We Are Social Asia’s Tuesday Tune Up

Tuneup

X now lets paid users hide their checkmarks

X, formerly Twitter, now lets paid users hide their verification checkmarks. Elon Musk, owner of the platform, introduced paid verification last year under ‘Twitter Blue’, which has now been renamed ‘XBlue’ during the ongoing rebranding to ‘X’. Those who subscribe to ‘XBlue’ have a blue verification tick next to their username, but will now be given the choice to hide it. This will supposedly help users benefit from subscription features without showing that they are a verified account. 

Snapchat is launching a new rewards program for AR Lens creators

Snapchat is introducing a new Lens Creator Rewards programme to give AR creators and developers the chance to earn money for top-performing Lenses. Creators could be rewarded up to $7200 per month for their high performing Lenses, i.e. those with the highest engagement in the US, India and Mexico. Although performance is only measured in these three countries, the programme is available to creators globally. 

YouTube Shorts gains new creation tools

YouTube has announced an expanded suite of creation tools for YouTube Shorts, its short-form video platform. New features include tools for remixing, adding effects, stickers, and going live. Other new tools include  “Collab” –  a way for a creator to record a Short in a side-by-side format with other YouTube or Shorts videos, and a Q&A sticker that lets creators ask their audience questions and get responses in the comments. These sound familiar!

Meta is preparing to release AI-powered chatbots with different personas

According to the Financial Times, Meta has plans to roll out AI-powered chatbots with different personas. The chatbots are designed to have humanlike conversations with users on Meta’s social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. Different personas might look like – a chatbot that advises users on travel plans in the style of a surfer and another that speaks like Abraham Lincoln. These plans could launch as soon as next month – looking forward to a conversation with Lincoln!

Meta open sources framework for generating sounds and music

After launching AI-powered music generator – MusicGen – in June, Meta has announced AudioCraft, a framework to generate high-quality, realistic audio and music from short text descriptions or prompts. Meta says this tool will be more advanced, vastly improving the quality of AI-generated sounds. The code for AudioCraft is available in open source, providing a collection of sound and music generators and compression algorithms.

In other news

We’re seeing new levels of bizarre in the proposed cage fight between Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Meta, and X owner Elon Musk 🥊 Elon continues to steal people’s usernames on X ✖️TikTok is building an e-commerce team to go after pre-owned luxury bag buyers and sneakerheads 🛍️ And finally, TikTok will make its algorithmically-sorted For Your Page optional in Europe!