ChatGPT Searches and Advent of Meta Threads: What it Means for Social Media and Science 3.0
Curator: Stephen J. Williams, PhD
The following explains how popular ChatGPT has become and how the latest social media platforms, including Meta’s (FaceBook) new platform Threads, is becoming as popular or more popular than older social Platforms. In fact, since its short inception since last week (Threads launced 7/07/2023), Threads is threatening Twitter for dominance in that market.
The following is taken from an email from Charlie Downing Jones from journoreasearch.org and https://www.digital-adoption.com/ :
U.S. searches for ChatGPT overtake TikTok, Pinterest, and Zoom
- Google searches for ChatGPT have overtaken TikTok in the U.S., jumping to 7.1 million monthly searches compared to 5.1 million
- The term ‘ChatGPT’ is now one of the top 100 search terms in the U.S., ranking 92nd, according to Ahrefs data
- ChatGPT is now searched more than most major social networks, including LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, and Reddit
Analysis of Google search data reveals that online searches for ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot, have overtaken most popular social networks in the U.S. This comes when search interest in artificial intelligence is at its highest point in history.
The findings by Digital-adoption.com reveal that US-based searches for ChatGPT have exploded and overtaken popular social networks, such as LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Tiktok, some by millions.
| Ranking | Keyword | US Search Volume (Monthly) |
| 1 | 70,920,000 | |
| 2 | YouTube | 69,260,000 |
| 3 | 15,440,000 | |
| 4 | 12,240,000 | |
| 5 | ChatGPT | 7,130,000 |
| 6 | 6,990,000 | |
| 7 | 5,790,000 | |
| 8 | TikTok | 5,130,000 |
| 9 | 4,060,000 | |
| 10 | Snapchat | 1,280,000 |
| 11 | 936,000 |
Since its release in November 2022, searches for ChatGPT have overtaken those of most major social networks. According to the latest June search figures by search tool Ahrefs, searches for ‘ChatGPT’ and ‘Chat GPT’ are made 7,130,000 times monthly in the U.S.
That’s more than the monthly search volume for most of the top ten social networks, including LinkedIn, Pinterest, and TikTok. TikTok is one of the largest growing social media apps, with 100 million users in just a year.
The term ‘ChatGPT’ is now one of the top 100 search terms in the U.S., ranking 92nd, according to Ahrefs data
Searches for ChatGPT have eclipsed other major networks in the U.S., such as Reddit, by millions.
Every day search terms such as ‘maps’ and ‘flights’ have even seen their search volumes pale compared to the rising popularity of ChatGPT. ‘Maps’ is currently searched 440,000 times less than the chatbot each month, and ‘Flights’ is now Googled 2.2 million times less.
2023 has been a breakout year for AI, as searches for the term have more than doubled from 17 million in January 2023 to 42 million in May. In comparison, there were 7.9 million searches in January 2022. There has been an 825% increase in searches for ‘AI’ in the US compared to the average over the last five years.
There is a correlation between the uptick and the public releases of accessible AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, released on November 30, 2022, and Bing AI and Google Bard, released in May 2023.
According to TikTok data, interest in artificial intelligence has soared tenfold since 2020, and virtual reality has more than tripled.
AI has been a big topic of conversation this year as accessible AI chatbots and new technologies were released and sparked rapid adoption, prompting tech leaders like Elon Musk to call for AI regulation.
A spokesperson from Digital-adoption.com commented on the findings: “There has been a massive surge in AI interest this year. Apple’s announcement of Vision Pro has captured audiences at the right time, when new AI technologies, like ChatGPT, have become accessible to almost anyone. The rapid adoption of ChatGPT is surprising, with it becoming one of the fastest-growing tools available”.
All data was gathered from Ahrefs and Google Trends.
If using this story, please include a link to https://www.digital-adoption.com/ who conducted this study. A linked credit allows us to keep supplying you with content that you may find useful in the future.
If you need anything else, please get in touch.
All the best,
Charlie Dowling-Jones
charlie.dowling-jones@journoresearch.org
Part of Search Intelligence Ltd. Company registered in England No. 09361526
Why LPBI Needs to consider the new Meta Threads Platform
From Barrons
Threads Hits 100 Million Users Faster Than ChatGPT. Now It Needs Them to Stay.
By
Adam ClarkFollow
Updated July 10, 2023 9:00 am ET / Original July 10, 2023 7:44 am ET
The launch of Meta Platforms’ Threads looks to have outpaced even the viral success of ChatGPT in terms of signing up users. The next challenge will be keeping them around.
Since its inception on Thursday 7/07/2023, Meta’s new Threads platform has been signing up new users at an alarming rate. On rollout date 5 million signed up, then 30 million by next morning and now as of today (7/1/2023) Threads has over 100 million signups. Compare that to Twitter’s 436 million users, of which are tweeting on average 25% less than a few years ago, and it is easy to see why many social media pundits are calling Threads the new Twitter killer app.
Here are a few notes from the New York Times podcast The Daily
1 day ago
Will Threads Kill Twitter?
Play • 33 min
Last week, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, released Threads, a social media platform to compete with Twitter. In just 16 hours, Threads was downloaded more than 30 million times.
Mike Isaac, who covers tech companies and Silicon Valley for The Times, explains how Twitter became so vulnerable and discusses the challenges Meta faces to create a less toxic alternative.
Guest: Mike Isaac, a technology correspondent for The New York Times.
Background reading:
- Threads is on pace to exceed 100 million users within two months, a feat achieved only by ChatGPT.
- Here’s what to know about Threads and how it differs from Twitter.
Here are a few notes from the podcast:
Mike Isaac lamented that Twitter has become user unfriendly for a host of reasons. These include:
- The instant reply’guys’ – people who reply but don’t really follow you or your thread
- Your followers or following are not pushed to top of thread
- The auto bots – the automated Twitter bots
- Spam feeds
- The changes in service and all these new fees: Twitter push to monetize everything – like airlines
Elon Musk wanted to transform Twitter but his history is always cutting, not just trimming the excess but he is known to just eliminate departments just because he either doesn’t want to pay or CAN’T pay. With Twitter he gutted content moderation.
Twitter ad business is plumetting but Musk wants to make Twitter a subscription business (the Blue check mark)
Twitter only gets a couple of million $ per month from Twitter Blue but Musk has to pay billions to just pay the interest on Twitter loan for Twitter puchase years ago
It is known that Musk is not paying rent on some California offices (some are suggesting he defaulted on leases) and Musk is selling Tesla stock to pay for Twitter expenses (why TSLA stock has been falling … the consensus out there)
Twitter is largest compendium of natural language conversations and Musk wanted to limit bots from scraping Twitter data to do AI and NLP on Twitter threads. This is also a grievance from other companies… that these ‘scrapers’ are not paying enough for Twitter data. However as Mike asks why do the little Twitter user have to pay in either fees or cutbacks from service. (the reason why Elon is limiting viewing per day is to limit these bots from scraping Twitter for data)
Another problem is that Twitter does not have its own servers so pays a lot to Google and AWS for server space. It appears Elon and Twitter are running out of money.
META and THREADS
Zuckerberg has spent billions of infrastructure spending and created a massive advertising ecosystem. This is one of the thoughts behind his push and entry into this space. Zuckerberg actually wanted to but Twitter a decade ago.
Usage and growth: The launch of Threads was Thursday 7-07-23. There were 2 million initial signups and by next morning 30 million overnight. Today Monday 7-10-23 there are 100 million, rivaling Twitter’s 436 million accounts. And as Musk keeps canceling Twitter accounts, angering users over fees or usage restrictions, people are looking for a good platform. Mastedon in too technical and not having the adoption like Meta Threads is having. Mike Isaac hopes Threads will not go the way of Google Hangouts or Plus but Google strategy did not involve social media like Facebook.
Signup and issues: Signup on Threads is easy but you need to go through Instagram. Some people have concerns about having their instagram thread put on their Threads feed but Mike had talked to the people at Meta and they are working to allow users to keep the feeds separate, mainly because Meta understands that the Instgagram and Twitter social cultures are different and users may want to keep Threads more business-like.
Important issues for LPBI: Twitter had decided, by end of May 2023 to end their relationship with WordPress JetPack service, in which WordPress posts could automatically be posted to your Twitter account and feed. Twitter is making users like WordPress pay for this API and WordPress said it would be too expensive as Twitter is not making a flat fee but per usage fee. This is a major hindrance even though the Twitter social share button is still active on posts.
Initial conversations between META and WordPress have indicated META will keep this API service free for WordPress.
So a little background on Meta Threads and signup features from Meta (Facebook) website:
Takeaways
- Threads is a new app, built by the Instagram team, for sharing text updates and joining public conversations.
- You log in using your Instagram account and posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length.
- We’re working to soon make Threads compatible with the open, interoperable social networks that we believe can shape the future of the internet.
Mark Zuckerberg just announced the initial version of Threads, an app built by the Instagram team for sharing with text. Whether you’re a creator or a casual poster, Threads offers a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations. We are working toward making Threads compatible with the open, interoperable social networks that we believe can shape the future of the internet.
Instagram is where billions of people around the world connect over photos and videos. Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas. Just like on Instagram, with Threads you can follow and connect with friends and creators who share your interests – including the people you follow on Instagram and beyond. And you can use our existing suite of safety and user controls.
Join the Conversation from Instagram
It’s easy to get started with Threads: simply use your Instagram account to log in. Your Instagram username and verification will carry over, with the option to customize your profile specifically for Threads.
Everyone who is under 16 (or under 18 in certain countries) will be defaulted into a private profile when they join Threads. You can choose to follow the same accounts you do on Instagram, and find more people who care about the same things you do. The core accessibility features available on Instagram today, such as screen reader support and AI-generated image descriptions, are also enabled on Threads.
Your feed on Threads includes threads posted by people you follow, and recommended content from new creators you haven’t discovered yet. Posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length. You can easily share a Threads post to your Instagram story, or share your post as a link on any other platform you choose.
Tune Out the Noise
We built Threads with tools to enable positive, productive conversations. You can control who can mention you or reply to you within Threads. Like on Instagram, you can add hidden words to filter out replies to your threads that contain specific words. You can unfollow, block, restrict or report a profile on Threads by tapping the three-dot menu, and any accounts you’ve blocked on Instagram will automatically be blocked on Threads.
As with all our products, we’re taking safety seriously, and we’ll enforce Instagram’s Community Guidelines on content and interactions in the app. Since 2016 we’ve invested more than $16 billion in building up the teams and technologies needed to protect our users, and we remain focused on advancing our industry-leading integrity efforts and investments to protect our community.
Compatible with Interoperable Networks
Soon, we are planning to make Threads compatible with ActivityPub, the open social networking protocol established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body responsible for the open standards that power the modern web. This would make Threads interoperable with other apps that also support the ActivityPub protocol, such as Mastodon and WordPress – allowing new types of connections that are simply not possible on most social apps today. Other platforms including Tumblr have shared plans to support the ActivityPub protocol in the future.
We’re committed to giving you more control over your audience on Threads – our plan is to work with ActivityPub to provide you the option to stop using Threads and transfer your content to another service. Our vision is that people using compatible apps will be able to follow and interact with people on Threads without having a Threads account, and vice versa, ushering in a new era of diverse and interconnected networks. If you have a public profile on Threads, this means your posts would be accessible from other apps, allowing you to reach new people with no added effort. If you have a private profile, you’d be able to approve users on Threads who want to follow you and interact with your content, similar to your experience on Instagram.
The benefits of open social networking protocols go well beyond the ways people can follow each other. Developers can build new types of features and user experiences that can easily plug into other open social networks, accelerating the pace of innovation and experimentation. Each compatible app can set its own community standards and content moderation policies, meaning people have the freedom to choose spaces that align with their values. We believe this decentralized approach, similar to the protocols governing email and the web itself, will play an important role in the future of online platforms.
Threads is Meta’s first app envisioned to be compatible with an open social networking protocol – we hope that by joining this fast-growing ecosystem of interoperable services, Threads will help people find their community, no matter what app they use.
What’s Next
We’re rolling out Threads today in more than 100 countries for iOS and Android, and people in those countries can download the app from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
In addition to working toward making Threads compatible with the ActivityPub protocol, soon we’ll be adding a number of new features to help you continue to discover threads and creators you’re interested in, including improved recommendations in feed and a more robust search function that makes it easier to follow topics and trends in real time.
Should Science Migrate over to Threads Instead of Twitter?
I have written multiple time of the impact of social media, Science and Web 2.0 and the new Science and Web 3.0 including
Will Web 3.0 Do Away With Science 2.0? Is Science Falling Behind?
Science Has A Systemic Problem, Not an Innovation Problem
It, as of this writing, appears it is not crucial that scientific institutions need to migrate over to Threads yet, although the impetus is certainly there. Many of the signups have of course been through Instagram (which is the only way to signup for now) and a search of @Threads does not show that large scientific organizations have signed up for now.
A search for NIH, NCBI, AACR, and Personalized Medicine Coalition or PMC which is the big MGH orgaization on personalized medicine appears to return nothing yet. Pfizer and most big pharma is on @Threads now but that is because they maintain a marketing thread on Instagram. How necessary is @Threads for communicating science over Science 3.0 platform remains to be seen. In addition, how will @Threads be used for real time scientific conference coverage? Will Meta be able to integrate with virtual reality?
Other articles of Note on this Open Access Scientific Journal Include:
Will Web 3.0 Do Away With Science 2.0? Is Science Falling Behind?
Science Has A Systemic Problem, Not an Innovation Problem
Part One: The Process of Real Time Coverage using Social Media
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