In an effort to improve the well being of it's users, Instagram is expanding tests to remove like counts on images. Instagram states that they "don't want (it) to be such a competition. We want it to be a place where people spend more of their energy connecting with the people that they love and the things that they care about."  Individual users will still be able to see their total like count - just not publicly. The feature has already been deployed in 7 countries including Canada and Australia. 

Because information takes many forms, the search results page has continued to evolve as well. Google publicly shares how they are able to help you connect with useful information as quickly as possible. Last year alone Google made "more than 3,200 changes to their search systems". A number that makes our head spin just thinking about. As concerns over privacy continue to rise, Google has begun highlighting some of their policies designed to protect your privacy. These policies, sometimes required by law, also protect you from spam.

The days of massive crowds rushing into a Radio Shack the day after Thanksgiving might be over. Amazon announced that this year's Prime Day resulted in the purchase of over 175 million items online in just 48-hours. Eclipsing both 2018's Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. To sweeten the deal Amazon added more new Prime members on July 15th than any other day in history. From devices to groceries this marks the largest shopping event in history. 

Facebook is set to shrink it's mobile news feed ad size from a 2:3 aspect ratio to 4:5. This means less space for both images and video forcing marketers to synthesize their message. Additionally, only 3 lines of preview of text will be available instead of the normal 7. This change seems to be in line with Facebook's mission to bring their experience back to it's roots - helping friends and family connect and share meaningful interactions with one another. Less text means more skimmable content that will force brands to " focus on their long term branding strategies in order to cut through the noise." Facebook is almost certainly expecting some blowback from advertisers so we thought we'd revisit another famous example of things unexpectedly getting smaller.