NEW RESOURCES

Now available: a very old collection of musical recordings from India. “Over the crackle of an old record, you can hear a woman singing in Urdu. Though listening to her is as easy as clicking a few buttons on the British Library website, her voice comes to you across vast distances in space and time. Sometime in the early 20th century, engineers recorded the voice of a woman called Malkajan for the German company Odeon, which pressed shellac discs for Indian record collectors in the 1910s and 30s. Now her work is part of a series of recordings called The Odeon Collection, digitized by Mumbai record collector Suresh Chandvankar with help from a grant from the British Library.”

TWEAKS & UPDATES

Google News is going to make it easier to find local coverage of major news stories. “When a local story is picked up by national publishers, it can be difficult for local sources to be heard even after they’ve done the legwork and research to break a story. Consistent with our goal to surface diverse perspectives, we’re excited to share that a new ‘Local Source’ tag is now live across all Google News editions. This new feature brings greater exposure for local news outlets reporting on stories that have gone national. ‘Local Source’ articles are identified automatically by looking at where a publisher has written about in the past and comparing that to the story location.”

More Google: it’s goofing around with the look of its search results again. “Google users have noticed something different about the search results being returned at the moment: they’re not the iconic Google blue, but black instead. The Silicon Valley giant appears to be A/B testing out black links for its search results, much to the disappointment of many users.” Screenshots are with the story – the all-black looks terrible.

USEFUL STUFF

HubSpot has a guide to using Facebook Live. “Why are marketers getting so excited about Facebook Live? Because it’s an awesome way for them to use the power of live video to communicate their brand stories and build authentic, intimate relationships with fans and followers. However, for such a simple concept, Facebook Live has a lot of little nuances that marketers will need to learn if they want to get the most out of the platform. This guide is meant to help you learn the best tricks and tricks that can make a big, big difference in how many people see your live broadcast, how they engage with it, and how it performs.

Interesting video (about five and a half minutes) from PTZOptics: How to #livestream to Facebook and YouTube Live at the same time. Fairly technical.

CNET’s got a roundup of handy calendars for your Google calendar.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Former Facebook workers are accusing Facebook of being biased with its trending news stories. “Several former Facebook ‘news curators,’ as they were known internally, also told Gizmodo that they were instructed to artificially ‘inject’ selected stories into the trending news module, even if they weren’t popular enough to warrant inclusion—or in some cases weren’t trending at all. The former curators, all of whom worked as contractors, also said they were directed not to include news about Facebook itself in the trending module.”

Is going to get involved in the ad blocking issue? “Is Google getting more involved in efforts to cut down ad blocking? At least one report suggests the Internet giant is looking at the possibility of an acceptable ads policy. That would make sense since Google, along with Facebook, controls the majority of the digital ad market. Google is likely to have a lot of influence on ad formats that become industry standards.”

I had no idea: apparently the US Congress has a “Snapchat King”. “At nearly 11 pm on the eve of the pivotal Indiana primary, U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell has something on his mind. Swalwell pulls out his cellphone, holds it within selfie range and launches an impromptu session of Facebook Live from his kitchen, in a kind of modern twist on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s intimate ‘fireside chat’ radio addresses.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

You already know about phishing, right? Check out this article on vishing and smishing. “While phishing existed long before the Internet, our capacity to engage with social media, connect with people through email, and generally place trust in online systems we don’t fully understand (including banking) has curated a golden period for would-be scammers. Their Midas touch continues with the ‘introduction’ of vishing and smishing exploits.”

Facebook has won a trademark fight in China. ” Chinese people won’t be able to quench their thirst with a refreshing ‘face book’ beverage, after the U.S. social networking company won a rare trademark victory against a local firm in China. By contrast, Apple Inc last month lost its battle to prevent a domestic company from using the “iPhone” trademark on leather goods in China.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Apparently there really is a different between reading a printout and reading a screen. “You probably spend a lot of time staring at screens — but all that computer time may be making you miss the big picture, new research has found. Reading something on a screen — as opposed to a printout — causes people to home in on details and but not broader ideas, according to a new article by Geoff Kaufman. a professor at Carnegie Mellon, and Mary Flanagan, a professor at Dartmouth.”

You might wonder why I mention India so much on ResearchBuzz. Couple of reasons: lots of good English-language news sources, and India as a country is very active online. “Despite a modest budget in public diplomacy, India’s ministry of external affairs’ Facebook page with more than 1.2 million followers has come second only to the US state department among foreign ministries in the world. Even China’s media has praised India’s digital diplomacy, claiming it’s playing a constructive role in enhancing India-China ties.” Good morning, Internet…

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