototype addresses concerns about content usage by allowing publishers to manage their appearance in search results.

Facebook’s ‘Pin Comments’ for Reels: Facebook users can now pin comments to Facebook Reels. This feature is currently only available on iOS devices.

Meta to be Fined by the EU: The European Commission is set to impose its first antitrust fine on Meta in the coming weeks. The fine relates to Meta linking Facebook Marketplace with its main social network, which the European Union watchdog claims gives Marketplace an unfair advantage. The company also faces separate charges for allegedly violating new EU tech rules with its advertising model.

Reddit Blocks Bing Search: Reddit has updated its robots.txt file, blocking Bing and other search engines from crawling its site. Microsoft confirmed that Bing has stopped indexing Reddit content as a result. Google remains unaffected, but most other crawlers and AI tools are now blocked. Reddit is using IP detection to display different robots.txt versions to search engines versus human users, significantly impacting the visibility of Reddit content on non-Google search platforms.

Reddit’s New Lead Gen Ads: Reddit has launched Lead Generation Ads, now in public beta globally. This new format, integrated with Zapier, allows advertisers to collect leads directly on Reddit without users leaving the platform. The Zapier integration enables direct lead transfer to CRMs and automates lead management processes.

Apple Intelligence in Beta for Developers: Apple has launched the first preview of Apple Intelligence, its new AI suite, in the iOS 18.1 developer beta. The public release is planned for later this year.

Instagram Tests Notes Filter in Reels Tab: Instagram is testing a new Notes filter in the Reels tab, which will display only Reels with attached Notes. Notes allow mutual followers to leave comments on Reels and posts, and they will be visible for three days.

Meta Launches AI Studio: Meta is launching AI Studio, a platform allowing users to create and share custom AI characters without technical skills. Built on Llama 3.1, it enables the creation of AIs for various purposes through ai.meta.com/ai-studio or Instagram. Users can customise AI personalities and share them publicly or privately. Creators can use AI Studio to build AI extensions of themselves, answering common questions and reaching more fans. The platform includes customisation options, safety measures, and is available in the United States.

Pinterest’s Publisher Partnerships: Pinterest is testing a new program allowing news outlets and publishers to sell ads on its platform through an auction system. The program includes a revenue-sharing model between Pinterest and publishers.

TikTok’s New App Center for Advertisers: TikTok has introduced its App Center, a platform offering third-party tools to enhance advertising for businesses of all sizes. The centre provides apps across various categories, including eCommerce, creative tools, campaign management, and analytics. With flexible pricing and no-cost trials, TikTok is making these tools accessible to all advertisers, particularly small and medium-sized businesses.

Google Tests Removal of X Branding on Search: Google is testing a change in its search results that may replace the "X (Twitter)" heading with "Latest Posts From" when displaying recent posts from the platform. This update would further reduce X branding on Google's search pages.

X’s Data Sharing: X has introduced a new setting allowing users to opt out of sharing their data to train its AI chatbot, Grok. The setting is enabled by default and permits X to use posts and interactions to improve Grok, potentially sharing data with xAI.

YouTube’s Crack Down on Ad Blockers: YouTube has escalated its fight against ad blockers by implementing unskippable blank or black screens in place of ads. Users with ad-blocking extensions now face waiting periods equivalent to standard ad lengths before their desired content plays. The platform is testing server-side ad injection, which makes ads harder to block by integrating them directly into video streams. While some ad blockers can still hide ad content, they can't bypass the wait times.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode: OpenAI is rolling out ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode to select ChatGPT Plus users, with full Plus access planned for fall 2024. This feature uses GPT-4o, a multimodal model that processes voice and text tasks with lower latency and can detect emotional intonations. OpenAI has limited the feature to four preset voices and implemented measures to prevent impersonation and copyright issues.

Instagram Permanently Deletes Some Users’ Stories: Instagram has experienced a technical issue that has permanently deleted some users' Stories from their archives and highlights. Instagram's parent company, Meta, has acknowledged and fixed the bug but cannot recover the lost content. Affected users are being notified in-app.

Instagram’s New API With Instagram Login: Meta has launched Instagram API with Instagram Login, streamlining the API onboarding process for developers and businesses. The update removes Facebook login requirements for Instagram business onboarding, optimizes developer onboarding with clearer guidance, and simplifies app review by requiring only Instagram permissions. While the previous version with Facebook Login remains supported, Meta recommends using the new Instagram Login to access these improvements.

Threads’ New Features: Threads is introducing new topic discovery features to improve engagement, including a blue label for trending topics and a "Now" alert for major discussions. Users can now sort topic listings by "Recent" and search for posts by date.

X’s Ads Academy: X has launched X Ads Academy, an e-learning platform for creating effective ad campaigns on X. The academy offers 31 courses and 4 certifications in English, catering to both beginners and experienced marketers. It provides step-by-step tutorials, best practices, and certification options. Users can enrol at xadsacademy.com to enhance their X advertising skills.

YouTube Updates: YouTube is implementing several changes to its platform. Starting July 31, they will introduce a feature allowing creators to appeal suspensions from the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) 7 days before the suspension takes effect. If an appeal is rejected during this 7-day period, the channel will be suspended and cannot appeal again, but can reapply to YPP after 90 days. Creators who don't appeal within 7 days will be suspended but have 21 days to appeal afterward. Users can find the appeal deadline in the YouTube Studio's Earn Hub. Additionally, YouTube is simplifying the channel page layout. They will remove the Home tab for creators who haven't modified it, have fewer than 10 public videos, and haven't published more than one content type. Creators can manually enable the Home tab when ready to curate their content. YouTube is also merging the Branding and Basic Info pages in Studio into a single "Profile" tab and renaming the Layout tab to "Home" tab.

Q&A

• So, are you ready to harness the power of using all this new news for you or your business?

• Do you have any pain points I can help you with smoothing out regarding any of this new news?

• What do you think you could utilise this new news and how is it going to impact your business?

Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help you:

1. Book a {10 MINUTE} Business Power Call with me, to arrange working together to make your social media videos stand out online as I tweak your approach, and analyse how to improve your current video, business strategy or marketing.

2. Don’t have time to create great content or marketing yourself? Focus on your business, whilst we focus on creating the content and marketing that you’ve always dreamed of. Get in touch to find out more.

Until next Friday, love to you all!

My Partner Services
Sky Adsmart  | Cheekymonkey Marketing  |

Fire an email back to me at [email protected] and let’s keep the chat going 👌🏻