What's going on in our industry? Today, we'll discuss the top stories on our feeds, and dive into all things tech, website design and marketing. July has been a whirlwind - hot weather, long days, and lots of juicy news to get into!
1. Google lets us in on their search result secrets
Much to the delight of SEOs and marketers, Google has started a new trial which involves displaying a list of the reasons why it's chosen to rank a specific search result within a listing. Unfortunately for us in the UK, this trial is only taking place in the US, but it should be rolling out to us soon enough!
The information included in this 'about this result' list...
- Search terms that appear in the result
- Search terms related to your search
- Other websites with your search terms that link to this result
- Images related to your search
- Which region your searches are relevant to
This is handy for marketers, as they can get insight into the ranking decisions of Google - something we can never be too sure about! Google will also let searchers hover their mouse cursor over the underlined words within the information to get tips on how to narrow their search results.
2. Shopping...on YouTube?
Have you ever seen something in the background of a YouTube video and really wanted to buy it? Well, now you can! In an attempt to compete with video-first platform TikTok, YouTube has partnered with the ecommerce behemoth: Shopify.
With the assistance of new tools, creators now have the ability to sell their products without leaving the YouTube platform. It now features a 'Studio Shopping' tab where you can utilise live shopping features, such as being able to tag products within a live stream. It's like taking tele-shopping to the next level! This is the start of a huge collaboration - Shopify will even monitor product inventory in real time, to ensure stock levels are consistent and up to date.
Surprisingly, 40% of global shoppers purchase a product after viewing it on Youtube. Is this going to be a game changer for Youtube? Is it going to finally step up to TikTok's plate? We'll wait and see...
3. Meta endorses Rust as a server-side programming language
To be one of the supported programming languages at Meta means that you are part of an elite group. Rust have been working with Facebook since 2016, but they only gained server-side endorsement in 2021.
Engineering at Meta recently released an article on their partnership with Rust, explaining what a supported language is within the business. If a language is supported, developers can count on getting a good experience, and they can also count that that experience will stay - they will never be asked to move off a supported language.
This is because by fully supporting a language, Meta have committed to a long term, major investment. Each language is evaluated under 'heavy scrutiny', which just goes to show how much of a win this is for Rust!
Looking ahead...
So, they're our top stories for July. But what does the next month have in store for us? Come back next month for August's news - who knows what will have changed by then!
