NEW RESOURCES

The Monumental Archive Project has officially launched. “The Monumental Archive Project was established to act as an open platform for historic cemeteries research to address issues of accessibility and sustainability, whilst also stimulating creativity and collaboration. It has been a year in the making and is still in the beginning stages. It is being launched with one collection of more than 20 locations in Barbados, with more than 2000 monuments. From here, it is hoped that the collection will grow, and that users will also share their results, their tips, their ideas.”

The city of Burbank (California) has a new digital archive of photos. “Though the database includes hundreds of photos saved by the library and by the public, most of the photos were donated by the city clerk’s office, said Melissa Potter, the city’s assistant library services director.” The story does not appear to have the URL of the new archive. I tried to leave a comment and I couldn’t. The digital archive itself is at https://burbankinfocus.org/ .

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Dennis Cooper is getting his blog back. “Artist and author Dennis Cooper re-launched his popular blog on Monday after months of legal disputes with Google, who many accused of censorship. The artist posted a message on the blog’s Facebook account on Friday to explain Google’s reasoning for erasing his 14-year-old blog, which housed a gif novel he was working on.”

Twitter will start sharing ad revenue with video creators. “Making money on Twitter just got a whole lot easier. The company announced today the launch of its Amplify Publisher Program, which will give creators of all sizes the ability to generate revenue through pre-roll ads that run against their Twitter videos.”

Google has an OnHub update. “Today, we’re celebrating OnHub’s first birthday and announcing a new partnership with Philips Lighting, the first connected home device you can control directly with OnHub. We know people don’t like having too many apps on their phones, so we made it possible to control your home’s Philips Hue lights without downloading an app. Now anyone connected to your OnHub can type “On.Here” in a computer, tablet, or mobile browser and control the most popular features of your Philips Hue lights from there. Crank up the party lights!”

Google is opening up a ride-share program. “Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., began a pilot program around its California headquarters in May that enables several thousand area workers at specific firms to use the Waze app to connect with fellow commuters. It plans to open the program to all San Francisco-area Waze users this fall, the person said. Waze, which Google acquired in 2013, offers real-time driving directions based on information from other drivers.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

What’s the state of the search engine market? Search Engine Land has the skinny. “Writing about search market share on the desktop is now a bit like writing about old cars. It’s sort of interesting but less and less relevant. For reasons that remain mysterious, comScore has neglected to provide a unified view of the search marketplace — despite the fact that likely between 55 and 60 percent of search queries now come from mobile devices.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Weird, WEIRD story over at Search Engine Roundtable: The Deceased Leaving Negative Google Reviews? “William Rock posted in the Google My Business Help forums evidence that shows that deceased people are coming back to life to post negative reviews of businesses in their Google business listings. If you look at this business you will see a review left by Emma Aronson three weeks ago, it even has her profile picture. But that Emma Aronson lost her life over a year ago, so how did she leave a review just a few weeks ago?” This is super weird and I look forward to seeing Google’s response. Good evening, Internet…

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