NEW RESOURCES

The George Eastman Museum has put a quarter-million items from its collections online. “The George Eastman Museum has launched a new platform that allows public online access to more than 250,000 objects from its world-class collections at eastman.org/collections-online. Objects from the museum’s photography, technology, and George Eastman Legacy collections are now searchable, and more objects from the museum’s vast holdings are being added on an ongoing basis. Objects from the moving image collection will become accessible in the coming months.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google’s letting you get all Harry Potter with your Android phone. “If you want to try being a wizard, try casting spells on your Android phone: Just say ‘Ok Google’ followed by ‘Lumos’ or ‘Nox’ to turn your flashlight on and off. Try ‘Silencio’ to silence the ringer and notifications.” Accio Android Patch!

Kickstarter is adding livestreaming to its campaigns. “Kickstarter Live, according to a blog post from the crowdfunding platform, will be a stage on which creators can ‘broadcast cooking shows, host live product demos, perform songs, play test games, rehearse a new play, countdown the final seconds of their campaign, and much more.’ Clearly, Kickstarter is interested in throwing its hat into the competitive live streaming ring, but it is also look to earn its community some extra funds. In the past, creators have used live events to draw more attention to the projects they are working on and attract additional backers.”

Twitter continues to get into livestreaming sports. “The race that stops the nation, the Melbourne Cup, will this year be streamed live on Twitter, competing with the Seven Network’s stream and live TV broadcast of the race. The Melbourne Cup is not the first sport that Twitter has live streamed, but is the first outside the United States.” It’s already streamed, but interesting to see what other events outside of the US Twitter will make deals for.

USEFUL STUFF

From Nieman Journalism Lab: Try out this open source tool for editing video and audio transcripts. “At the moment, autoEdit work with either IBM Watson’s speech-to-text API (supports several languages) or Gentle (free and works offline; English only) to generate a transcript. (For what it’s worth, I tried this a few times and found Gentle to be perfectly serviceable.) Once the transcript is generated, autoEdit offers a number of intuitive editing features, such as exporting select quotes with the corresponding video clip into Adobe Premiere.”

Good stuff as always from Social Media Examiner: How to Reach More Local Customers With Facebook. “Wondering how to grow local connections on Facebook? Looking for ways to boost the visibility of your local business? With a few organic tactics, you can reach more local customers on Facebook without spending money on ads.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Oh thank goodness. Publishers are starting to rethink those horrible “around the Web” fakey/clickbait articles. “ChangeAdvertising.org analyzed the content ads on those 41 news websites and found that 61 percent came from advertisers or other prominent publishers. But 26 percent led to ‘clickbait’ sites that were covered in more ads and lower-quality recommendation widgets featuring sexually suggestive or interruptive images. Almost all of those sites, which appear to be paying for placement, then profiting from their own ads once people visit, hid their domain registrations.”

From WhiteHouse.gov: The Digital Transition: How the Presidential Transition Works in the Social Media Age. “President Obama is the first ‘social media president’: the first to have @POTUS on Twitter, the first to go live on Facebook from the Oval Office, the first to answer questions from citizens on YouTube, the first to use a filter on Snapchat. Over the past eight years, the President, Vice President, First Lady, and the White House have used social media and technology to engage with people around the country and the world on the most important issues of our time (while having some fun along the way).” I remember trying to talk to political campaigns back in 2000 about how they were going to use the Internet. I got a lot of blank stares. 16 years is not really that long.

Medium: For New Social Networks, Offering an Audience is No Longer Enough. “Vine, one of the more exciting social platforms of the last 5 years, is officially gone. If you have been paying attention, this shouldn’t be surprising. Numbers have looked stagnant for at least a year and the top creators have long moved on. Vine is to date one of the fastest networks to mint top creators who went from unknowns to millionaires off the platform alone. It had everything that a new social network looks for: dedicated users, an entire community of its own, big company backing, and instant pop culture fascination. So what happened?”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Phys.org: Researchers create technology to detect bad bots in social media. “When you check your Twitter feed, do you assume there is a real person behind each Tweet that is posted or shared? After all, there is a name and a photo, so it must be a real person behind the words, right? Not so fast, say UNM researchers. Although Twitter has rules against ‘botting,’ impersonation and similar activity, the bots have multiplied so fast that the rule is nearly unenforceable, said Abdullah Mueen, assistant professor of computer science at The University of New Mexico.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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