NEW RESOURCES

LinkedIn is launching a new workforce report. “It’s a new report we’ll publish on a monthly basis that shows you how much hiring is increasing or decreasing across the U.S., cities, and industries; which skills cities need most; and where workers are moving to and from.” Nice dataviz, at least in the announcement post.

Three institutions in Minnesota have come together to publish “honor rolls” of WWI soldiers online. “‘The best way to describe these books is to picture a high school year book, but instead of smiling high school seniors, the photos and stories are of the men and women in uniform’ stated Ryan Welle Minnesota Military Museum archivist. ‘It is unclear how many counties in Minnesota published these books on their WW l veterans, but we had 35 of them and wanted to share them with all Minnesotans,’ continued Welle.”

Residents of Michigan have a new tool to get information on e.coli in public waters. “For the first time, Michigan residents will be able to get up-to-date information about the presence of E. coli in their community and the potential sources of the bacteria with the creation of a new interactive mapping tool.” There’s a lot of information here but this tool is not user friendly.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

GMail will stop supporting older versions of Chrome. “Users of Chrome version 53 and older editions of the browser could start being redirected to the basic HTML version of Gmail as early as December, the company said in a blog post. Starting next week, users who will be affected by the change will start seeing a banner at the top of Gmail telling them to upgrade to an up-to-date version of Google’s browser.”

Google is officially selling off Terra Bella. “Google will sell its Terra Bella business, which includes a group of SkySat Earth imaging satellites, to Planet Labs, the companies confirmed on Friday after TechCrunch’s Ingrid Lunden first reported that a deal was going down on January 25. Google’s space-high view of the world in its mapping software isn’t going anywhere, however – Google will continue to license Earth imaging for its use from Planet in a multi-year contract that’s part of the sale arrangement.”

Wrap your head around this: Facebook is 13 years old. “Facebook is officially a teenager! The fledgling social network Mark Zuckerberg launched as a Harvard student turned 13 years old on Saturday.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Check for Open Usernames on Dozens of Social Media Sites at Once. I helped my mother get a Twitter account the other day and it took several tries to find a user name. This could have come in handy!

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

BuzzFeed: People Are Tricking Facebook By Copy And Pasting, Not Sharing. “Facebook, of course, has a way for you to share text statuses: the ‘Share’ button. These people know that. They also know that Facebook’s newsfeed has an algorithm, and that algorithm is confusing and opaque. They know some things will get pushed to the top of their friends’ feeds, and some things won’t. The theory here is that a NEW text status, rather than a share of an existing one, will be shown more prominently.”

Thrillist: Why Facebook Is Beating Craigslist As The Best Online Marketplace. Not sure I agree with the headline but this is an interesting exploration of Facebook as a marketplace, especially a car marketplace. “In the new age of Uber, Airbnb, and other sharing-economy behemoths, we have higher expectations when it comes transacting with strangers — by providing convenient ways to easily exchange goods and services transparently, where both parties’ reputations are on the line. That’s where Facebook Marketplace comes in — with more transparency and better usability, it is threatening to knock Craigslist off its perch.”

Google AI Go Player is on the move again. “The world’s number-one Go player has ‘one last move’ and will face off against Google’s AlphaGo artificial intelligence (AI) in April. The match between Ke Jie, the world’s top-ranked Go player under Rémi Coulom’s unofficial ranking system, and DeepMind’s Go-playing program AlphaGo will take place in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Infosecurity: ‘Coworker’ Phish Mails, Social Media Lures Fool Most Americans. “As smartphones become more sophisticated, so do the phishing tactics used to coerce unsuspecting Americans into giving out sensitive financial information. For instance, 68% of Americans were tricked by emails that looked like they were from a coworker. That’s according to an experiment by Diligent, which put more than 2,000 people to the test, surveying them on their experiences as well as seeing if they could discern real emails from fake ones. In addition to the faux coworker messages, Americans reliably fell for social media messages with the phrase, ‘Did you see this pic of you? LOL’—this gambit fooled nearly 61% of participants.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Ars Technica: The art of the troll: New tool reveals egg users’—and Trump’s—posting patterns. “Tweets_analyzer requires a Twitter account for authentication, as well as Twitter API credentials and, of course, a tweaked Python environment. It’s not exactly something to be handed over blindly to the average tweeter. But in the right hands (and with a little patience due to Twitter API rate-limiting), it can help analyze accounts to identify networks of Twitter bots or trolls concealing their actual location and identity.” Good morning, Internet…

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