The local council announced that “kids could have unlimited salad, fruit, and bread.” Thanks to the 9-year-old clever girl, Martha Payne, who decided to start a blog with photos and vital statistics about her daily school lunches. Almost immediately, Martha’s school lunch blog got international attention, including from prominent school lunch busybody Jamie Oliver.

‘Information’ To ‘Knowledge Agent’: Google Changes The Way It Does Search  (via courtenaybird)

Further reading: Google Gets Back to Its Roots With New Search Update

(via courtenaybird)

theatlantic:

Google Gets Back to Its Roots With New Search Update

How good is Google at both guessing what you want to know and having that information in its databases? In some cases, the company is really good. “Based on the other things that people are looking for when they are looking for Tom Cruise, our knowledge graph is going to show you 39 percent of the answers to the next thing you might be looking for,” said Joanna Wright, director of product management for The Google Knowledge Graph, which is what the company is calling this new feature.

To me, this update is the epitome of what Google does best. The graph makes the process of Googling something faster, easier, and better. The corporate imperative to keep people searching on Google in the face of renewed competition matches up very nicely with consumers’ desires for the best, fastest search experience. That hasn’t always been the case with the company’s social search integration, so this update feels so refreshing. It’s like a friend in the midst of a midlife crisis returning the Porsche and embracing a trusty new four-door.

You may not have Google Knowledge Graph yet, but you will soon. The company is rolling it out this week, so get ready to see your right column transformed. 

Read more. [Image: Google]

Getting back to (one’s) roots is always the safest option in case you’re already misdirected. Google is often prone to go beyond its root to do something differently and that often cause irritation to its users. Have you ever felt that punch-to-the-stomach feeling of clicking “Google Search” and/or “I’m Feeling Lucky”?? As one James Blair points out:

It [Google] interferes with search results half the time giving me what I *DONT* want to see. It pushes more and more advertising (explicit or implicit) at me. Now it wants to throw more garbage in the way of my searches. […] I use google to seach the internet for information. Thats what its purpose was. The more google tries to second-guess what I’m trying to do, the more frustrating and useless the entire search process becomes.

shortformblog:

Mind you, this an industry that had to be saved from itself through a massive infusion of cash from the federal government (ie., you and me, the people who pay taxes). And what was the lesson learned from the brush with disaster? You tell me. JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, the face of oblivious Wall Street wealth, received $23 million in total compensation last year, about the same as the year before, according to Bloomberg. (Yes, I know JP Morgan repaid its $25 billion in taxpayer money.)

So you’ll have to pardon me if I get a few chuckles out of the irreverence of a young entrepreneur who, far as I know, hasn’t been subsidized by taxpayers and hasn’t risked taking the global economy off a cliff.

Mark Zuckerberg should wear a hoodie to every single business meeting for the rest of his life. Just to annoy Wall Street.

Exactly. That’s what I want to say here!

courtenaybird:

Why Twitter Is Bigger Than You Think 

“Here you can see that 11% of Americans 12+ (the gray slice) have not heard of Twitter, which means that 89% have. That is more than the percentage of Americans with online access (~86%), by the way, which gives you a pretty good yardstick for the ubiquity of Twitter.”

thenextweb:

Brazil has overtaken India as the second biggest country on Facebook, SocialBakers reports. According to the social media analytics firm, the country now has over 46m Facebook users, a 22% increase over the last three months: (via Brazil Now the Second Biggest Country on Facebook)

world-shaker:

Google today announced that it is bringing web fonts to Google Docs. Thanks to this update, you can now use 450 new fonts in your Google documents. These are the same 450 fonts Google already features on its Web Fonts site for web designers. In addition, Google also announced that it added over 60 new templates to its template gallery over the last month, improved support for screenreaders in Docs and added more options for inserting images into documents, including support for Google Drive and webcams. Docs users can now also search for images in the LIFE photo archive and insert them into their documents.

(via Google Updates Google Docs With 450 New Fonts, 60 New Templates And More | TechCrunch)

newsweek:

sweetandsouranything:

You guise, they called us the coolest people on the planet!

BECAUSE YOU ARE. Duh. Just reporting the truth.

“Can Tumblr…?” Yes, yes… from now on »

It’s already raked in $125 million in financing in the last year, and now the blogging site is welcoming advertisers, rolling out a new feature Wednesday that costs $25,000. Just don’t call the paid content ‘an ad.’ […] Tumblr threw open its doors to advertisers Wednesday, inviting anyone with $25,000 to vie for the attention of the blogging site’s 12 million daily visitors. For that, you can get your message out to President Obama, Beyonce, and the man who puts his dog on things.

And, the man who creates Movie Mimic, CAT SCIENTISTS OF THE 1960S, Social Media Guru Ryan Gosling and to many more like them. Yes, Tumblr finally announced that there are two advertising products available to sponsors for a minimum $25,000 package commitment. Approved — and that’s a key detail — advertisers and media companies can pay for content placement and account exposure through Tumblr Radar and Tumblr Spotlight. You know, the internet is all about… advertising and there is nothing wrong with that.

Popular social networking site Facebook just added a organ donor status option for your Facebook Timeline »

Today, Facebook unveiled an organ donor status option for your Timeline, a move meant to help more than 114,000 people in the U.S. and millions more around the world who are awaiting a potentially life-saving heart, kidney, or liver transplant. […] To become an official organ donor, you must sign up with the appropriate state organ donor registry. Most people do this when they first get their driver’s license.  If you haven’t already done so, however, Facebook is providing a link to those registries next to the Organ Donor menu on your profile.

courtenaybird:

By the time network news broke into programming 21 minutes after Urbahn’s initial tweet, 80% of tweets discussing bin Laden’s death had been written as fact or in certain terms, according to the study.

“We believe Twitter was so quick to trust the rumors because of who sent the first few tweets… They came from reputable sources. It’s unlikely that a CBS News producer or a New York Times reporter would spread rumors of something so important and risk jeopardizing their reputation. Twitter saw their credentials and quickly believed the news was true.”

After the initial reports and confirmations, however, something interesting happened: Celebrities became the key connectors in spreading news about bin Laden’s death. Within a half-hour of the first television reports, a group of 100 “elite users,” including comedian Steve Martin and reality stars Kim Kardashian and Paul “DJ Pauly D” DelVecchio of MTV’s “Jersey Shore,” had surpassed the traditional media’s reach in spreading the news by Twitter.

Brains wired up by Twitter feeds!

thisistheverge:

Bloomberg: Spotify’s new radio app will be more like Pandora, access previously unlicensed music

Spotify is in the midst of a rapid cycle of evolution and growth, and today Bloomberg suggests its next big spurt is going to be in online radio. Insider sources have told the news outlet that Spotify is working on adding a Pandora-like component to its music streaming service — one where you’re not in control of the tracks played by the application. 

shortformblog:

boston:

The overuse of exclamation points!

E-mails and text messages have pushed the exclamation epidemic to a dire point. There’s now a name for it – the very unpleasant slang “bangorrhea.”

The Boston Globe may not like them, but we think they’re bangin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, this unpleasant made up word: bangorrhea consists of two words » bang + diarrhea (n. & v. & adv.)

Facebook’s Lack of Women Board Members Inspires Small, But Growing, Protest

The protest was organized by Ultraviolet, a new nonprofit 501(c)(4) advocacy organization that seeks to fight sexism, which began its activities in February. […] Ultraviolet’s co-founder Shaunna Thomas attempted to hand deliver to Facebook a box of 53,000 petitions signed by users online, but was turned away at the door by building security.

(via theatlantic)

producermatthew:

DEVELOPING: ”Karp just announced that the Featured spot on the Tumblr dashboard is going up for sale to advertisers.”

Looks like ads are finally coming to Tumblr in at least one form. [h/t @rossneumann]