Hacked Verified Facebook Pages; Google Search-More Visual, ‘Snackable’-What? Bluesky Invites a Hot Item; Apple Looks to Emerging Markets

People post that they have been hacked on Facebook all the time, and usually their pages have just been cloned by some hairy, bearded troll in some place like Saint Petersburg. Now, techcrunch.com reports that a handful of verified Facebook pages were recently actually hacked, and caught pushing malware through ads approved by and purchased by the platform. In some cases, the pages were impersonating Facebook itself. Comprised accounts included official-sounding pages like ‘Meta Ads’ and “Meta Ads Manager.” Those accounts shared suspicious links to tens of thousands of followers, though their reach probably extended well beyond that through paid posts. All have been deactivated now, but as always, avoid the urge to click on a link. At least try copying it and pasting into your search so you can see what comes up. 

Sometimes when you see something from a major tech company, you just know you have to talk about it immediately. Such is the case when an internal document leaked from Google to the Wall Street Journal that outlined a plan to make Google Search more ‘visual, snackable, personal, and human.’ Ok, we get the rest, but ‘snackable?’ So do they want us to gobble up search results? At any rate, according to 9to5google.com, one aspect of the changes involves adding more ‘short videos’ to search results…in response to the way a lot of young people get their information. Apparently, Google has determined that about 40% of young people turn to TikTok or Meta owned Instagram when searching for restaurants. Google also intends to display more online forum posts in search results like those from Reddit. Of course, this is all in addition to the Bard AI the search giant has started baking in to Google Search. Are we going to see the day when Google anticipates what you are thinking about snacking on, and it is delivered to your front porch in minutes? Stay tuned. 

While Twitter has lost about half of its recent sign ups for its $8 a month Blue checkmark, Jack Dorsey’s Bluesky is a hot item. Engadget.com says the invite codes for the decentralized network, which isn’t publicly available yet, are now bringing hundreds of dollars on eBay. The iOS app has been downloaded some 375,000 times, and is one of the most popular social media apps in the Play Store just 2 weeks after launch. Some of the lucky few who have gotten (or bought) and invite and used Bluesky says it is the closest to Twitter of all the other apps aspiring to take users from the Musk owned platform…which stands to reason since it started as a project at Twitter under co-founder and previous CEO Jack Dorsey. 

Apple is looking to emerging markets to shore up sales as growth slows in the US and China. Bloomberg.com reports that for Cupertino… Mexico, Indonesia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates all had best-ever quarterly sales in the most recent period — even while overall revenue declined. And Malaysia, Brazil and India had their best-ever March quarter. Most of those increases are being driven by iPhone sales. CEO Tim Cook noted that the emerging market upticks were a big plus as sales in the Americas, China and Japan had eased by 3%.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Techinfied’ for now.