This week, Reddit has restricted access to most search engines… except for Google. Yes, there’s money involved. Also, X officially closes its San Francisco office this week. Threads is updating its UX while downloads continue to soar. Lastly, YouTube is rolling out its paid course features to more users.
Take a look at some highlights from this week in social media!
1. Reddit cuts off API access to search engines, but signs a $60 million deal with Google
This means that Reddit is closing off its API to people who are not willing to pay. Google has exclusive access to scrape Reddit, and Duck Duck Go and Bing are left out of the loop.
“It seems smart on Reddit’s part, especially since similar moves in the past have allowed them to IPO and see strong growth for their valuation over the last two years.”
2. Threads allows used to rearrange columns on desktop
Users can now drag and drop Threads columns to organize them. Simple, but useful. Also, very reminiscent of TweetDeck and other formats that allow organization.
It’s a good way to keep track of various elements within the app, and stay up to date, while Threads also recently added analytics to its desktop display, facilitating more functionality.
3. X closes its doors in San Francisco
They moved years ago, but the San Francisco office is officially shuttered as of Friday.
The date that Elon Musk’s social media site, X, formerly known as Twitter, will officially shutter its longtime San Francisco headquarters has been set, according to a report.
A source familiar told Fortune that X informed employees in an email on Thursday that the office on Market Street would close on Sept. 13, and the outlet noted the date just happens to be a Friday.
4. Threads downloads are rising
They’ve still got a long way to go before taking over X, but they’re certainly in the top downloads. There’s an interesting chart here.
Despite X’s dominance in the news category, Threads has consistently ranked in the top 10 most downloaded apps in recent months.
While X has seen a decline in users in certain regions, Threads’ user base continues to grow.
While Threads is still a long way from overtaking X in terms of active users, its consistent growth and X’s recent struggles suggest that Threads has a promising future.
5. YouTube’s course creation feature
This is such a cool feature. YouTube has a course creation feature that allows creators to offer either free or paid courses with several monetization options.
They’re expanding it to more users.
- Special course badges: These will appear on watch pages, playlist pages, search results, home feeds, and “watch next” recommendations.
- Dedicated channel tab: Courses will have their own tab on the creator’s channel page.
- Potential featured placement: Courses may be highlighted on youtube.com/courses for increased visibility.
- Interactive quizzes: Creators can design quizzes associated with specific videos within the course.
- Discussion section: A playlist-level comment area for audience engagement and interaction.
- Completion badges: Upon finishing all course videos, viewers receive a badge in their YouTube app.
- Information panel: Displays course length, content details, viewer progress, and links to the creator’s channel.
