Tumblr announced that it is changing the way reblogs look. All comments will be showcased the same way rather than buried under a stack of indents. If you ask me, that’s a major change for the better.
Here’s the before and after:
“Our change to reblog captions last month laid the necessary groundwork for us to arrive here, at a place where the dashboard will be a lot easier to read and cleaner-looking,” the company says in a blog post.
That change allowed people to reblog posts with either all captions intact or with all of them removed, making it so they couldn’t edit the original post’s words.
The new look for reblogs will show up on all posts, so you’ll be able to see the new format on all old posts in addition to new ones. The new look is only on the dashboard for now, and themes will retain their look.
Users reblog from a certain post in a reblog thread the same way, by clicking the username of whoever made the reblog you you want to reblog from.
On how to be sure your posts are credited properly, Tumblr says, “Use the content source field! No matter how many times an original post of yours gets reblogged, you’ll always be credited as the source. Rebloggers might add a gif, or some commentary, or take out the caption entirely, but your username will always, always be stuck to the bottom of the post. Click on that source link any time you want to see what was originally posted.”
Google reports that it experienced errors with its Google Compute Engine service from last Thursday through Monday as the result of four successive lightning strikes on electrical systems of one of its data centers in Belgium.
According to BBC News, “Some people have permanently lost access to their files as a result.”
“Google takes availability very seriously, and the durability of storage is our highest priority,” the company said in a status update. “We apologise to all our customers who were affected by this exceptional incident. We have conducted a thorough analysis of the issue, in which we identified several contributory factors across the full range of our hardware and software technology stack, and we are working to improve these to maximise the reliability of GCE’s whole storage layer.”
While the company says about 5% of the Standard Persistent Disks in the affected zone experienced at least one I/O read or write failure, it says less than 0.000001% of the space of allocated persistent disks remain affected. It’s in this small area where customers have lost data.
“This outage is wholly Google’s responsibility,” the company admits. “However, we would like to take this opportunity to highlight an important reminder for our customers: GCE instances and Persistent Disks within a zone exist in a single Google datacenter and are therefore unavoidably vulnerable to datacenter-scale disasters. Customers who need maximum availability should be prepared to switch their operations to another GCE zone. For maximum durability we recommend GCE snapshots and Google Cloud Storage as resilient, geographically replicated repositories for your data.”
This probably shouldn’t be considered a reason to avoid the cloud with your data, but perhaps serves as a cautionary tale that it might not be a bad idea to keep your most important data backed up locally. Just in case.
Google says it has an ongoing program for upgrading to storage hardware that is less susceptible to the power failure issue that led to this incident, and that “most” storage is already running on the upgraded hardware.
Square just announced Square Cash for Apple Watch, which will enable owners of the device to easily send money money to their friends right from their wrist.
“The latest Square Cash release provides an even easier way to send money to friends, family or anyone nearby, freeing customers from fishing around in a pocket or purse, or unlocking their phone to send money,” a spokesperson for Square tells WebProNews. “We’re really excited about this news – providing people with more ways to make a payment no matter what device they use.”
Here’s what Square Cash looks like on the watch:
“The Square Cash app for Apple Watch conveniently complements the mobile app for iPhone,” the company says. “Square Cash for Apple Watch streamlines payments by enabling customers to easily send money using virtual stacks of cash in the form of $1, $10, $20, $50, or $100 bills with just a few simple taps on their Apple Watch. The app also provides actionable notifications, allowing the ability to approve and reject payment requests directly through the watch. Like the Square Cash app, Square Cash for Apple Watch also provides the option to send money to anyone nearby using Bluetooth LE technology, making payments quick and convenient to send. Square Cash also added the ability for anyone to sign up for Square Cash on the web, without needing to download the app.”
The Square Cash app for is available in the Apple App Store, and can be used with Apple Watch starting today. Make sure to grab the latest update.
Earlier this year, Square launched business-friendly “$Cashtags” for businesses in the U.S. to take advantage of Square Cash. Increased device support should only help businesses accept payments in more ways.
Michelle Duggar is clinging to her faith even more than usual these days, in light of TLC’s cancellation of 19 Kids and Counting. The mom of 19 is a devout Christian, but Christians have their struggles, too.
Via the Duggar Family website, Michelle Duggar shared her feelings, noting that other mothers no doubt feel the same during their own struggles.
It was 1:00 AM in the morning as I stood folding laundry with tears streaming down my cheeks. Feelings of being overwhelmed flooded my mind. I cried aloud, “LORD I NEED YOUR HELP, I can’t do it all! I feel so inadequate! Diapers, dishes, laundry, meals, cleanup, school lessons, baths, hugs, kisses, correction…” My list seemed to go on and on.
Then it was as if a still small voice said, “Michelle, it’s easy to praise ME when things are going good, but are you willing to praise ME now?” Immediately the scripture that says, “Offer up a sacrifice of praise”, came to mind.
I said, “OK Lord, I will praise you even now! It really is a sacrifice!” So through the tears I began to sing, “The joy of the Lord is my strength”. In my heart there was a release as if a burden had been lifted. I finished the laundry at 2 AM and went to bed.
Days later, I was at our piano teacher’s home (at 7 AM) trying to catch up on paperwork while the children were taking their lessons. Instead, I kept drifting off to sleep! The teacher noticed and asked, “Are you OK?” I replied, “I’m fine, I’m just tired. I was up late finishing laundry.”
As we talked more she said that she actually enjoyed doing laundry and that she would be glad to come and help me! That weekend when she arrived we had mountains of dirty laundry, and when she left we had nice, neat, orderly stacks of clean laundry! For 12 years now, our piano teacher, whom we consider a part of our family and loving call “NaNa” has faithfully come (now twice a week) to help us with laundry! GOD sent “An angel” in answer to my cry for help.
He is faithful to hear the humble cries of his children. “Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up.” God lifted my burden (literally mountains of laundry!) and freed me to meet the more urgent needs of my family. “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory…”
Michelle Duggar has learned something every mom needs to learn. t’s okay to ask for and/or accept help. In these weeks since the Josh Duggar sexual molestation scandal hit the media, Michelle Duggar has been pushed and pulled in countless directions. Just because she’s a reality TV star doesn’t mean she’s without feelings and frustrations. Not only has their family taken a huge hit financially, they’ve been ostracized in the media. Michelle Duggar is feeling a lot of pain.
Even those who feel the Duggar family is getting their due need to stop and think about the human side to this situation. No mother is without fault. Even if Michelle Duggar and her husband Jim Bob didn’t handle their son’s situation properly, they’re still human beings.
Hopefully Michelle Duggar and the rest of the 19 Kids and Counting family will continue clinging to their faith in the weeks to come.
Who knows what’s in store for the Duggar family in the coming days?
Google announced on Tuesday that Windows Server on Google Compute Engine is now generally available. It has been in beta since early December.
Compute Engine is now supported by the following operating systems:
Operating systems with support outside of Compute Engine include:
“Compute Engine offers Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 customers benefits of rapid deployments, increased uptime due to transparent maintenance, cheap and predictable block storage, and best in class Google Cloud Storage Nearline backup,” says product manager Alex Gaysinsky. “Sharepoint, SQL and Exchange Server, and other Microsoft applications are also available to Compute Engine customers via the Microsoft License Mobility program.”
“Since the Windows Server on Compute Engine beta announcement, we have made several Windows-specific improvements to the Compute Engine virtualization stack in order to bring the full benefits of Google network to Windows Server users,” Gaysinsky adds. “With multi queue (MQ) and generic receive offload (GRO) support, Windows Server running on Compute Engine can reach up to 7.5Gbps of throughput. This reduces the number of Windows Server instances required to serve web based applications and helps our customers more effectively contain their infrastructure and operational costs.”
Now that it’s generally available, Windows Server instances are covered by the Compute Engine SLA. Those who buy Cloud Platform support packages can get architectural and operational support for their Windows Server deployments on Compute Engine.
Go Set A Watchman and To Kill A Mockingbird author Harper Lee might have a third novel waiting in the wings. At least that’s what an attorney for the 89-year-old shared last week.
Attorney Tonja Carter discovered Go Set A Watchman in a safe deposit box about a year ago. She hinted there may be another manuscript as well after returning to the safe deposit box just last week to see if there were any “other things hiding in plain sight.”
“What we found was extraordinary and surprised even me,” Carter writes in a piece for theWall Street Journal. “Remember the partially opened mailer from Lippincott that the publisher had sent to Alice Lee in 1961? Well, my colleague very carefully removed its contents, which were about 300 pages of typed manuscript. It was clear to us that what was in the package had not been removed since it was first mailed.”
Carter reports finding both Go Set A Watchman and To Kill A Mockingbird sitting “underneath a stack of a significant number of pages of another typed text.”
“Was it an earlier draft of Watchman, or of Mockingbird, or even, as early correspondence indicates it might be, a third book bridging the two? I don’t know,” she writes.
Have you read To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee? What’s your take on Atticus Finch?
Businesses have long struggled with how to get social media “right,” and it’s only getting more complicated as more and more services and tools become available. For example, we recently looked at some strategies for taking advantage of Twitter’s new Periscope app. It never ends, does it?
Either way, there are a couple of interesting infographics making the rounds, which provide a wealth of helpful tips at a glance, and could actually go a long way in helping you craft your strategy quickly, or at the very least give you a few pointers.
This one from RazorSocial showed up on Inbound.org thanks to a GowithTech post, and give you some easy-to-consume advice for getting your blog posts shared more:
And here’s how to take care of your social media efforts in just over a half hour per day, according to Shortstack (via Social Media Today):
When you consider that it’s only getting harder for businesses selling products online to ignore social media, and that many businessesfail to meet customers’ expectations, you might want to start taking your social media efforts more seriously.
Amber Marchese, star ofThe Real Housewives of New Jersey, confirmed recently that her cancer has returned. She learned the devastating news back in April.
“I was just sick to my stomach,” she said in an interview with People magazine.
“I can’t even begin to describe the feeling you get when someone says you have cancer,” she adds. “Then to get it again after you thought you fought it and thought it was behind you ….”
Amber Marchese feared at first that her life was over.
“I was thinking, ‘This is definitely it. I’m going to die,’” she said.
First diagnosed with breast cancer back in 2009, Amber Marchese underwent a bilateral mastectomy even though her left breast was cancer-free–just to be on the safe side. She had a cancer scare on the last season of the RHONJ when blood tests for a cancer screening were at first inconclusive. In the end, she learned that she was, indeed, still cancer-free. Sadly, that has now changed.
The new tumor, she says, “is right in the middle of where the other two were. It’s the same type of tumor.”
Amber Marchese believed chemotherapy would rid her of cancer forever.
“I thought, you remove it, you go through the harsh treatments, and you move on. So I was shocked. Everyone is shocked,” she said.
Marchese says her doctor isn’t certain yet if the tumor is a new one or if not enough tissue was removed during the mastectomy.
“You’re never going to remove 100 percent of the breast tissue with a mastectomy. So you just pray to God that you remove enough,” she said.
“You have a double mastectomy and chemotherapy to stack all the odds in your favor so that there is no recurrence. The percentage of it recurring is very small, less than 5 percent. I just fell into that category. I wasn’t so lucky.”
It was back on April 3rd when Amber Marchese was watching a movie with her husband, Jim Marchese, that she discovered the new lump.
“I have no idea what made me do this, but I reached my arms over my head and touched my right breast and felt it. It was hard. It was pea-sized. And I just knew …. My heart just sank,” she said.
“I said, ‘Jim, I just found another lump.’ It was right by the site of the other tumors. I just knew in my heart that this was serious, and Jim did too.”
Amber Marchese will soon have more surgery to remove the remaining breast tissue with clean margins. She will then undergo radiation treatments five days a week for five weeks. She will be having an MRI of both her chest and her brain as well, to make sure the cancer hasn’t spread.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey star is a strong believer in the power of prayer.
“By God’s good grace, I found the lump on Good Friday,” she says. “I have spent a lot of time in prayer. It’s the only thing that is giving me a sense of hope that no matter what, everything is going to be okay. It takes away my fear and doubt.
“Then you kind of just take a deep breath and you just talk. Jim and I talked this through every which way, probably 24/7. And we pray. We pray together. We pray by ourselves,” she adds.
Surely Amber Marchese’s friends and fans are praying for her as well. Hopefully with medical intervention and all these prayers, she will once again be cancer free.
The Parent Trap star is scheduled for a probation progress report on Thursday but according to Santa Monica City Attorney Terry White, the actress has done less than 20 of 125 extra community service hours.
The additional hours of community service was tacked on her probation after White challenged the log sheet she submitted in January for her 2012 reckless driving conviction.
The prosecutor was referring to the 28-year-old actress’ dubious claims that youth volunteers “shadowing” her and appearing in a play are considered community service activities.
“We’ll probably ask that her probation be revoked,” Santa Monica City Attorney Terry White told the New York Daily News on Wednesday. “It doesn’t appear she’s taking it very seriously.”
The former child star has until May 28 to complete her community service hours but White appears to be tired of giving the actress another chance.
“She’s had more than enough opportunity to finish,” the prosecutor claims. “But she turned in some hours that were extremely suspect, that the court disallowed, and now, given the last chance of all last chances, she’s come up woefully short.”
Lohan, who’s doing her community service through London based Community Service Volunteers, tried to make it appear that she’s busy when she posted a photo on Instagram of a stack of envelopes with the caption “Community Service – office day”.
The Facebook-owned virtual reality company Oculus has announced that its headset, the Oculus Rift, is almost ready to go.
You’ll be able to pre-order an Oculus Rift later this year and the device will ship early next year. The finished consumer edition “builds on the presence, immersion, and comfort of the Crescent Bay prototype with an improved tracking system that supports both seated and standing experiences, as well as a highly refined industrial design, and updated ergonomics for a more natural fit.”
The announcement from Oculus, while exciting, is a bit vague.
“The Rift delivers on the dream of consumer VR with compelling content, a full ecosystem, and a fully-integrated hardware/software tech stack designed specifically for virtual reality. It’s a system designed by a team of extremely passionate gamers, developers, and engineers to reimagine what gaming can be,” says the company.
No word on whether or not the Oculus Rift will ship with its own platform to run the VR device, or if users will need a third-party system to run it – but “full ecosystem” sounds promising.
Also no word on games or other software at ship time, just a promise to reveal more information in the weeks ahead. “In the weeks ahead, we’ll be revealing the details around hardware, software, input, and many of our unannounced made-for-VR games and experiences coming to the Rift,” says Oculus.
Also no word on final price. Oculus has previously stated that it would like to keep it somewhere between $200 and $400.
Above is what the first generation of Oculus Rift looks like. The company says it’s going to transform gaming, film, communications, and more. Communication? That’s likely Facebook’s hand in this. You knew it would be somewhere.
As you may have heard, Google’s a wireless provider now.
The company unveiledProject Fi on Wednesday – a move that had been hinted at for months. Fi piggybacks on Sprint and T-Mobile’s networks to provide $20 per month unlimited talk and text, with $10 per GB data. Here’s what you need to know about Google’s offering.
What is Project Fi?
Google has entered the wireless game, but on a limited scale. Even Google acknowledges that Project Fi is, at the very least, an experiment. As Google says, Project Fi is “a program to explore this opportunity by introducing new ideas through a fast and easy wireless experience.” It’s only available on the Nexus 6.
Project Fi offers unlimited talk and text for $20 per month, an a pay-as-you-go data plan that costs $10 per GB. That means the cheapest Fi plan starts at $30.
Google’s Project Fi will run on Sprint and T-Mobile, and customers will have access to both networks – as well as Wi-Fi calling. What you use to make your calls depends on which method is better for your current location. Project Fi connects you to free, open Wi-Fi networks (read: no password). Google will only allow users to connect to Wi-Fi networks that are part of its network quality database, for quality assurance purposes.
Fi customers will also have access to no-roaming data when traveling in 120+ countries. International calls adhere to these rates.
How does Project Fi’s coverage area stack up?
Here’s a look at Project Fi’s coverage map. You can interact with it here.
Here’s a quick look at Verizon’s coverage map. You can explore it in detail here.
+ Project Fi is a no contract, no obligation wireless service. Of course, that’s not revolutionary but it’s important. Google’s not going to break new ground by making people sign a contract.
+ The way Google handles data use is probably the most appealing thing about Project Fi. Google will not charge you for unused data – it’ll give the cost back to you. The way it does this is to apply it to your next bill.
So let’s say you buy 1 GB of data for the month (at $10), and only use 700 MB. That means $3 will be applied to your next bill. And if you go over your allotted data reserves, Google will just add the difference to your next bill.
“Project Fi will first alert you if you’re getting close to your data budget. If you go over, you’ll still get full-speed data and data is charged at the same $10 per GB rate. For example, if you go over your data budget by 350MB, $3.50 will be added to your next bill.”
+ Speaking of data, Google Fi’s no-roaming international service is a big plus. Here’s how texting/calling works abroad:
If you’re traveling to one of the 120+ countries where we have coverage you can call and text to anywhere in the world. Unlimited international texts are included in your plan. If you’re using cell coverage, calls cost 20¢ per minute. If you’re calling over Wi-Fi, per-minute costs vary based on which country you’re calling and you’re charged only for outbound calls.
+ Project Fi frees up your phone number to work across all your devices. All you have to do is connect any device that supports Google hangouts to you number. With Project Fi, your phone number has been sent to the cloud.
– Project Fi is only supported on the Nexus 6. There is a special Project Fi SIM card – and that’s the only device that has it. Unfortunately, it’s the only device that’s going to have it for quite some time – at least until the end of the “early access program”.
– Battery drain? Google says its software has been designed to not “put any extra strain on your battery by only moving you between networks when absolutely necessary.” But it’s yet to be seen how all that jumping around between Wi-Fi and cellular will affect things on the Nexus 6.
– There are no family plans. At least for now, Project Fi seems designed for lone wolves.
– There are no contracts, meaning you’ll have to shell out for your Nexus 6 ($649-$699).
How does it stack up, price-wise?
Engadget has a good breakdown on whether or not it’s a good deal to switch to Fi. Remember, Fi costs $30 per month for unlimited talk and text and 1 GB of data. Each addition GB or data is another $10.
T-Mobile’s most basic plan with unlimited talk and text plus 1GB of high-speed data will run you $50 a month, while the same amount nets you 3GB of data across Sprint and T-Mobile’s networks on Fi. If you’re on a cushy, older T-Mobile plan though, you might be better staying put. CEO John Legere announced earlier this month that all of those juicy promo plans aren’t going anywhere (unless you’re still clinging to one with unlimited data).
Meanwhile, Sprint offers a flat $60 rate that promises unlimited talk, texting and data access each month, along with even slower international roaming in a handful of countries. It’s important to note that some of Project Fi’s broad strokes aren’t exactly new — we’ve seen upstarts like Republic Wireless and FreedomPop push the vision of a WiFi-centric mobile service for years now, so you could get a kinda-sorta similar experience for quite a bit less. Republic, for example, offers unlimited talk, text and 4G data for $40, though you’ll lose out on Fi’s network span and international chops.
Basically, you’re going to the get more data for the price with Fi – at least that’s true for new customers.
But if you’re thinking about making the switch from a contractual service agreement, do know that Google will not pay your cancellation fees.
Can you get it, like, now?
Not exactly. Google is allowing people to sign up for an invite, however. In order to do so, you must check to see if where you live falls into Fi’s coverage area. And you’ll also have to have a Gmail account.
“If you requested an invite, you’ll hear from us in 30 days or less. Check your inbox for your invitation! Since we have a limited number of invites during the Early Access Program, we’ll use a few things to help us prioritize: network access in your zip code, whether Project Fi is ready for service in your area, and when your invitation request was submitted,” says Google.
In conclusion…
To call Google’s Project Fi a new entry into the wireless carrier field is both true and a bit misleading. Google is promising to deliver unlimited talk and text, as well as competitive date rates. Google Fi will be able to give you what you get from your current plan with AT&T or Verizon. In other words, Google Fi could replace your current cell plan and would need no augmentation.
But this is all in on the Nexus, and it’s still in its nascent stages. “Similar to our Nexus hardware program, Project Fi enables us to work in close partnership with leading carriers, hardware makers, and all of you to push the boundaries of what’s possible. By designing across hardware, software and connectivity, we can more fully explore new ways for people to connect and communicate,” says Google.
There sure is a lot of talk about “exploring” and “experimenting”. At this point, Google Fi isn’t a real competitor to your major telecoms. But that doesn’t mean it can’t have an impact.
This week, Facebook announced the launch of the Accessibility Toolkit, which gives a behind-the-scenes look at the company’s efforts in product usability for the blind and vision-impaired, and offers resources for helping other companies approach the subject.
“When Facebook formed its Accessibility Engineering team in 2011, we experienced the same daunting challenge that many companies face: How do you incorporate accessibility within the company’s existing engineering environment? Having spent the past few years working toward this goal, we’ve learned a lot along the way, and continue to learn each day,” writes Facebook’s Jeffrey Wieland on the company’s code blog.
The toolkit includes a guide through the component library, documentation, quality assurance, engineer training, communication/feedback and general culture around accessibility. It covers how Facebook itself monitors feedback and shares its work publicly, and how it integrates accessibility into QA processes and runs testing with people who have disabilities.
It also shares this touching video about how a blind mother uses Facebook to “break down stigma”.
Communication and Feedback
Facebook’s approach to communication and feedback involves utilizing its help center, its actual Accessibility Facebook page and Twitter account, usability studies, and internal feedback.
The help center dives into accessibility basics, such as the best ways to access Facebook while using assistive technology, using screen readers, navigating with keyboard shortcuts, and how adding a mobile number to an account can make it more accessible. It also gets into accessibility for privacy and account settings, profile and timeline, News Feed, iOS apps, video, photos, and more.
“At the beginning of 2014 we started running usability studies with people who use assistive technology,” Facebook says. “This is a fantastic way to get in-depth feedback and understand the entire experience of using Facebook. While many challenges for accessibility can be resolved at a detail level, we have to understand how people interact with our product from beginning to end to build a complete experience. Usability studies are also a great way to make accessibility less abstract and more tangible for engineers learning about it for the first time.”
Culture
Within the company, Facebook has a group specifically for people who are interested in the company’s accessibility efforts, and it’s used to gather feedback from staff members who use Facebook all day long. This is really just an extension of the “accessible culture” the company says it’s building.
“Building an accessible culture can only happen when accessibility is integrated into the initiatives and teams within your company,” it says. “This isn’t something that can be broken down into a series of steps. Instead, it’s a gradual shift in the way people think about accessibility internally. By constantly reinforcing the importance of accessibility and having spokespeople within the company delivering the same message, people will start to think about accessibility as a way of doing things in the company rather than as an afterthought.”
Facebook shares stories from staff about accessibility culture here.
Quality Assurance
The Quality Assurance portion of the toolkit explains how accessibility is part of the central QA process at Facebook, how accessibility improvements move from QA to Product Operations to Engineering, and how ownership is distributed across product and platform teams.
Engineer Training
“Our main goal is to help Facebook’s product teams working across platforms to build the most accessible experiences possible.,” the company says in the training portion. “For them to do this, they need to understand how accessibility works on their platforms. Most engineers coming from both industry and academia have had little exposure to the field of accessibility (there are exceptions, of course, but they are few). We can’t expect people who have never heard of accessibility to be equipped to build accessible software applications. So we train them.”
It runs down its guiding principles for its approach to education as well as its three formal training programs within engineering. All new engineers, for example, must go through a general six-week bootcamp, with those who work on the front end stack being required to go through an in-depth intro to Facebook’s web infrastructure, which includes accessibility best practices and additional related resources.
Component Library
The component library section of the toolkit illustrates how Facebook makes things like dialogs, typeaheads, and menus more accessible.
Documentation
Finally, the Documentation portion of the toolkit explains how the company incorporates accessibility into its vast amount of documentation. This includes using an FAQ format.
“We don’t cover all accessibility topics, just those we expect a generalist engineer to own. We don’t expect a generalist engineer to become a student of ARIA’s history, so we omit it,” it says.
Examples of things it expects a generalist engineer to own include adding labels to buttons, adding alt text for static images, making sure UI elements get focus, and using modern components from the Component Library.
Facebook is calling on other companies to share their approach to accessibility on the Facebook Accessibility page, and is hiring engineers to work in this area, including for WhatsApp.
Back in 2010, an alternative search engine called Blekko emerged. It came from Rich Skrenta, co-founder & former CEO of Topix and NewHoo (which went on to become The Open Directory Project or DMOZ). It aimed to crowd source search by using the public to refine its algorithms and make search results more relevant and less spammy.
IBM has acquired its technology and team for Watson.
If you go to Blekko.com now, you’ll just see this:
IBM says the acquisition will provide Watson with more content to offer in its products and services. From the announcement:
Blekko brings advanced Web-crawling, categorization and intelligent filtering technology. Its technology crawls the Web continually and gathers information from the most highly relevant and most credible Web pages. It uses classification techniques to create thousands of topical categories, making that data more useful and insightful.
These capabilities complement the recent acquisition of AlchemyAPI as well existing technologies available on the Watson Developer Cloud. The combination of these technologies will further assist our clients in applying cognitive computing toward making more informed, evidence-based decisions.
A metaphor to understand how this works is to think about the information on the Internet and other sources as a vast underground oil field. Blekko’s technologies are like oil exploration and production teams that locate the high-quality oil, drill, and deliver it to the refinery. AlchemyAPI’s technologies, together with Watson’s existing capabilities, are like the refineries that refine the oil into a multitude of finished products, such as gasoline, heating oil or jet fuel. IBM and its partners then distribute insights to the points of impact, the way tanker trucks deliver fuel to gas stations or depots.
Erin Andrews set the rumor mill churning on Monday night when she posted a photo on Instagram that showcased an enormous diamond on that finger.
The Dancing With The Stars host posed with the 2.01-carat diamond, along with sparkly chandelier earrings and several other pieces on the other hand. According to E! News, the gigantic piece is not an engagement ring, but a specially-made Martin Katz jewel she rocked for the show’s premiere.
The season 20 host donned more diamonds on the other hand, wearing a 1.72-carat, brilliant-cut diamond ring, also set in 18-carat white gold on her other ring finger, which was accented with 412 round diamonds. That’s right, 412 more diamonds! Her hand accessories topped off with a set of five stackable diamond bands.
Andrews is dating L.A. Kings player Jarret Stoll, but the pair haven’t commented on any plans to walk down the aisle. Meanwhile, Dancing With The Stars debuted on Monday night to the usual fanfare, with stars like Patti LaBelle and Suzanne Somers. Andrews took over on the show around this time last year when Brooke Burke-Charvet was unceremoniously given the boot, and critics weren’t sure how she’d do. But despite a few fans who preferred Burke-Charvet in the role, Andrews won over viewers with her professionalism.
“Andrews talks with the flat, unhesitant delivery and slanginess of an experienced announcer, and she casually plants herself on the floor with a kind of no-nonsense strength. She is angular and even willowy, but her center of gravity appears to be unshakable. If you covered the Super Bowl, wouldn’t you be the same way? How would you survive otherwise?” wrote People Magazine‘s TV critic Tom Gliatto.
The 2015 Linux Jobs Report from The Linux Foundation and Dice was recently released. This forecasts the Linux job market based on a survey of Linux professionals and hiring managers. It found that managers are looking for more evidence of formal training and certifications when hiring Linux professionals.
Most hiring managers are looking to recruit Linux pros in the next six months, so that’s certainly good news. 97% of managers said they’ll bring on Linux talent relative to other skills areas in the next six months.
“Demand for Linux talent continues apace, and it’s becoming more important for employers to be able to verify candidates have the skillsets they need,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “Formal training and certifications are a key way of identifying qualified talent, and as more people join the Linux community, it will be increasingly necessary for professionals to show they stand out in the crowd.”
According to the report, the rise of open cloud platforms is creating more demand for LInux pros with the right expertise. 42% of hiring managers said experience in OpenStack and CloudStack will have a significant impact on their hiring decisions. 23% said security is something they’re looking for expertise in, and 19% said they’re looking for Linux talent with software-defined skills.
“Competition for Linux talent is accelerating, as the software becomes more ubiquitous,” said Shravan Goli, President of Dice. “Hiring managers need to ensure they are offering the right set of incentives to attract talent, while professionals need to provide evidence of their knowledge and skills, especially in areas of growing demand such as the cloud.”
44% of hiring managers said they’re more likely to hire a candidate with Linux certification, and 54% expect either certification or formal training of their SysAdmin candidates.
Lindsay Lohan has thrown down the gauntlet. The actress has taken to Twitter to announce the challenge that she intends to “break the Internet”. But, unlike a certain other celebrity who aimed to do so, she intends to do it with clothes on.
The picture Lindsay Lohan posted (see below) is a mirror selfie of the actress straddling between a sofa and what appears to be a glass-top coffee table
The dangerous bit of acrobatics appears to have been necessary to get the full-length shot she needed to show off her hogh-waisted black pants and semi-sheer top. The ensemble was capped off with a black fedora.
Lindsay Lohan is indeed clothed, but there is plenty of cleavage on display in the picture. She hashtagged the tweet with #majorlooks.
Also on display is a posh home environment. This isn’t some hotel room or bathroom selfie. In the background you can see a vase of flowers, a fruit bowl, a stack of magazines, a water bottle, and what may be a fur jacket.
As of this writing, Lindsay Lohan’s selfie has been retweeted over 2,400 times and favorited over 7,300 times. She has 8.85 million followers — who knows how much of that is legit, but there it is.
The #majorlooks hashtag is sometimes associated with high fashion. But it seems to have been dormant until Lindsay Lohan used it. Then it took of and trended on Twitter. But most of the tweets with that tag seem to be of the same Lindsay Lohan pic, plus a smattering of bots looking to net followers.
The subject of ad viewability continues to be a contentious one throughout the industry, and many are simply confused by various elements of the debate, and rightfully so. It’s pretty confusing. There are so many factors and parties that come into play it’s pretty much a big mess.
There are organizations trying to change that, but in some cases, it’s only adding more layers to an already complex discussion. Last week, we attempted to provide something of a round-up of some of the latest discussion points.
While the viewability issue spans across devices, mobile is a major part. The Mobile Majority released a new study on mobile ad viewability based on IAB and MRC standards as well as its own internal architecture in an apparent attempt to clarify what’s going on here. The company says it didn’t set out to define terms of the viewability debate for an entire industry, but considers its study, which was originally intended for internal use, “the first solid framework for a viewability debate that is already underway.”
The study, it says, enables advertisers, ad tech partners and other stakeholders to discuss the viewability issue using “a common set of assumptions.”
The findings are packaged in a relatively easy-to-read infographic.
“There is broad agreement within the industry on what viewability is, but until now, it has been difficult for stakeholders to physically see what needs to happen in order for viewability to be achieved,” said Matthew Russo, Lead Educator at The Mobile Majority. “This infographic maps the complexities out and gives industry stakeholders a way to define the process, understand how to track what is happening, and identify the potential opportunities for error. By breaking down each step and putting it in a visual format, we were able to illustrate the major bottlenecks within the current set-up and validate our approach of integrating each step of the process. That’s how we’ve been able to produce results higher than most of the industry averages.”
“There isn’t a simple solution for this problem, due to the complex and circuitous path by which mobile ads are built and trafficked,” he wrote. “What’s more, the journey from creation to an actual viewed ad is perplexed by a number of moving parts managed and maintained by far too many vendors and commensurate associated fees. This drives up complexity and cost on top of media which hurts both publishers and buyers. For instance, to run any single large scale mobile campaign, a buyer would need somewhere between 4 and 10 vendors. At the very least, they would need vendors to manage strategy, creative technology, ad serving, bidding, targeting, data activation, measurement, reporting / BI and fraud detection. Every time there is a handoff, whether by computer or more often (still) by humans, of an ad from one vendor to another, there is a loss of data or at least some sort of compromise in quality. Sorting out accountability for final results becomes impossible because no one vendor can be blamed or held accountable. This leads to an opaque and broken marketplace that no one individual participant can fix.”
“Not only has this created an inefficient system, a distrust in the technology itself has emerged,” he added. “This is because viewability reporting is just as chaotically layered as the building of an ad. 3rd party viewability vendors often produce inconsistent viewability reports originating from different sets of available data from different layers of the full ad technology stack. This in turn confuses buyers even more and creates a compounding loss of confidence.”
Back in December, the IAB released its “State of Viewability Transaction 2015″ report aimed at offering guidance on how to manage the “shift of digital media’s ‘audience currency’ to 100 percent viewability.”
It said 100% viewability measurement simply isn’t possible. Instead, it recommends 70% as the best threshold for buyers and sellers. 2015, it says, will be a “year of transition.”
Since the IAB’s report, viewability has only become a more hotly debated topic. Advertisers are demanding more viewability while publishers struggle to deliver and maintain that advertisers are sometimes not seeing the big picture about the difficulty of meeting such demand, or in some cases even the validity of the data they’re seeing. More on all of this here.
If there’s one hot topic in online advertising in 2015, it’s viewability. It’s causing a lot of disagreements between advertisers and publishers, and it’s the subject of a great deal of confusion and chaos throughout the industry.
What are your thoughts on the subject? What needs to be done? How do publishers need to adapt? Should advertisers be more patient? Discuss in the comments.
Google and Facebook have both been talking about viewability efforts of late. Google recently rolled out viewability reporting across its ad platforms. Facebook talked last week about what viewed impressions mean for its own advertisers.
The company says it measures ad impressions the moment the ad enters the screen, and if it doesn’t enter the screen, it doesn’t count it as an impression. Soon it will apply this to organic content from businesses as well. It also says it’s working with the Media Rating Council (MRC) and a consortium of advertisers and agencies to develop “more robust standards” for viewable impressions.
“Our goal is to work with the MRC, our partners, and industry leaders around the world to help apply further standards for feed-based websites like Facebook, mobile media and new ad formats,” the Facebook for Business team said.
“We’re working closely with Facebook and they’re doing compelling research around the viewable status and value of advertising of all types of impressions on their media, including those that quickly come in and out of view on a person’s screen. We will continue to collaborate and ensure that we consider the learning relevant to feed-based, mobile focused publishers in our viewable impression standard going forward,” said MRC CEO George Ivie.
According to ClickZ, the MRC considers viewability to be specifically “50 percent of pixels of an ad unit remains viewable for a minimum of one second for display and 50 percent of pixels in view for a minimum of two seconds for video,” which many find much too low.
Back in December, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released its “State of Viewability Transaction 2015″ report aimed at offering guidance on how to manage the “shift of digital media’s ‘audience currency’ to 100 percent viewability.”
It said 100% viewability measurement simply isn’t possible. Instead, it recommends 70% as the best threshold for buyers and sellers. 2015, it says, will be a “year of transition.”
Since the IAB’s report, viewability has only become a more hotly debated topic. Advertisers are demanding more viewability while publishers struggle to deliver and maintain that advertisers are sometimes not seeing the big picture about the difficulty of meeting such demand, or in some cases even the validity of the data they’re seeing.
Ad Age recently shared some demands by advertisers it had obtained from various publishers. Some demand 100% viewability. Others are more reasonable, but are still very firm in seeking “make-goods” for out of view impressions. Suffice it to say, this is being much more carefully looked at by all parties these days.
Last month, Mike Shields at The Wall Street Journal wrote that “the push for web ad viewability [is] proving to be a nightmare for publishers early on.”
“In the near term, the issue has caused contentious negotiations and rocked how many big publishers manage and forecast inventory for 2015, which in turn effects how they project revenue for the year, top online ad executives say,” he wrote. “Publishers say that while they have been out in front of the viewability issue, they are getting hit with reports from agencies and third parties claiming that significant chunks of their ad inventory are not viewable. That’s requiring these websites to deliver advertisers significant make-goods, or additional advertising to make up for deficiencies. Furthermore, properties ranging from AOL to Forbes are redesigning portions of their websites on the fly as a result,. In private conversations, many online publishers are bitter, and use harsh language to describe the current state of affairs.”
In that article, he also notes that mobile and the wide variety of screen sizes can be a major issue when it comes to viewability. I couldn’t help but notice a comment on the article from The Mobile Majority CEO Rob Emrich, who we just interviewed about Twitter’s syndicated ads. Here’s an excerpt from his WSJ comment:
There isn’t a simple solution for this problem, due to the complex and circuitous path by which mobile ads are built and trafficked. What’s more, the journey from creation to an actual viewed ad is perplexed by a number of moving parts managed and maintained by far too many vendors and commensurate associated fees. This drives up complexity and cost on top of media which hurts both publishers and buyers. For instance, to run any single large scale mobile campaign, a buyer would need somewhere between 4 and 10 vendors. At the very least, they would need vendors to manage strategy, creative technology, ad serving, bidding, targeting, data activation, measurement, reporting / BI and fraud detection. Every time there is a handoff, whether by computer or more often (still) by humans, of an ad from one vendor to another, there is a loss of data or at least some sort of compromise in quality. Sorting out accountability for final results becomes impossible because no one vendor can be blamed or held accountable. This leads to an opaque and broken marketplace that no one individual participant can fix.
Not only has this created an inefficient system, a distrust in the technology itself has emerged. This is because viewability reporting is just as chaotically layered as the building of an ad. 3rd party viewability vendors often produce inconsistent viewability reports originating from different sets of available data from different layers of the full ad technology stack. This in turn confuses buyers even more and creates a compounding loss of confidence.
Eric Wheeler, the CEO of 33Across and former Executive Director of Ogilvy Interactive North America, advises advertisers to work with viewability vendors to create verification tests and run A/B tests with ad units vs. standard IAB.
The IAB maintains that there are major issues with vendor reporting, however. At its annual leadership meeting earlier this month, new chairman David Morris reportedly “singled out” vendor reporting as a “key problem holding the industry back on viewable impressions.” Ad Age reported:
Mr. Morris said that publishers often find substantial differences between vendors on the same line items. “Publishers need to demand that verification companies do a better job of delivering consistent and accurate data,” he said. “To our agency partners, I say reducing the number of vendors you use will help us scale these solutions more quickly.”
According to that same report, Morris “took pains to draw a line between” viewability and fraud. We recently looked at a report from Integral Ad Science, which explored ad viewability trends. It found that the viewability rate for publisher sourced ad inventory remained relatively unchanged at 52% during the fourth quarter, and that the level of ad fraud increased over the previous quarter, but still remained better than that of networks and exchanges.
Viewability for display impressions sourced from networks and exchanges, it found, increased from 36.7% in Q3 to 42.6% in Q4. It attributed this to more user attention and/or increased adoption of viewability optimization technology.
Video ads saw increased viewability, jumping nine percentage points to 39%.
“According to Integral’s Year End Survey results published last month, 57 percent of the industry transacted based on viewability in 2014, and even more so — 73 percent — plan to do so this year,” the firm said. “Additionally, 85 percent engaged in programmatic buying, which includes real-time bidding. These activities may have led to an increase in the adoption of viewability measurement technologies by networks and exchanges, as well as optimization of media toward viewability. Perhaps as a result, viewability for display inventory was 42.6 percent in Q4, up from 36.7 percent in Q3. Ad fraud experienced a small uptick from 13.7 percent in Q3 to 14.5 percent in Q4.”
“The fourth quarter also saw video ad viewability increase from 30 percent in Q3 to 39 percent in Q4,” it added. “Not surprisingly, completion rates while in view also rose from 20 percent to 26 percent. Brand risk for video saw a slight increase from 18.7 percent in Q3 to 20.7 percent in Q4, contributing to a noticeable decline in TRAQ, Integral’s overall media quality assessment score. This decline was also likely due to the increased supply of lower quality inventory made available to take advantage of a time when user attention and advertising demand were up.”
Some think native ads are the way to fight low viewability. Adam Rock from Tan Media, a content marketing and native advertising agency, writes, “For advertisers running campaigns across multiple sites and publishers, it is an acknowledged struggle to compare like with like, let alone determine what percentage of ads have been viewed by the target audience. But the issues surrounding low viewability can be solved by utilising the form of true native which, unlike traditional display, can be sold on a guaranteed viewable CPM (vCPM) rate.”
“By working with a network of publishers, and an advanced native ad platform, clients can be assured they will only be charged on a vCPM basis; when the native ad unit or article preview is in-view of the user’s browser,” he says. “And because the content is ad-served rather than manually placed through various publishers’ content management systems (CMS), scale, advanced campaign controls, and performance optimisation can be provided, while capturing ground-breaking consumer attention analytics not previously available to content marketers.”
Viewability is now digital media’s top concern, according to a different (non-sponsored) DigiDay article, which also highlights just how complicated the whole thing is, noting that some can’t even agree on what the actual disagreement is about. As one ad tech company exec said, it’s really about the value of viewability rather than viewability vs. non-viewability. How much is it worth, and will advertisers pay more or demand better for the same prices? Clearly they’re demanding, but the negotiations are going to differ vastly from publisher to publisher based on the capabilities of each.
Either way, this issue isn’t going to go away anytime soon, and publishers should be doing what they can to increase viewability on their end. In some cases this may mean site redesigns. AdExchanger points to some sites, including The New York Times, Time.com, and National Journal, which have implemented redesigns with viewability in mind. Sometimes, it’s as simple as moving banners higher on the page.
Katrin Ribant at Adotas has an interesting article out this week about viewability as currency, which looks at joining data sets, calculating viewability rates, and optimizing toward key performance indicators on viewable media.
Last year, Pinterest launched Guided Search, a revamp to its search feature enabling users to find things they didn’t necessarily know they were looking for. You can start with a relatively vague keyword, and get additional options to add to help “guide” you in different directions. It’s essentially a nice way of presenting search recommendations.
The company has been hard at work on improving Guided Search, and on Friday, revealed some of what it has been working on.
Pinterest has famously been seen as a more female-oriented service. While there are plenty of men using it, there’s no question which way the gender needle slants. The number of men has been growing, however, and improvements to Guided Search are reflecting that.
“If you do a lot of searching on Pinterest, you may already have noticed the results you’re seeing are better than ever,” says Pinterest engineer Pei Yin in a blog post. “For example, say you’re looking for a new watch. Before when you searched Pinterest for ‘watches,’ your results would include mostly women’s timepieces. But now, men will see Pins and guides inspired by what other guys have Pinned, and everybody’s results should feel a lot closer to what they’re looking for. Of course if you ever want results for another gender, like if you’re shopping for a gift for someone else, you can always use the guides to fine-tune your search.”
“These customized search results appear for thousands of different search terms,” Yin adds. “The next time you’re on Pinterest, try searching for hair, shoes or health and see for yourself how spot on your results are.”
As the company notes, if you’re not getting content for your gender, you may want to check your settings and make sure you have the right one selected.
A Pinterest spokesperson tells WebProNews, “We’ve already seen these improvements result in a double digit lift in engagement, similar to recent updates to the new user experience which show trending interests for each gender to choose from as they get started.”
They also shared some new growth stats with us. For one, Pinterest’s male user base in the U.S. grew 73% year-over-year.
“We’re not only growing among males, but on the coasts, where monthly active usage is much higher than other parts of the country,” the spokesperson says. “For example, New York is growing 50% faster than Minnesota, and DC 78% faster than Utah. The fastest growing states are Hawaii, New Jersey, Maryland, New York and Rhode Island.”
On the gender note, the top interests followed by men include (in order): men’s apparel, technology, travel, gardening, recipes, gadgets, design, luxury cars, tattoos, and camping. Trending searches by men include: men’s short hair, cinema 4d, ham radio, cool watches for men, mens tattoo ideas, fixed gear, shoulder tattoo men, hifi, rat rod, and kayak fishing.
Pinterest also shared some high-growth categories (% from 2013-2014):
Pinterest says it has a lot more improvements to search coming soon, and now that Promoted Pins are out (and doing well apparently), it’s certainly in Pinterest’s best interest to improve its search feature as much as possible, now that it’s being monetized.
This week, the company announced that it has acquired the team and technology behind recommendation and commerce startup Kosei, which it will use to accelerate its discovery and monetization efforts.
“The team includes some of the best minds in machine learning, data science and recommendation engines, who’ve created a unique technology stack that drives commerce by making highly personalized and powerful product recommendations,” Pinterest told us. “Among Kosei’s accomplishments is building a graph that understands more than 400 million relationships between 30 million products.”
Asked about how the acquisition will affect Pinterest’s efforts in search and advertising, Pinterest said, “Over the years we’ve been building a system for helping people discover the most relevant Pins, and the Kosei team is a great complement to our existing technology (see how we’ve been using machine learning here). The acquisition of Kosei will enable us to move faster in our efforts to provide relevant recommendations across the service, as well as in ad targeting and measurement as we roll out Promoted Pins.”
As Pinterest continues to grow its user base, it opens up more marketing opportunities for businesses on both the paid and organic levels. Read this for some insight into optimizing your content for Pinterest’s search feature.
Last week, Amazon made $220 worth of Android apps available for free through the Amazon Appstore. Now, they’re giving away more apps, which will typically cost you.
There are 33 paid apps available for today only, so act fast if any of the following titles sound appealing to you.
Monopoly
Angry Birds Star Wars
Stack the States
Fruit Ninja
Riptide GP 2
Kingdom Rush Frontiers
Table Top Racing
Sparkle 2 Evo
Alarm Clock Xtreme
Lyne
Clockwork Tales: Of Glass and Ink
République
AVG Antivirus PRO Android Security
Pho.to Lab PRO
Calculator Plus
Thomas Was Alone
Alice Trapped in Wonderland
Food Diary and Calorie Tracker
JEFIT Pro
Townsmen Premium
Might and Magic Clash of Heroes
Patchworkz (Full)
Garfield’s Escape
Mini Piano
Bills Reminder
Uncanny X-Men: Days of Future Past
Deep Sleep With Andrew Johnson
Orrery
BuildCalc
Buttons and Scissors Pro
Azkend 2: The World Beneath
Xtralogic Remote Desktop Client
Distant Suns: Unleash Your Inner Astronaut
Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher are together again, at last, in the new Annie remake. In a manner of speaking.
Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis were paired together in That 70’s Show long before they were a real-life couple. Kutcher went on to spend years with Demi Moore, but eventually found his way to Kunis for real.
And now they are finally back on screen together. But you have to kind of watch for it.
The new Annie features several celebrities in cameos, including new parents Kunis and Kutcher. The main characters are played by Jamie Foxx and Quvenzhané Wallis’ as Will Stacks and Annie, of course. Jamie Foxx’s character is a parallel to the classic Daddy Warbucks character from previous incarnations of the Annie story.
According to theNew York Daily News, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher are in the film, as well, but tucked a bit deeper. They are actually in a film within the film.
The Annie film includes a scene where Will Stacks and his new orphan friend Annie go to a movie premiere event for a film called Moonquake Lake. Kunis and Kutcher are leads in the fictional Moonquake Lake film. But Kunis and Kutcher are also present in character at the premiere event attended by Annie and Will Stacks.
IMDb posts Kunis’ role as “Andrea Alvin,” and Kutcher is named “Simon Goodspeed.” There are also cameo appearances by singer Rihanna within the Moonquake Lake film-within-a-film. Actor Michael J. Fox plays himself in an homage to his character on Spin City, campaigning for the mayor of New York City.
In the trailer below, you can see Kunis and Kutcher on the Moonquake Lake movie poster if you pause at 1:21 and again at 1:22.
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