Instagram Adds New Perk For Paid Subscribers That Allows Them to Restrict DM Requests To Other Meta Verified Users Only

It's a feature that has been in the testing phase for a while now but we can finally confirm how Instagram is rolling out another great benefit for Meta verified users.

The app will now enable paid subscribers the chance to restrict requests for DMs to other paying members only. This was shared recently through a new screenshot that was published by Radu Oncescu.

He revealed how all verified profiles on the popular social media app can now make the most of this option of restricted message requests online to those being verified.

In case you’re still wondering, the term verified users refers to those on the platform having notable accounts such as those belonging to IG team members or those who have paid subscriptions after signing up to the company’s verified initiative.

This way, such settings provide users with the chance to filter unneeded content or junk and make sure only those of a serious nature are entertained across the user’s DM.

When we mention the term serious, we mean accounts of high-profile individuals and those capable of paying the fee for getting verified. It does not mean scammers cannot reach you as many can afford that fee. But it does mean that there would surely be a dramatic fall in the large number of bot profiles that add users like you to random conversations. Other examples include the decreased likelihood of poor marriage proposals taking center stage inside inboxes that might seem annoying to tackle on a usual basis.

It honestly does also depend on how many such requests you get across your DMs and if you have the spare time to sort through those online. In case you happen to be off the lot and not getting too many such requests in general, it might be a waste and not worth your time or effort to have it filtered. But in terms of personal utility, the value does increase.

We feel this could be valuable to a small number of users on the app but if you happen to be one of those keenly looking forward to benefiting from it, then congratulations as this update will soon be launching.

We also find it interesting how it’s a rollout that’s awfully similar to what tech entrepreneur Elon Musk included for paid users on the X platform in 2023. This enabled those who were verified to have DMs restricted to only those who were paying.

The only difference now is that it got rid of verification tags from all those accounts featuring non-paying members. So that means the only DMs you attain arise from those who have been given the chance to make a payment. But again, seeing it reactivate the premium accounts without additional costs was major news for those having more than 2500 followers.

As a whole, it’s quite similar, we have to agree. Now the question is whether or not it adds value in real life for users or not and from what we feel, it’s a little questionable on that front right now.

Read next: OpenAI Rolls Out New Efforts To Ensure Its Generative AI Systems Are Safer For Use
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

OpenAI Rolls Out New Efforts To Ensure Its Generative AI Systems Are Safer For Use

The makers of ChatGPT want the world to know that user safety and security are two primary goals at the moment when it comes to AI systems.

The company was seen speaking more on this front and also shed light on how training for its next AI model has also begun, putting a lot of speculations to rest.

During the early hours of the morning, it was mentioned how its board of directors rolled out a new Safety and Security Committee which would examine how the firm’s safety procedures come into play in terms of product development.

The news was published through a blog post that stated more details on this front and how the tech giant’s CEO would be included in that certain committee. Other members would be those from the company’s board as well as employees it deems to be a powerful part of the firm like the chief scientist and its leading member for security affairs. Meanwhile, a host of other leading experts would also be contacted from outside the firm which would attain the role of consultants for the tech giant.

The blog post stated how the initial task right now had to do with evaluating the processes running in the company and what safeguards were in place for three months. When that period is up, the committee will share more recommendations with all members of the board. After getting a comprehensive review on this front, the AI giant would go public with all of the findings and which recommendations were adopted that are consistent with user security.

The news about this new committee coming into play has been in light of the shocking discovery that the firm had to disband its superalignment team at the start of this month.

This was designed to better provide means to ensure humans remain at the forefront and AI is unable to supercede them as the fear of humans getting extinct due to AI being smarter is very real.

• Also read: Top Midjourney Alternatives You Can Try in 2024

As one can expect, the news left a lot of questions in people’s minds including what steps the company was doing to prevent this from happening.

Now, we’re seeing how those fears are finally being put to rest with this new committee coming into play.

But on the other hand, news regarding the training of a new frontier model is also not being taken lightly. The company vowed that this new project would bring to light a host of capabilities linked to their AGI goals. This would all be done ensuring security remains the top priority at all times.

At the start of this month, the tech giant revealed a new launch of its latest GPT-4 model called GPT-4o. It’s certainly more realistic in its approach, featuring real-life voices and interactions to make users feel more comfortable that they’re talking to something very similar to another human and not a machine. And the best bit is that it’s free for all.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: How Does Google Rank Content? New Trove Of Leaked Documents Unveil The Company’s Search Algorithm Workings
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

How Does Google Rank Content? New Trove Of Leaked Documents Unveil The Company’s Search Algorithm Workings

If you’ve ever been keen on knowing how Google Search works, this just might be your lucky day.

A new trove of bombshell documents (hat tip to Mike King and Rand Fishkin) was leaked online that gives an unexpected look into the search engine giant’s algorithm, answering a plethora of questions that have been under wraps for years.

Documents in bundles were unraveled that arose from the company’s internal API warehouse. Thanks to a new bot that works on an automated basis, the documents were provided to the co-founder of Spark Toro who has now made the shocking findings public so most of us can benefit.

A thorough review and analysis was given on this front and thanks to the leaks, we’re bringing forward the data to you in terms of what to expect next for this algorithm.

The details are certainly invaluable concerning those working with SEOs who can really interpret what this means in better language. The news is certainly huge and a leak that most of us could never encompass because let’s face it, we’re talking about Google here.

From what we know so far, we can confirm how the current documents delineate how the data is accurate till the date of March of this year so it’s fairly recent. Secondly, a massive 2596 modules had been represented via API documentation and had a staggering 14,000 attributes attached to it.

No details regarding weighting were provided but re-ranking functions were highlighted which can adjust data as per requirements. Meanwhile, content could be demoted for a few reasons including location, links not matching with target pages, product reviews, and user dissatisfaction where SERP (search engine result pages) signals are involved.

Remember, the company carries a copy version for each page getting indexed so that it recalls the changes it makes simultaneously. However, the firm only makes use of 20 changes during a link analysis.

This does not prove how the firm’s reps may have lied in terms of links not getting a top 3 ranking or as a whole, links matter so much less for the sake of ranking. Two factors could be the truth but again, more details regarding weighing are required here.

Another major finding that is not shocking is how clicks really do matter if and when you wish to have your content rank well. If you want the best, keep producing documents that feature all of the above as the tech giant makes use of several measurements including longer Clicks.

Documents that are longer in duration could be truncated but shorter ones do get a score depending on their original factor.

To put it simply as per the experts, the greater the number of clicks can only come when you have a broader array of queries coming into play. You earn a lot of diversity when you wish to rank. It all does make sense as stronger content will ensure that happens always.

Content producers and publishers need to ensure they drive better traffic to get the best user experience in the end so that it sends great signals to Google and your page gets the best ranking.

Yes, Google makes use of clicks via ranking, especially when it comes down to the Navboost System. And if there’s one thing to take home from this all, Brand matters the most.

Markets who wish to better organic search or their traffic need to come up with the best brand outside of Search.

• Also read: Top 9 Alternatives of Midjourney that Are Easy to Use For Beginners

Other interesting points mentioned included a discussion about authorship and how the company stores data belonging to authors to see if the data actually belongs to them. Other than that, models like Chrome data were talked about that delineate how Google utilizes information from the Chrome browser for the sake of better ranking purposes.

The Android maker even whitelists a few domains linked to topics such as the elections or the COVID-19 period. Google also carries the capability to enhance or demote certain pages through a feature dubbed Twiddler.

In the end, a few expert pointers were provided that Google firmly believes in including fresh content where data is marked by date. Next, seeing if a document belongs to a core topic or not is determined. Thirdly, page titles carry weightage while the company is said to store data linked to domain registration.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: The 9 Best Competitor Analysis Tools In 2024 For Digital Marketers and SEOs
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Top 9 Alternatives of Midjourney that Are Easy to Use For Beginners

Creating art through AI has become a new trend, with Midjourney leading the way with its remarkable capabilities. However, its recent transition to only paid subscription model has left many geeks like us seeking alternatives. But don't worry, there are plenty of other options available in the market. In this post, we unveil a curated selection of the top 9 Midjourney alternatives, emphasizing 'free use' armed with potent text-to-image capabilities. Whether you're a seasoned artist or an aspiring enthusiast, these AI image generators offer a liberating canvas to explore your creativity without emptying your pockets.

1- Leonardo.ai

LeonardoAI offers a unique opportunity to train your own AI model (yes based on your input data), allowing you to generate hundreds of variations from your training data. Many users prefer it as a free alternative to Midjourney for this reason. Particularly advantageous for game developers, this tool enables the creation of models for various items from existing work, with customizable themes like futuristic, medieval, or fantasy. To access the LeonardoAI, you must join their early bird access waitlist and await an email invitation. Reviews highlight its value, with one user noting its affordability compared to Midjourney. However, it should be noted that LeonardoAI requires a waitlist and early bird access only. Pricing options range from a free tier offering 150 credits per day to paid plans starting at $10 per month.

2- PlayGround AI

Playground AI is the top best alternative of Midjourney that lets the users generate the first 500 images for free. Playground AI works the fastest and can generate more than one image at a time. However, the free version entails limitations, such as a waiting period after generating the initial 500 images and a decline in image quality after 50 images. Pricing options range from a free tier offering 500 images per month to paid plans starting at $12 per month, catering to varying user needs.

3- Bing AI Image Creator

Microsoft Bing also has its AI image creator but not many people know about it. It is now powered by Dall-E and can also be used as an image generator. But users cannot edit or customize its generated images like other tools.

4- Stable Diffusion

It is a text to image generation software that many websites on the internet use to create images for their websites. The flaw of this software is that it cannot produce perfect human images like other software. Users also complain of server problems due to high traffic on its website.

5- Craiyon

Craiyon is similar to the Dall-E model and generates images easily. It is best for users who are beginners in AI image generation. Users do not need to sign up for using this tool. It is a good software but images take some time to generate. The big drawback of this tool is it produce too pixelated images, means you can't get a big enough image out of it.

6- Adobe Firefly

Adobe is combining Photoshop to generate AI images for its users. There are many features available in Adobe Firefly like text to brush, text to vector, text to template, etc., in addition to text to image. The only con of this software is that image generation takes some time.

7- Lexica

Lexica, powered by the Stable Diffusion AI image generation model, offers impressive results. With a user-friendly interface and quick image generation, it's highly accessible, especially for beginners. One notable aspect is its ability to generate similar results based on any input, aiding inspiration. However, commercial use requires a subscription, with plans ranging from free to $48 per month.

8- Google Gemini

Google Gemini serves as a compelling alternative to paid AI image creators like Midjourney, especially for users seeking free of cost solutions. As part of Google's AI tools, Gemini offers decent image generation capabilities. Users can leverage its features to create high-quality visuals quickly and efficiently, tailored to their specific needs. However, it is not available in all markets, plus users may still encounter limitations in terms of customization, censorship and advanced features compared to dedicated image creation tools.

9- Meta's 'Imagine' AI image generator

Meta's 'Imagine' image generator is a user-friendly tool that creates AI-powered images in a quick manner. Similar to Midjourney, it offers a seamless experience for both beginners and experts. Imagine's unique feature lets images change in real-time based on your input, making it a promising alternative for creative projects. As Meta refines Imagine, it stands as a compelling option for those seeking an AI image generator with dynamic capabilities.

Conclusion

With so many options available, you have a world of AI creativity at your fingertips. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned artist, these tools offer endless possibilities to bring your ideas to life without breaking the bank.

Read next: AI Tool Usage Declines Among Creators in 2024, Survey Finds
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

AI Overviews And Its Impact On Organic Search Traffic: Should We Be Worried?

• 42% of queries in the health vertical showed AI Overviews (AIOs).
• There was a very strong correlation (0.917) between sites appearing in the top 10 organic results and those cited in AIOs. In simpler terms, websites that perform well in organic search are more likely to be featured in AI Overviews.
• A strong negative correlation (-0.61) was found between cited URLs in AIOs and changes in organic traffic. Meaning that as the frequency of citations in AIOs increases, there is a corresponding decrease in organic traffic to those cited URLs.
• When AIOs appeared but a site wasn't cited, there was an average loss of -2.8% organic traffic.

It’s been close to 14 days since we saw search engine giant Google launch AI Overviews (AIOs). The rollout was not all positive and faced backlash from publishers and users who feared the worst was yet to come.

Now, experts are sitting down to determine what impact it can have, if any, on organic traffic and if the fear of implications wreaking havoc is really true or not.

Remember, it always helps to see what outcome can result from a new endeavor, especially in those cases where misinformation reports are on the high, not to mention harmful recommendations peaking as we speak.

Can they affect organic traffic to the extent that quick replies to users’ prompts end up doing more harm than good? We feel there might be a small possibility that AIOs roll out greater traffic to certain cited sites.

This particular study conducted by Kevin Indig based on ZipTie data crawled search results on 1675 questions of the health domain to see when and how the search engine giant displays AI Overviews. This was combined with data from Search Console to determine the implications it had and the influence backlinks bring forward in terms of domain traffic.

The greater rates are justifiable because Google mentioned how displaying overviews for complex questions is more likely to take place in the health domain than in e-commerce.

There was a weak relationship with words count that indicated longer questions triggering more overviews. Still, to see the figures is just overwhelming considering how this is health where getting wrong data can be deemed to be a serious risk.

There was no relationship reported for the difficulty of keywords or even search volume. But we do feel this domain tends to be cited more frequently when questions are simpler.

It was similarly noted how overviews pop up on those People Also Ask pages, featured snippets, or even discussions and forums modules. It all makes a lot of sense as these point to informational searches. There were no correlations found between top ads and knowledge panels but they were less frequent than usual Search Engine Results Page features.

The question is who pops up in these AI Overviews? In this study, 704 AI-based answer cited 4,493 websites which is close to 6.3 links per overview.

There’s a strong correlation between websites that pop up in the top 10 organic results and websites cited across overviews. Another interesting point worth mentioning is how no strong links between domains getting many overview citations and their respective organic traffic were seen. The same was the case with backlinks and ranking keywords.

Any page that ranks well for keywords is more than likely to get cited across AIOs but it’s not clear when the search engine giant would cite a webpage that does not rank well for a particular keyword.

Now the main part is worth discussing. Can these AI Overviews affect organic traffic or not?

For this comparison, organic clicks arising from the Search Console for a certain domain across 1675 non-branded keywords were used in week 7 and compared to that in week 14. When you exclude those terms having low traffic, 560 overviews showed up for various keywords.

The conclusion is that a very strong negative correlation was discovered between URLs cited and those linked to traffic change. This indicated how overview citations send out fewer clicks to URLs cited.

However, the results do tend to vary by the intent of the user. Most of these URLs lose out on clicks, thanks to these overviews. Similarly, it’s quite comparable to the likes of Featured Snippets that sent fewer or more clicks depending on which keyword is being used.

To conclude, strong SEO performance appears to be the best means by which you can pop up across AI Overviews. Even if Google cites URLs that are not doing great, it does not matter. But with that being said, we are still in the dark in terms of which content features make it likely that it would get cited for the AI-powered overviews.

As a whole, AI Overviews have a stronger impact than the usual Google Search. It’s the first AI rollout that greatly alters the cash cow for the company.

Read next: AI Tool Usage Declines Among Creators in 2024, Survey Finds
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

ChatGPT’s Fate In The EU: Data Protection Taskforce Reports Preliminary Conclusions On Privacy Compliance

It’s been close to a year since we saw the EU allocate a task force designed to oversee the workings of OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT tool.

The goal was to see how the EU’s rulebook applies to the viral chatbot and from what has been published so far regarding preliminary findings, we can confirm that things are mostly ok in that regard but there are still a host of legal issues which continue to remain undecided.

This includes lawfulness as well as fairness arising with OpenAI’s processing.

These issues might seem tiny but they’re pivotal because many are deemed to be confirmed violations of the overall privacy regime. As a result, they can go up to 4% of the worldwide yearly turnover penalty.

Similarly, watchdogs could order for non-compliant processing to come to an end. So to put it simply, the company is really getting tasked in the sense that a regulatory risk does exist where laws are allocated for the AI domain but they’re still far from getting operational.

A certain amount of clarity is necessary from the data protectors of the EU regarding data protection laws that apply to tools like ChatGPT. The bet is safe in terms of giving OpenAI empowerment so that it can carry on with usual operations daily, despite a huge number of issues arising in the tech sector that violate different aspects of the GDPR.

For instance, the investigation linked to Poland’s DPA opened up complaints regarding the chatbot of a certain individual and then refused to fix the errors. Another issue was rolled out in Austria. So a lot of such issues mean saying hello to less enforcement.

The GDPR is a law that is applicable when companies engage in data collection of users where personal information gets processed. It’s a very common behavior from Large Language Models including ChatGPT. They’re scrapping data from the web for training purposes like siphoning certain posts across social media apps.

The regulations also empower DPAs to file laws to stop non-compliant processing of data from taking place. So as one can imagine, it’s a powerful endeavor for sharing how AI giants could function in the region when GDPR enforcers start opting to pull it.

We did get a taste of that from last year when lawmakers in Italy advocated against the tool on this front and banned it from processing the user data of locals. This resulted in a temporary shutdown of the service across the nation.

ChatGPT continued with operations across Italy after changes were done to data and controls given to users as a long list of demands offered by the DPA. But it was still under the shadow of a huge cloud of how it can function across the EU.

To put it simply, if you wish to have a tool that processes the data of users, you need to get the legal basis sorted out for that framework to ensure continuous operation. If not, then sadly there’s no room for you.

This particular report is bringing to light another very integral point. It discusses how the platform requires legal validation for data processing. From pre-processing to training and the final output too - there is a lot to consider to deem ChatGPT as lawful in its behavior.

Coming down to fairness and transparency, the GDPR has made it so clear that these aspects are not an option. They must be complied with by OpenAI and no arguments on this front could be accepted.

As far as transparency is concerned, the task force mentions how OpenAI needs to make use of exemptions that notify people regarding data collection about them.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: Global Startup Rankings: The Top Cities to Watch
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Global Startup Rankings: The Top Cities to Watch

Pitchbook's rankings spotlight the premier cities worldwide for startups, where vibrant ecosystems and ample funding opportunities fuel entrepreneurial dreams.

Whenever we talk about a startup in a city, it is important that the city should have a decent number of venture capitalists, community of founders, and tech workforce. For the rankings, each city was analyzed from the maturity of their start-up in a six-year time which ended in Q2 of 2023. So, according to these rankings, San Francisco is the top city in the world with $427.6 billion capital which was raised in the last six-years. It has a development score of 89.5.

The second best startup city in the world is New York, Followed by Beijing. Both cities have a development score of 76. New York raised $179.9 billion capital in the six years while Beijing raised $161.2 billion in capital. New York is a home to many popular companies like SkillShare and Hugging Face which are well-known examples for a startup. Beijing, which is a city in China, is home to ByteDance which is a parent company to TikTok. This company is one of the most valuable companies in the world right now. Another city from China, Shanghai, is also in the top five best startup cities in the world. Most of the startups in China are fully funded by the government and are based on hard tech.

Other startup cities in the top ten list of best startup cities in the world include Los Angeles, Boston, London, Shenzhen, Seoul and Tokyo. It is seen that most countries in the top twenty are from China and the USA. Singapore is also set to becoming a tech startup hub for many companies. It is the fourteenth best city for a startup in the world with a development score of 52. A good $45.7 billion capital was raised in Singapore in just six years and it has an impressive venture funding of $1060 per person.

City	Development score	Capital raised (in billion)	Growth score	Deal count	Exit value (in billion)
San Francisco	89.5	$427.6B	28.2	19,898	$766.3B
New York	76	$179.9B	41.5	13,594	$171.7B
Beijing	75.6	$161.2B	15.4	8,835	$279.2B
Shanghai	72.9	$130.3B	26.5	7,422	$186.8B
Los Angeles	71.40	$144.6B	39.9	9,781	$181.4B
Boston	70.40	$117.0B	34.8	6,044	$172.8B
London	64.00	$99.0B	38.8	11,533	$71.9B
Shenzhen	62.70	$46.4B	45.3	5,020	$66.3B
Seoul	61.1	$31.1B	52.1	6,196	$71.0B
Tokyo	60.20	$26.2B	66.6	5,590	$28.0B
Hangzhou	59.10	$50.7B	20.5	3,361	$88.7B
Washington D.C.	54.70	$43.7B	61.7	2,706	$28.2B
Seattle	53.5	$31.7B	26.3	2,693	$35.6B
Singapore	52.20	$45.7B	74.8	4,507	$38.0B
San Diego	52.00	$33.5B	35.5	2,023	$44.7B
Austin	51.80	$26.4B	46.6	2,636	$22.9B
Guangzhou	51.70	$24.7B	50.9	1,700	$24.0B
Tel Aviv	51.00	$21.0B	39.7	1,936	$32.2B
Denver	50.60	$26.8B	51.1	2,489	$29.9B
Berlin	50.40	$31.2B	27.9	2,469	$15.9B
Suzhou	$49.7	$15.1B	49	2,207	$29.2B
Paris	49.50	$32.8B	64.4	3,677	$6.6B
São Paulo	48.6	$17.0B	46	1,685	$43.9B
Chicago	47.2	$28.8B	31.5	2,377	$11.6B
Salt Lake City	46.9	$13.1B	18.2	1,172	$24.3B
Hong Kong	46.6	$19.6B	27.8	982	$30.9B
Stockholm	44.8	$28.7B	26.1	1,775	$27.5B
Toronto	44.3	$15.2B	42.8	2,024	$7.1B
Philadelphia	43.1	$25.8B	53.2	3,014	$12.9B
Miami	42.6	$21.7B	50.3	2,216	$9.4B
Nanjing	42.4	$16.3B	58.7	1,419	$15.6B
Mumbai	42.2	$15.7B	45.1	1,767	$10.9B
Chengdu	41.8	$8.3B	59.7	1,259	$8.1B
Bengaluru	41.1	$32.2B	42.7	1,668	$17.6B
Amsterdam	40.7	$11.3B	68.7	1,176	$10.6B
Dallas	40.4	$10.8B	25.4	1,346	$12.0B
Atlanta	39	$13.1B	35.4	1,550	$6.6B
Vancouver	38.3	$6.7B	10.4	1,010	$10.0B
Changsha	37.9	$8.8B	43.3	443	$10.2B
Munich	37.6	$11.3B	48	986	$3.9B
Wuxi	37.5	$4.6B	71.8	513	$7.9B
Raleigh	36.6	$15.0B	45.6	1,075	$7.3B
Sydney	36.3	$7.8B	35.4	1,141	$5.1B
Hefei	36.1	$9.3B	86.5	735	$11.1B
Phoenix	36	$9.8B	50.1	850	$11.9B
Minneapolis	36	$11.6B	44.8	987	$16.1B
Montreal	35.9	$7.3B	37.6	768	$3.0B
Gurugram	34.9	$13.3B	29	826	$17.0B
Portland, OR	34.6	$6.1B	36.1	903	$10.6B
Houston	34.1	$9.4B	63.8	1,044	$5.1B

Source: The world’s top startup cities / pitchbook - April 18, 2024

Read next: Reputation Matters: How Hardware Giants Outshine Social Media Platforms
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World