ChatGPT In The Spotlight: Where The Popular Yet Controversial App Stands Today May Surprise You

OpenAI’s breakthrough app ChatGPT definitely deserves the award for being the most standout tech platform in 2023. It’s definitely controversial but it did turn out to be awfully popular.

All over the internet, everyone was talking about it and we even had Twitter feeds and other online media platforms being impacted by a single platform. In such a short period, the name was on everyone’s minds and we also saw the uprising of so many startup firms come through, thanks to it.

But a serious lacking had to be linked to the fact that it failed to entail any form of mobile application at the start and that led other rivals to enter the market and make use of APIs for this purpose.

Soon, we witnessed OpenAI finally doing what it should have done a while back. And that includes launching its mobile app. But while many had plenty of high hopes attached to just that, it certainly fell short of the mega success many predicted.

The real ChatGPT platform ended up getting launched to a wider audience and that included so many installations. With time, nearly two months later, we saw downloads did not rise as much and actually went on to take the opposite route.

After striking the peak for a launch in May of this year, new stats are putting out a unique picture worth a mention. We’re talking about a fall in downloads by 58%. And as per estimated figures, the stats proved how the app struck a high with 387,000 downloads each day by May, and now, that’s just 162,000. How’s that for a massive fall in just a month or two?

Many experts felt the trend was designed to move in the opposite direction but that did not happen. And while ChatGPT is a wonderful type of technology, using it daily can be difficult. Additionally, there’s yet to be a version for Android in the market, so that means less growth overall.

We are seeing some positive changes take place finally with OpenAI bringing the app to Android by next week after so many months of waiting. However, it might be a little too late, many feel.

As far as revenue is concerned, things are certainly quite different on this front. It’s important to analyze where the figures for growth and revenue stand, thanks to stats from App Intelligence.

As per estimates, the app witnessed revenue worth $728,000 in May of 2023, moments after the launch arose. This is net and that means what the firm gets to keep after giving a commission share to Apple.

Coming down to the grand total, it increased to $1.5 million last month and that’s a whopping double figure. But again, this was the first month it worked full so that does fit right into place.

The month is yet to be over but by the way things are going right now, we predict the platform would witness net revenue increase to $1.8 million on Apple’s App Store soon.

When you come to think of it, 20% is definitely not a whole lot when you see the explosive start that the app came with but it did manage to overcome the download fall it saw which is great.

To help give you a clearer image of how it stands against other apps in the market, another third-party platform called Ask AI witnessed figures for net revenue worth $3.6 million take center stage last month at the App Store. The latter is also up for grabs for Android users so the Play Store’s revenue must be considered too which stood at a net revenue figure of $1.1 million.

H/T: Appfigures
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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

PR Reps Earn Twice As Much as Journalists on Average

Journalism is an honorable profession because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up allowing people to learn more about what is happening in the world around them. In spite of the fact that this is the case, journalists don’t tend to earn all that much when compared to individuals who are working in other fields.

A pair of studies that were conducted by Mack Rack shed some light on the income disparity between journalists and professionals in the PR industry. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that PR pros generally earn about twice as much as journalists. The average salary for a PR rep was around $85,000 per year based on the findings in this study, whereas most journalists earn anywhere from $40,000 to $70,000.

What’s more, 36% of people who are working within the PR space earn over $100,000 per year. By comparison, just 17% of journalists enjoy a six figure annual income with all things having been considered and taken into account. Only 2% of PR pros earned less than $40,000 each year, whereas one in every five journalists, or 20% to be precise, earned this exceptionally low annual income.

PR pros are also three times as likely as journalists to earn the highest income bracket included in this report, namely $250,000 per year. This seems to suggest that public relations is a far more lucrative career than that of journalism, and it will be interesting to see how this impacts each field moving forward.

As journalistic publications engage in mass layoffs, more pressure will be placed on this industry. The profit making incentive of most magazines and news organizations is forcing them to put the squeeze on their journalists, while PR pros are enjoying an ever increasing level of demand. As these industries continue to diverge, we may begin to see fewer job openings for journalists and PR pros will likely see their industry’s influence continue to grow at a rapid pace in the near future.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Top Instagram Celebrities Earn Over $1 Million Per Post, Here’s Who They Are

Instagram does not have quite as many users as Facebook or YouTube, but in spite of the fact that this is the case, it is an especially lucrative place to run marketing campaigns. Save for perhaps LinkedIn, Instagram offers the highest cost per click average of the entire social media industry, or $3.56 per click to be precise. This has allowed some of the most followed accounts on Instagram to earn more than might have been the case otherwise.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that there are over a dozen celebrities who earn over a million dollars for a single Instagram post. At the very top of the list is Cristiano Ronaldo, who has over 597 million followers. He’s also the only celebrity that earns over $2 million per post, averaging out to $2.397 million with all things having been considered and taken into account.

Coming in second is Kylie Jenner, with 397 million followers and average earnings of $1.835 million per post. Lionel Messi is close behind with 48 million followers and $1.777 million per post. Following this we have a list of well known celebrities such as Selena Gomez and Dwayne Johnson who round off the top five list, with Kim and Khloe Kardashian occupying sixth and ninth place respectively, and Kendall Jenner coming in tenth.

Musicians such as Ariana Grande and Beyonce Knowles occupied seventh and eight places respectively, with Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift coming in eleventh and twelfth. Following this, Jennifer Lopez, famous cricketer Virat Kohli and Nicki Minaj also earn more than a million dollars a post.

Generally, earnings coincide with follower counts, but in spite of the fact that this is the case Katy Perry emerged as an outlier. She has fewer followers than Kourtney Kardashian, Miley Cyrus and Neymar, yet she clears a million dollars a post which is slightly beyond the around $950,000 per post that they tend to receive. These celebrities have managed to leverage their fame into massive earnings thanks to Instagram’s high CPC.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Public Backlash: The Surprising Fallout of Politicians' Incivility on Social Media

Political leaders often forgo politeness and act disrespectfully when there is a heated political argument. However, a recent study challenges the notion that incivility attracts public interest and garners advantages. Published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, the research suggests that incivility frequently results in adverse responses from the population as a whole.

The concept of incivility entails employing impolite or discourteous language, encompassing actions like resorting to name-calling, mockery, and using vulgar expressions. There is a belief among some that incorporating impertinence in politics can effectively garner people’s attention, resulting in benefits such as a broader audience and increased influence. Nevertheless, this research conducted by Matthew Feinberg and Jeremy A. Frimer disputes the notion that incivility holds significant political advantages. Instead, it delves into the prospect that impoliteness might lead to ethical condemnation and a decline in public interest.

The researchers employed various investigative techniques encompassing longitudinal and experimental methodologies. For instance, during studies 1a and 1b, the investigators scrutinized the Twitter timelines of prominent politicians like Donald Trump and Joe Biden over a specific period. They explored the correlation between the usage of uncivil language in their tweets and the subsequent day's increase in new followers.

During the second phase of the research, 1,479 individuals with varying political affiliations were enlisted by the investigators through Amazon's Mechanical Turk. These subjects were presented with either courteous or impolite remarks from political figures and asked to express their fascination in listening to further statements from each one of them.

Study 3 engaged 604 individuals who were selected through the identical platform. These participants were presented with speeches from fictitious Democratic or Republican politicians, varying in tone from respectful to disrespectful. Subsequently, the respondents expressed their level of interest in listening to further speeches, highlighting their moral assessment of each speech, and evaluated the extent to which the speech grasped their attention.

The study findings strongly indicate that incivility diminishes public interest in politicians, contradicting earlier assumptions. Notably, studies 1a and 1b demonstrated a striking decline in the rate of novel followers earned by politicians after employing unethical behavior on Twitter.

According to the findings from Study 2, participants exhibited a notably diminished interest in listening to politicians who utilized disrespectful language, irrespective of their political leanings.

Study 3 built upon the previous results by highlighting participants' heightened interest in civil political communication. Moreover, distinctions based on political affiliations emerged, with Republican participants displaying greater tolerance towards impoliteness from fictional Republican political leaders in contrast to how Democrats reacted to impolite declarations from their party members. The presence of moral disagreement towards discourtesy also played a key part in diminishing overall interest.

In conclusion, the study indicates that because society generally reacts adversely to rudeness, it is an unsuccessful political tactic. Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge the potential existence of alternative roles played by incivility that may counterbalance the decrease in interest. The investigators remarked that politicians might intentionally suppress interest if their uncivil rhetoric results in more significant harm to their political rivals' esteems. Furthermore, if impoliteness leads to a reduced engagement in politics overall, those currently in power, concerned about waning electorate support could gain an advantage by employing incivility as a strategy to lower voter participation.

While this study offers insights into the repercussions of incivility on the general public, it does have certain constraints that necessitate consideration. For instance, the longitudinal studies made assumptions regarding the influence of subsequent tweets on public interest. However, it remains plausible that individuals may have viewed the tweets before or after showing their interest. Furthermore, the research primarily centered on American respondents and the American political landscape. As such, future investigations should endeavor to discover the broader applicability of these findings.

The researchers recommend that politicians should adopt more civil behavior if they wish to maintain influence. However, it's essential to explore further whether impoliteness declines interest in the specific uncivil politician or the party they represent as a whole. Future research should delve into the influence of incivility on public interest and explore related questions in this context.

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by Syeda Maleeka Zehra via Digital Information World

Are TikTok and Reddit Replacing Google?

For decades now, Google has been widely considered to be the first stop that you make when you start to surf the internet. This has given the tech juggernaut disproportionate power, with many criticizing it for acting as the arbiter for what people can find online and what ends up getting restricted. Few if any search engines have been able to compete with Google, but it turns out that its biggest threat might not be a stereotypical search engine at all.

While the search engine platform’s dominance is not going to dissipate anytime soon, since it still holds a 90% share of all search traffic, it is facing competition from the unlikeliest of sources: social media. That’s not to say that Facebook or Twitter are replacing it, but rather TikTok might be the platform that topples Google from its once secure throne.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that TikTok has taken the top spot from Google in terms of being the most popular domain on the web once before in 2021. Nowadays, 40% of Gen Z say that they prefer to make searches with platforms other than Google, and TikTok is emerging as a strong contender on that front.

This is leading to a state of crisis for Google because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up reducing its revenues. In the US, Google earned 67% of its total revenue from search engine advertising in 2016. Based on data provided by eMarketer, Google now receives just 54% of its overall revenues from the same source.

One could argue that this is a byproduct of Google trying to diversify its income streams, but in spite of the fact that this is the case, the threat of TikTok is difficult to ignore. In an attempt to keep this decline at bay, Google is trying to incorporate AI into its search engines in order to make the results more accurate and informative than might have been the case otherwise.

Users are frustrated by the startling prevalence of spam on Google’s SERP, with genuine search results often coming after a series of ads that are often not marked all that clearly. This is leading some users to believe that Google is trying to trick them into clicking on ads with all things having been considered and taken into account.

Another contender for the top spot might be Wikipedia, with the free source of information already providing a powerful search engine that allows users to take a look at all sorts of knowledge with zero ads in the bargain. TikTok and Wikipedia are joined by Reddit, with some users even specifying Reddit in their search queries in order to get better quality results.

It has come to a point where the top ranked results on Google’s SERP are actually the least likely to provide value. They mostly consist of spam and scams, and there is very little usable information that users can glean. Other platforms offer a much better user experience, which might result in the age of Google coming to a close after years of being unassailable.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

70% of Americans Say Beauty Filters On Social Media Reduce Self Esteem

Social media has in many ways allowed us to present our best selves to the world, but in spite of the fact that this is the case, these portrayals are very rarely accurate representations of who we truly are. Most social media platforms have a visual focus tend to offer filters that can beautify you, but they might also have the disadvantage of propping up completely unrealistic beauty standards 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 StyleSeat recently conducted a survey that asked 700 participants how they felt about the existence of beauty filters offered by social media platforms and other apps. It turns out that 70% of Americans are of the opinion that these filters can have a detrimental impact on self esteem. 60% also indicated that they can be bad for mental health overall, which points to a glaring issue with the state of social media as it exists today.

An interesting thing to mention here is that there are gender based and also generational divides in terms of how beauty filters are perceived. For example, 78% of women saw them as having a negative impact on their self image and self esteem, whereas just 59% of men said the same.

From a generational point of view, Gen Z was the most likely to indicate that they don’t like the way beauty filters make them feel uglier than they actually happen to be. As many as 72% of Gen Z agreed with this statement, with 67% of Millennials also saying the same.

On the other end of the spectrum, older generations were less likely to be aware of the negative affects of beauty filters than might have been the case otherwise. While 54% of Gen X stated that beauty filters can lead to poor mental health, just 32% of Baby Boomers felt the same way.

Members of the Baby Boomer generation are usually not cognizant of the pitfalls of modern tech because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up escaping their mental grasp. This might be why they don’t see an issue with how these filters can completely alter your physical appearance and encourage the adoption of beauty standards that are harmful to say the least.

These survey participants answered questions in the poll after using TikTok’s notorious Bold Glamour filter, which is arguably the most detrimental beauty filter of all. It is especially risky since it uses machine learning to constantly improve, which makes it harder to tell where the filter is propping up your looks. The lack of glitches may make for a seamless experience, but it can also lead people to believe that they are simply not attractive enough.

Social media platforms have a responsibility to solve at least some of the challenges that they have helped create. They can smooth out blemishes in one’s skin, alter the appearance of your eyebrows and even artificially lengthen eyelashes. The lack of skin whitening features make it even more nefarious, since the alterations it makes are less apparent and the subtlety might be the key to how dangerous the filter is.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Hackers Are Using Special AI To Produce Malicious Software And Deceptive Phishing Emails

A new alert by one of Canada’s leading cybersecurity professionals is shedding light on the use of special AI to spread mischief online.

Think along the lines of hackers using AI technology to design software that is malicious and can produce phishing emails along the way. Furthermore, we’re seeing the massive wave of disinformation being spread online through such means, he explained.

The report by Reuters is really making one realize that the tech sector is being attacked by cybercriminals who have found an easy way out to achieve their tasks by abusing AI for gains.

One interview that was launched this past week had the lead for Canada’s Cyber Security Center mention how his agency alone saw AI getting abused in various activities like the making of phishing scams in emails and adding malicious codes to various endeavors.

While there is yet to be any form of proof of examples provided, the assertion coming this way shows how cybercriminals are really causing massive concern with this use through actors.

In the past few months, we saw a number of cyber watchdogs explain through reports that there was a hypothetical risk for AI through LLMs that took on massive amounts of text to devise documents and other concerning paperwork.

Then in March of this year, a police firm in the European region released shocking documentation that proved how ChatGPT was enabling fraudsters to carry out impersonation in a real manner, despite being poor in English.

At the same time, another cybersecurity body in the UK announced how it was seeing a surge in crimes related to large language models who assisted in carrying out cyber attacks that were beyond what many felt they were capable of doing.

So many researchers are also raising the alarm about how they’re seeing a rise in such crimes and most of them are produced using AI technology. It’s sad to see language models getting trained on malware and it is ordered to draft out material that can easily trick another into doing things like lending money,

Things like requests for assistance to better solve the matter were talked about and how a proper solution needs to come into play before it’s too late.

For now, AI technology being used for purposes such as code drafting is in the initial stage but that does not mean such criminal activities are not picking up the pace as we speak, and that’s concerning for obvious reasons.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World