NEW RESOURCES

The GPO will digitize two million pages of the Federal Register. “The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) partners with the National Archives’ Office of the Federal Register (OFR) to make every issue of the Federal Register digitally available to the public. Approximately 14,587 individual issues, which go back to 1936, will be digitized. GPO employees will hand pack and inventory every issue. The digitization is expected to be completed in 2016. Currently, digital versions dating from 1994 to the present are available on GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDsys).”

UBS has launched an online resource about Nobel Laureates in Economics (PRESS RELEASE). “UBS announced today the launch of ‘Nobel Perspectives’, a digital platform that will feature around 40 filmed interviews with Nobel Laureates in Economics. Partnering with German broadcasters Frank and Thomas Elstner, UBS are supporting the continuation of a project that Frank first began back in 1985, to document the life and work of Nobel Laureates. The online archive ubs.com/nobel, will host both newly commissioned and newly edited interview footage and material. The interviews will be published over the next 2 years.”

TWEAKS & UPDATES

Buffer has updated its Pablo image creation tool. “We’ve expanded Pablo’s functionality to work with all social media networks – on top of Twitter, you can now create images with the perfect size and format for Facebook, Instagram, and even Pinterest. You can create the visuals, share them across all platforms and then analyze them with Buffer’s analytics to know how well they’re performing.”

Microsoft is making it easier for people to group chat with Skype. “While you’ve always been able to start group conversations on Skype, everyone always had to have the app installed to just chat. Microsoft is updating Skype today so that users can generate links that can be shared to anyone to use for group chat. You won’t need a Skype account to start chatting, just input a name and you’ll immediately join a conversation using Skype for web.”

Dropbox is testing a new collaborative tool called ‘Paper’. Paper? Really? “Paper is the next iteration of the Notes service Dropbox previewed earlier this year. It works a lot like a trumped-up version of Google Docs: People can use the service to write together, communicate, and assign each other individual tasks.”

USEFUL STUFF

The American Association of School Librarians is hosting a free Webinar this Wednesday. “The webinar, Using Digital Public Library of American for Inquiry-Based Teaching and Learning, will be targeted to school library professionals, and those interested in the topic….In this session, presenters Franky Abbott and Trish Vlastnik will introduce participants to the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). The presentation will include an overview of the site’s useful features for teachers and students doing research, such as maps, timeline, and online exhibitions. Presenters will also demonstrate sample keyword searches to illustrate how participants can find materials on the site most quickly and easily and incorporate them into lesson plans in ways that support inquiry. ”

Wework has a roundup of livestreaming apps. You’ve probably heard of all of these (except possibly Blab) but there are pros and cons included.

Mashable’s got a roundup of 10 hidden Snapchat tricks. The only trick I have for Snapchat is be better at it than I am.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Apparently Facebook’s iOS app is causing some battery drain issues. “Blogging about the issue earlier this week, Circa co-founder Matt Galligan couched the Facebook app’s use of battery as ‘ridiculous’, noting that the app had been responsible for 15 per cent of all battery drain over a seven-day period — despite having background app refreshed disabled.”

Google is launching the latest round of its “Doodle 4 Google” competition. “Doodle 4 Google is now in its eighth year (if Doodle 4 Google were a kid, it’d be a third grader)—so we decided to mix things up a bit to let kids’ imaginations really run wild. For the first time, there are no constraints on medium: students can cook, build, cut, spin, paint, or mold their doodle–basically use any material they like as long as they incorporate the letters G-O-O-G-L-E.”

Interesting article on Medium: Why Twitter is dying and what you can learn from it. “Here’s my tiny theory, in a word. Abuse. And further, I’m going to suggest in this short essay that abuse — not making money — is the great problem tech and media have. The problem of abuse is the greatest challenge the web faces today. It is greater than censorship, regulation, or (ugh) monetization. It is a problem of staggering magnitude and epic scale, and worse still, it is expensive: it is a problem that can’t be fixed with the cheap, simple fixes beloved by tech: patching up code, pushing out updates.”

Another Twitter essay: Twitter’s having its moment – and not all good. “Following the likes of Snapchat’s Discover, Facebook’s Instant Articles and Apple’s News app, Twitter’s Moments is yet another example of the trend toward new walled gardens. Given that users are spending more time online and on these platforms, distributing news and information to them directly through these channels is a no brainer. It’s also a strategic move for publishers who have long been seeing eyeballs migrate away from their home pages and onto these platforms.”

Facebook briefly had a view count for posts made on user accounts. (Pages can already have a view count for each post, which is how I know Facebook’s organic reach for pages is utter shit, pardon my language.) “The bug added a view counter to certain users’ Facebook posts, allowing them to see exactly how many people had viewed it. The glitch seems to have only affected a small group of people and is now 100% fixed.” I’m sorry I missed it. Good morning, Internet…

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