Yet another newsletter? Well, my intention with this particular one is to give you some time back. I do the research, and you do the reading.

The 2018 Google Search Trends reveal a social media exodus

While people all over the world want to get the old Snapchat back, the Brits have been especially keen on finding out how to delete both Facebook and Instagram during the last year. We've known about this trend for a while, especially how young people are moving away from Facebook. But the fact that the social media death is showing up in the search trends makes it more real.

The other interesting pattern in our keywords this year is how Swedes seem to be a little bit behind when it comes to cryptocurrencies. While the English speakers seem to focus on how to buy the cryptocurrency Ripple, the Swedes are still trying to understand what Bitcoin is.

Facebook will test showing ads in your search results

Soon, you might be able to advertise in Facebook search results. They are testing ads both in the general search and the marketplace search results.

Search is an untapped inventory on Facebook, and by opening it up to advertisers, they are hoping to create growth in their ad products again. The initial test is limited to car and retail advertisers, but Facebook will open the search results ad inventory up more broadly if they see promising results. 

The test works with static image and carousel ads but not video ads at the time. The beta will only run in the U.S. and Canada, but Facebook says they might add more countries if the results are promising and they decide to roll out more broadly.

Amazon Alexa can now read your emails

Voice interfaces will improve, and we will get used to talking to machines. Even though I still find it unintuitive to speak with my Google Home, I use it a lot (to tell me the time, add things to my shopping list, and turn my lights on and off...).

The latest Amazon Alexa feature is her ability to read and delete your emails in Gmail, Outlook, Hotmail and Live.com. Alexa will read you who sent the email and the subject line. Then you can “read, reply, delete, archive or next.” If you ask Alexa to read an email, it will read you the full text.

This is incredibly convenient for quickly deleting emails. Therefore, everyone sending newsletters will have to put their thinking caps on to make sure their emails are 1. not deleted and 2. an extraordinary user experience when reading out loud. Just hoping for later consumption on a desktop or a smartphone feels like a risky tactic. 

Google Home already provide this feature through third-party apps, but they'll definitely have their version up and running very reasonably soon.

Tool of the week: Front

Front is an intelligent inbox for teams that let you collaborate with your colleagues. But it's not only e-mail. Front makes it possible to take shared responsibility for Facebook Page messages, Twitter messages, website chats and forms, Intercom support messages, and so much more. You can even build your own integrations if you want to.

With Front, you'll have all your messages and teammates in one place. Someone will always be there to reply - when UPS have lost yet another package or your servers are taking a break - without jumping from one tool to the next. You can assign messages to the right people, collaborate on drafts and loop in reinforcement when necessary. It's also possible to create advanced rules and canned responses for automatically handling your most common types of emails.

It might sound like a small win. But I don't even have a team to collaborate with yet, and I still benefit from getting everything in one place. As soon as you start to add a couple of active Facebook pages with messages turned on and a shared e-mail address or two, the number of places to keep track of new messages increases drastically, and so does the number of messages that you miss.

If you can relate, try it.

Thank you for your time! I hope this e-mail created some value. If you have feedback, send it over (reply to this e-mail). Or, if you liked it, share it with your friends (you have some nifty buttons below) to spread the joy.