TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Firstpost: Google is rolling out ‘Smiles of 2017’ on Google Photos; a short video collage of your happy moments. “Photo sharing and storage service Google Photos is rolling out short video collages called ‘Smiles of 2017’ that displays smiling pictures of the users accompanied by a song in the background.”

Search Engine Land: Google image search results tests new related searches box. “Google is testing a new ‘related searches’ box in the mobile version of the Google Image search results page. Robin Rozhon spotted the change and posted a screen shot on Twitter of this new box.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hey, Amit got us a holiday present. From Digital Inspiration: Transform your Google Slides Presentation into an Animated GIF and Tweet. “TallTweets was created in 2010 to get around the 140-character limit of Twitter. You could write a note of any length and TallTweets would squeeze it into a single tweet by posting your text as an image. Now that Twitter offers a native solution in the form of threaded tweets, it is time to pivot. Introducing the all-new Tall Tweets app for Google Slides. It will help you convert your presentations into high-quality animated GIFs that you attach in an email, embed on a web page or share on Twitter right within the Tall Tweets app.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Washington Post: Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options. “The events surrounding the FBI’s NorthernNight investigation follow a pattern that repeated for years as the Russian threat was building: U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies saw some warning signs of Russian meddling in Europe and later in the United States but never fully grasped the breadth of the Kremlin’s ambitions. Top U.S. policymakers didn’t appreciate the dangers, then scrambled to draw up options to fight back. In the end, big plans died of internal disagreement, a fear of making matters worse or a misguided belief in the resilience of American society and its democratic institutions.”

Business Insider: Search engines are weakening Amazon’s hold on product search. “Amazon’s share of initial product searches dropped from 55% in 2016 to 49% in 2017, and search engines like Google appear to be responsible, according to a survey from Survata as cited by Bloomberg. Search engines’ share went from 28% to 36% between 2016 and 2017, reversing the drop they saw between 2015, when they had 34%, and 2016.”

New York Times: Yes, More Facebook Friends Are Asking You for Money. “Perhaps your college friend asked you to support her quarterly magazine for her birthday. Or maybe your neighbor nudged you to donate to his favorite food bank on ‘Giving Tuesday’ the week after Thanksgiving. And then there’s that pesky public-health nonprofit you’ve been charitable to in the past. If you’ve gotten on Facebook at all this year, you’ve probably been asked to give money. And if you’re like many users, your newsfeed became particularly overrun by Fund-raisers during the last month or so.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg Quint: Google Extends Commitments Stemming From U.S. Antitrust Case. ” Alphabet Inc.’s Google said it will extend commitments made five years ago to U.S. antitrust officials related to how developers use its advertising platform and the scraping of third-party content in search results.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Social networking sites may be controlling your mind – here’s how to take charge. “But how free are we today? There are industries dedicated to capturing and selling our attention – and the best bait is social networking. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have drawn us closer round the campfire of our shared humanity. Yet, they come with costs, both personal and political. Users must decide if the benefits of these sites outweigh their costs. This decision should be freely made. But can it be, if social networking sites are potentially addictive? The decision should also be informed. But can it be, if we don’t know what is happening behind the curtain?”

The Next Web: TNW’s possibly accurate predictions for technology in 2018. “We undertook a 12 month quest in a mystical land to seek the oracle of enlightenment in order to determine what would happen in the world of technology circa 2018. When that didn’t work, we started guessing. Here’s what happens next.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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