NEW RESOURCES

Students in Missouri will have more options for summer school (PRESS RELEASE). “This summer, Missouri students will have access to more summer school courses than ever through the Missouri Online Summer Institute (MOSI), a tuition- free online program open to students in grades 7 – 12. Over one hundred online courses are being offered this year, including career-oriented electives and Advanced Placement® courses. MOSI is a program of the Grandview R-2 school district.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Facebook launches stories to complete its all-out assault on Snapchat. “Facebook is rolling out ephemeral stories and messaging in its mobile apps today, bringing the popular format for sharing photos and videos to more than 1.65 billion people a day.”

Techdirt: Twitter Reports On Government Agencies Using ‘Report Tweet’ Function To Block Terrorism-Related Content. “For the last six months of 2016, Twitter received reports on nearly 6,000 accounts from a total of 716 reports by government agencies. The numbers aren’t broken down any further than that, so there’s no telling which governments are utilizing this reporting system most. All Twitter is reporting is that less than 2% of account suspensions are the result of government reports and that it’s refused to act on 15% of government-reported accounts. Each account is counted only once, even if there are multiple reports or multiple tweets reported by government agencies.”

TechCrunch: Twitter introduces pre-roll ads to Periscope videos. “Twitter is announcing a new ad unit — pre-roll ads on Periscope videos. In a blog post, Periscope Group Project Manager Mike Folgner says the ads will appear in a way that’s ‘organic to how people already consume that content on the platform.’ Basically, publishers will have the option to run a short video ad that plays before you watch their Periscope videos (both live broadcasts and replays) on Twitter.”

USEFUL STUFF

PCWorld: How to keep a private stash of bookmarks in Chrome. “Incognito Mode in Chrome can keep your browsing history secret unless you have a nosy Internet Service Provider, and you’re not using a VPN. But one thing incognito doesn’t keep secret are any bookmarks you’ve got. If you’ve ever wanted to keep a private collection of bookmarks the Chrome extension Hush is one solution.”

Social Media Explorer: The Ultimate Guide to Link Building. “Link building is one of the most surefire ways to skyrocket your website’s rankings. We can’t deny that massive quality link building was one of the methods that helped to rapidly put NinjaOutreach on the map. So in this competitor link building guide, we will share the steps we took to acquire those relevant, quality links, coupled with real data from some of our own link building campaigns.” I am not into SEO or link building or any of that stuff, but I couldn’t ignore this article – it was just too extensive. Very good.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

There have been lots and lots and lots of stories about Google’s advertising placement from the perspective of advertisers, but Stephen E. Arnold has a view from the publishing side of things. “I have a site which I use to provide information to those who attend my law enforcement, intelligence, and security lectures and webinars. The site also has information about my books written specifically for law enforcement and intelligence professionals. I don’t recall when we included Google ads on the site, but it has not been an issue until today, March 26, 2017.”

WIRED: Social Media Influencers Finally Come to … Medicine. “Just as Snapchat and Instagram and YouTube have influencers, so too does medicine. Chronic diseases occupy an online world of memes, hashtags (#hospitalglam), and people who provide information and insights to communities that too often feel they have no voice. A growing number of companies are hiring these patient influencers to reach, and understand, these folks. And, of course, sell them stuff.”

BBC: Just google it: The student project that changed the world. “Google dominates the search market, handling close to 90% of searches worldwide. Many businesses rely on ranking highly in its organic search results. And Google constantly tweaks the algorithm that decides them. Google gives general advice about how to do well, but it is not transparent about how it ranks results – not least because that would give away the information necessary to game the system. We would be back to searching for cars and getting porn.” I do not agree with everything in this article – actually I yelled at the monitor a couple of times – but it’s a good backgrounder.

Engadget: An AI taught me to be a better tweeter. “Twitter is an extension of my subconscious, a pressure valve that lets half-baked thoughts escape my mind. In the last seven years, I’ve tweeted 73,811 times, and yet none of those 140-character messages has made me internet-famous. For all my efforts, I’ve accrued just 5,635 followers, most of whom are in tech and were probably made to follow me by their boss. It seems that no matter how much I try, I’m never going to become a celebrity tweeter.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

South China Morning Post: Laptops containing 3.7 million Hong Kong voters’ data stolen after chief executive election. “In what could be one of Hong Kong’s most significant data breaches ever, the personal information of the city’s 3.7 million voters was possibly compromised after the Registration and Electoral Office reported two laptop computers went missing at its backup venue for the chief executive election.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Phys.org: Development of image-analysis technology with AI for real-time identity detection and tracking. “Hitachi, Ltd. today announced the development of a detection and tracking technology using artificial intelligence (AI) which can distinguish an individual in real-time using features from over 100 categories of external characteristics such as sex, color of clothing or carried items, and immediately detect and track the person sought after individual.” What could POSSIBLY go wrong? Good morning, Internet…

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