NEW RESOURCES

From Philly.com: Families torn apart by slavery sought lost loved ones in newly archived ads. “The goal of ‘Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery’ is an online databAase of these snapshots from history, which hold names of former slaves, owners, traders, plantation locations, and relatives gone missing. So far, project researchers have uploaded and transcribed 1,000 ads published in six newspapers from 1863 to 1902: the South Carolina Leader in Charleston, the Colored Citizen in Cincinnati, the Free Man’s Press in Galveston, the Black Republican in New Orleans, the Colored Tennessean in Nashville, and the Christian Recorder, the official organ of the African Methodist Episcopal Church denomination published at Mother Bethel.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Stanford: Archives launches women, LGBTQ and communities of color initiative. “The Stanford University Archives is proud to announce an ongoing initiative to acquire, process and digitize materials documenting Stanford women, the LGBTQ community, and communities of color.”

From Yahoo UK: Yahoo announced global content partnerships with The Telegraph, the Guardian, The Independent, Evening Standard and Hearst UK. “The move enables the publishers to distribute content via a curated feed, created in partnership with Yahoo in five countries, the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, India and Singapore.”

Engadget: WhatsApp status updates now look a lot like Snapchat. ” In a confirmation of rumors from the fall, WhatsApp has overhauled its status feature with an option to share photos and videos much like you would in Snapchat Stories.”

YouTube will be livestreaming the BRITs. “Famous YouTube funnyman Caspar Lee will bring you top gossip from the event on the official BRITs channel. And just who might Caspar be rubbing shoulders with? ROYALTY. Pop royalty, that’s who. This year’s bill is topped by Brit legends and international superstars and includes performances from Ed Sheeran, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Robbie Williams, Emeli Sandé, Little Mix, The 1975 and U.K. sensation Skepta. ”

USEFUL STUFF

TheNextWeb: This Chrome extension blocks audio and video autoplay on any website. Sounds good to me! “To the dismay of netizens across the world, last week Facebook announced plans to start autoplaying audio on videos as you scroll through your timeline. But fret no more as there’s an app that can block all the impendent cacophony – on Facebook and everywhere else.”

Shake Up Learning: Free G Suite Training On Demand for Teachers and Students. “Ready to take your Google skills to the next level? No time for extended workshops and training, but need hands-on guidance? Need an easy way to help students learn and navigate Google Classroom, Gmail, Docs, etc.? This awesome G Suite Training Chrome Extensions from Google is just what you need!”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

This article from Polygon is an excellent “behind the scenes” look at YouTubing for a living: The three reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber. “I go by ‘slowbeef,’ and I’ve been doing Let’s Plays and related content since about 2007. I’m certainly not rich off of, or successful from my videos, but I run in those circles because I’ve been doing it for so long in addition to my day job. Some people even consider me a progenitor of it. I talk to a lot of the A-Listers — the people whose names you know — rather often and I have some insight into that world. I have one foot in the door, and see a lot of what goes on behind the scenes.”

Washington Post: Why Verizon is still buying Yahoo on sale, despite that epic security breach. “When reports surfaced last week that Verizon was renegotiating its deal to acquire Yahoo, some analysts were stunned to learn how little of a price cut the telecom giant was seeking — about $250 million — despite the Web company’s well-known missteps with customer security. But on Tuesday, the two companies ultimately agreed to a discount of $350 million, or about 7 percent.” It must be nice to have that much money to whiz away. I think Verizon going ahead is a terrible idea.

RESEARCH AND OPINION

FedTech: Federal Officials Should Disclose Vulnerabilities for Security’s Sake. “Generally, government serves its goals best by disclosing vulnerabilities. When federal leaders take advantage of existing flaws to circumvent computer security, the only difference between their activity and criminal hacking is a legal one. As a technical matter, the two are indistinguishable.However, any vulnerability the government exploits could be used by criminals as well. When the government sits on a newly discovered vulnerability, it exposes innocent users to increased risk.”

New York Times: What Facebook Owes to Journalism. “Local news is weak in large part because the business models have collapsed. The main reason: As advertising spending shifted from print, TV and radio to the internet, the money didn’t mostly go to digital news organizations. Increasingly, it goes to Facebook and Google. Of the $59 billion spent on all digital advertising in 2015 — across millions of web sites, by millions of advertisers — $36 billion went to those two companies. ”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

Oh, why not. From The Drum: Oreo’s latest gimmick lets fans virtually launch cookies into space via Google Earth. “Mondelez’s Oreo has rolled out a mobile game that lets fans of the cookie brand launch Oreos into space and watch them fall into glasses of milk all over the world.” Good morning, Internet…

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