47% of Financial Leaders Say Economic Disruptions Will Threaten Businesses in 2023

It seems like the past few years have consisted of one economic disruption after another, and that has resulted in the world getting consumed by inflation as well as other financial woes that have left most asset markets flat and stagnant. OneStream, a CPM solutions industry leader, commissioned some research that was compiled into a report which included surveys that asked questions of some of the financial leaders of the world, and suffice it to say that their predictions look pretty dire.

The vast majority of financial leaders who participated in this survey, or 85% to be precise, stated that they fully expect a recession around the corner. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that 47% also suggested that this economic turmoil is a huge threat to businesses in 2023. Hiring is likely to slow down if not freeze entirely because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up helping corporations weather the financial turmoil, and it is expected that we will see a bigger influx of investment into automated solutions.

57% of financial leaders are planning to up their acquisition of cloud based solutions, and 48% also said that they want to obtain better analytics systems with all things having been considered and taken into account. Machine learning can also be a big help for struggling corporations, but in spite of the fact that this is the case only about 37% of business leaders said that they plan to look into that niche in the coming year.

Machine learning and AI can be immensely useful for financial reporting, and 48% of business leaders agree that that’s the case. 49% also suggested a lack of confidence and trust in advanced tech solutions though, and that might be due to many workers not knowing enough about the tech to use it properly. Businesses will be forced to modernize, and the coming year will prove to be a huge stress test that will weed out many of the weaker enterprises from the market.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

It's All Going Downhill After Elon Musk Has Taken Over Twitter And It Was A Chaotic Week For Him As Well As Twitter Employees

When the news about Elon Musk taking over Twitter was released, Twitter started losing its advertisers. It was because of the new policies Musk wanted to impose on the app and no one wanted to work with those policies. According to MediaRadar, Twitter has been losing advertisers since May. Initially, everyone was excited about Elon as the owner of Twitter but in May about 4,000 advertisers dropped, and everyone started thinking of Elon's upcoming ownership differently. This loss in advertisers continued till August when about 2,300 advertisers dropped from the app and in September it again increased to 2,900. Brands are conscious about their brand safety due to the economic conditions and twitter ads policy.

As the advertisers have stopped with their advertisements, Twitter is suffering from a major revenue drop. Elon Musk still hasn't shared exact stats about the decline but tweeted that he had made no change in Twitter monetization policies so this is a big concern for everyone working on Twitter. Many big advertisers have temporarily stopped advertising on Twitter because they would like to know how Elon will pull out a strategy on Twitter first. Another thing worth mentioning is that Twitter has fired a major chunk of its employees because of how much the company is losing over $4M per day. In his tweet on Friday, Musk said that everyone who left has been offered 3 months of severance which is more than the legal requirements. Many of the important employees in the Global Marketing Team were asked to leave their jobs via email.

The chaos is just starting after Elon Musk's ownership because Twitter employees filed a lawsuit against Twitter. In their claim, those employees said that they are not given 60-days advance notice before being fired. Only an email is sent to the employees who are fired and won't be working for Twitter further. Under the WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) act, a big company in the US cannot mass fire their employees before giving notice to them 60 days prior. This previously happened with Tesla too, when Musk fired 10% of his Tesla employees without notice.

Twitter's head of Safety and Integrity, Yoel Roth, said that even though they have cut a major Twitter force, the company is still intact to perform its core moderation capabilities. Twitter has also restricted some employees to use important tools because of security concerns but it is being said that this use will be restored in the upcoming days. Even though 80% of twitter's incoming content moderation volume was unaffected by Elon's access to Twitter, it has still deprioritized some important works like helping with lost passwords and suspension requests. Last week Musk said that Twitter will implement a content moderation council for upcoming elections.

Read next: New Study Says Twitter Users Are Not Happy With Musk In Charge And Many Are Abandoning The App
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Social Media AI Set to Grow $3.66 Billion by 2026

The presence of AI in the social media market has been growing rapidly because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up automating a lot of processes that used to be done manually. Apple and Adobe are significant contributors to this growth trend, and Technavio’s new report suggests that this specific market could grow by over $3.6 billion by 2026 with all things having been considered and taken into account.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that the expected annual growth rate for AI in the social media market is at around 27%. It is being largely driven by predictive risk management which can make results more accurate than might have been the case otherwise. There has been a continually increasing demand for integrated data collection as well as superior analytics in social media, both of which are things that AI can be extremely useful for.

About 43% of the expected growth that this market is predicted to see will come from North America, but in spite of the fact that this is the case there is a dearth of professionals who are experienced with AI which can curtail potential future growth. Also, while Adobe and Apple are the biggest drivers of growth in the market as of right now, it bears mentioning that other companies are involved in the industry as well such as Amazon, Hootsuite and Meltwater which offers GrokNet as part of its social media AI product line.

Apart from the US, other countries such as China, Germany, the UK as well as Japan will be markets to look at for this sector as well. It will be interesting to see how things play out since the rather large market of India is notably absent from these findings. Whether or not this is prescient remains to be seen, since India was recently hailed as the most mature market for AI although a huge lack of AI specialists in that region might prevent the growth rate from peaking there.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

97% of Top Level Corporate Executives Want Better Videoconferencing Security

Video conferencing has exploded in the wake of the pandemic because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up allowing people to conduct meetings despite being trapped within their homes. In spite of the fact that this is the case, it turns out that the security of these video conferences are still a major concern for C-Suite executives, and a report from the cybersecurity company Zerify further highlights the crux of their concerns.

This report from Zerify involved a survey of over 1,000 professionals who are working in the field of IT, and it revealed some interesting factoids about their current mindset. For starters, 92% of IT professionals said that they already know about several security vulnerabilities that are endemic to video conferencing solutions these days. 89% of these IT experts also stated that they expect an increase in cyber attacks from foreign sources and 81.8% have already reported threats from nation states with all things having been considered and taken into account.

69% of IT professionals felt like their video conferences could be breached by malicious actors, and 84% further stated that if a security breach would occur their sensitive data would be less secure than might have been the case otherwise. Breaching a video conference could give hackers access to various things like intellectual property.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that zero trust frameworks are a big part of the security protocols that IT professionals will be using to mitigate these attacks. 86% of the people who responded to this survey said that their companies already use zero trust protocols in their security features, and 79% claimed that they are quite knowledgeable about how these security protocols work.

Video conferencing is now an essential aspect of the IT industry. However, it will be too big of a risk until steps are taken to plug any holes in security that it can create. More work should be done to implement zero trust protocols so that video conferences can be done securely.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Video Games Might Actually Be Good for Children According to This New Report

Video games have traditionally been considered harmful for children because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up preventing them from going outdoors and experiencing the real world. In spite of the fact that this is the case, a team of researchers working at the University of Vermont revealed that the exact opposite might be true, and this research might just turn our conception of what video games can do to kids up on its head.

The study involved conducting an MRI for around 2,000 children who were between the ages of nine and ten and it showed that those who played video games for up to three hours a day were actually more intelligent. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that they had a better recall for information, which basically means they had improved memory capacity, and they were also better able to reign in any and all impulses that they may have had.

Compared to children who never played video games, gamer kids tended to have a better attention span and memory with all things having been considered and taken into account. This suggests that children who play video games may end up becoming smarter than might have been the case otherwise, and that is a surprising revelation for parents who have been trying very hard to stop their kids from supposedly wasting time on them.

One thing to note is that this study did not definitively state that playing video games will make children smarter, but it does suggest that this could occur within the right framework. The general guideline from pediatricians is that children should play no more than one or at most two hours of video games per day, and this study intentionally exceeded that guideline to see what would happen. The results go against the grain, and it will be interesting to see if further studies are conducted that might broaden our understanding on the impacts of video games on children and their cognitive development.

Read next: 38% of US Adults Are Buying Things From Social Media, Here’s What Motivates Their Purchases
by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Apple Brand Value Grows by 35% to Reach Record Breaking $355 Billion, Amazon Comes in Second

The value of a brand is based on several factors, and it can be difficult to ascertain due to the diversity in the factors that are at play. In spite of the fact that this is the case, Apple has managed to make a strong case for itself as the single most valuable brand in the world with all things having been considered and taken into account. Apple’s brand is currently valued at around $355 billion, and that is all thanks to its strong sales despite inflationary pressures.

This comes from a report released by Brand Finance, and with all of that having been said and now out of the way it is important to note this report reveals just how much of a gap there is between Apple’s brand value and that of other brands. Amazon is the only company that is able to come close with its $350 billion brand value putting it comfortably in second place, and Google holds a distant third with its brand being valued at $263 billion.

We might even see Amazon eclipsing Apple’s brand value in the coming years, since its 38% growth has brought it quite close to Apple this year. Apple has also seen a brand value increase of 35%, but that is notably a hair shy of Amazon’s brand value growth rate, and it will be interesting to see what happens in the next fiscal year to see the final results. Amazon eclipsing Apple will be a major upset, although both of these companies are still miles ahead of any of their competitors.

Apple’s place at the top spot is pretty secure right now considering that half of all US consumers own an iPhone, and that’s not even counting the various other Apple products they might own. Still, Amazon has managed to weather an uncertain economic climate and sustain its rapid growth rate, and that might help to bolster the company’s falling stock prices in the coming years.

Another interesting entrant into this list is TikTok. The company has seen a huge rate of growth, and the value of TikTok’s brand has seen a staggering increase of about 215%. This is the fastest brand value growth rate among all of the companies on this list, and it’s not surprising considering that TikTok has seen a soaring increase in its user count going from 290 million to 655 million within the span of two years. If this trend keeps up, TikTok might be able to enter the billion user category by 2025.

One thing that eagle eyed readers might notice is that a majority of the companies who have the highest brand value are tech and services companies. This industry has a total brand value of over $2 trillion, which is double the aggregated brand value of the second most valuable industry, namely media and telecoms. Also, Amazon’s niche of retailer and consumer goods has a total value of around $920 billion, which means that Amazon alone holds a third of the brand value of that particular niche which gives it a lot of power and might help it cement its position in the top spot.

H/T: VC

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Facebook Will Now Rely On Its Algorithms To Curate The App’s News Feed

Facebook has made it quite clear over time that it does not consider its news feed to be a top priority on the app. And if you ask us, we don’t really blame them.

The company is relying on its statistics and data obtained that puts such things into the limelight. And according to those, the app is not showing great engagement or interest from users across the board.

On that note, Facebook will now be solely relying on its algorithms to help curate things like the app’s news feed. But some people aren’t happy with the news as they feel Facebook is struggling with issues like putting an end to disinformation.

This is why they resorted to algorithms in the first place to combat the matter but it didn’t work so they opted to add more humans into the workforce to better the matter. But seeing algorithms be given whole control seems to be a round-the-clock affair on social media and the results aren’t fruitful.

Today, Facebook’s parent firm went public with the news that its leading feature called Top Stories that’s located in the news tab would now be taken care of through this algorithm beginning next year. As mentioned by a spokesperson for the app, a lot of people that use Facebook are not resorting to it for the purpose of news. Hence, it’s just not the right decision to make more and more investments in those areas that aren’t aligned with the preferences of users out there today.

The firm has mentioned over time how 3% of things that people see on their feeds are linked to the world of news and current affairs. The firm sees all sorts of news links as a minor form of revenue and growth. Hence, they’re on the lookout for ways to better scale back features dealing with the ordeal.

Recently, a UK-based firm spoke about how Facebook was actually on the verge to put an end to human curation on new tabs in the UK. And now, so many tabs that were once controlled by humans would be controlled by the likes of this algorithm.

During the early part of this month, the Press Gazette mentioned how there were only 15 contractors and journalists working on a freelance basis that were paid to produce feeds that entailed millions of users of the app in the UK. These people were barred from working in other organizations, despite the fact that there were guarantees of their working hours.

Even those particular investments that require human help in this curation appear to be on the outskirts. Facebook mentioned how it has had a Top Stories part located in a news tab while most of the rest of it is handled thanks to such algorithms.

Facebook was seen calling out such news tabs as one that has had Top Stories be a part of the overall ordeal. The rest of such things end up getting handled through the likes of algorithms. There was also a whole discussion on how the app is now only going to resort to showcasing pieces of news from top sources like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and more. A few independent sources would be a part of it too.

Seeing Facebook take a step back from the news and calling it a really unprofitable affair is worrisome. Could there be something else that the app is not willing to talk about? As it is, Instant Articles are being shut down by early next year and it would no longer be paying publishers for any content seen on the app.

H/T: Gizmodo

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World