Google’s latest voice search features now available in Chrome
It’s all about voice
My darling David,
Don’t let these earthly considerations stand in the way of our relationship. Getting to know Tumblr has been the biggest joy of my life. I have never felt so young, so alive, so full of hope for the future as when I am watching your metrics rise exponentially each day.
Oh, I…
(Source: newyorker.com)
Citizens of the Internet, we’ve reached a milestone: This may be the first major web acquisition announced via GIF.
Also, we talked to one Internet expert who thinks we should all be freaking out, and another one who thinks we shouldn’t be. So, you know, take that for what it’s worth.
(via seattle-gadgets)
I’m delighted to announce that we’ve reached an agreement to acquire Tumblr!
We promise not to screw it up. Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going. We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO. The product roadmap, their team, their wit and…
Note to Yahoo: If you post images in text posts, they don’t look as good on the dashboard as straight-up image posts. You guys are new here, so we’ll give you some time to get used to things.
A guessing game that teleport to a random place the Street View Car’s been, and you’ve to make a guess where you are.
Forget passwords—let your phone scan your fingerprints or eyes.
Steve Souders, from How fast are we going now? | High Performance Web Sites. The post is a summary of Steve’s presentation on the same topic given at the HTML5Developer Conference.
From both the deck and the post:
The deck, at a key slide:
This is also closely tied to my previous post, sharing a recent video/deck report by Ilya Grigorik from Google regarding building a sub-1000ms rendering barrier on mobile devices (and the gains therein).
(via journo-geekery)(via journo-geekery)
Google Earth Engine is a joint project between Google and NASA that allows anyone access to a 30 year time-lapse of the surface of the earth. I made a video about how amazing, terrifying, and important it is.
(via think4yourself)
Mark this date. I have a feeling this is going to be a huge disruption in the TV space. It’s limited to select partners for right now, but I’ll bet that anyone with a YouTube channel will get the opportunity eventually. And as Mat Honan sais, this brings us “a small step closer to the dream of a la carte programming.”
YouTube will let you pay to subscribe to channels with a new pilot program that includes a limited number of channel partners for now. The company listed Jim Henson Family TV and Ultimate Fighting Championship as initial members.
Prices start at $.99 per month, paid via Google Wallet. Users get a 14 day free trial to channels, which are also discounted if you subscribe by the year. Once signed up for a paid channel, you can suck down as much video as it has to offer.
Just like some popular social networking sites, online video services are moving to become (big) networks on their own. This’s good news. But, this debate will continue, unendingly: Should we all pay for what we watch OR should we all pay for what some of us like to watch??
Pinterest’s recent redesign is intended to cut down on clutter and make the site easier to manage, without drastically changing its look. […] One of the most noticeable changes so far is Pinterest’s move to larger pins, so you get four rather than five items per row. The site looks cleaner and less overwhelming because you don’t see as many items on the screen at once.
Instagram Introduces Photos of You Feature
Instagram has added a new feature to their photo sharing app that allows you to add people to…
Likes Don’t Save Lives
UNICEF Sweden has a new ad campaign reminding people that while social media Likes are nice, what they really need is money to fund their vaccination campaigns.
As The Verge points out, “Facebook likes aren’t treated as currency in other commercial venues, so they shouldn’t be equated with charitable donations.”
And via The Atlantic:
In the beginning, organizations wanted you to like the heck out of their Facebook pages. Why? You know, community-building, awareness-raising, general “engagement”-upping…
…But one thing clicking “like” doesn’t do is, say, get malaria nets to African villages or boost funding for charity groups. And now that Facebook is nearly 9 years old and Twitter is 7, we’re seeing the inevitable backlash against social-media “slacktivism.”
Back to The Verge:
The campaign, created by ad agency Forsman & Bodenfors, takes a rather bold stance against the awareness campaigns that often spread across Facebook and other social media platforms. UNICEF officials acknowledge that such efforts can help introduce issues to a wider audience, though they fear that for most users, the action stops with the click of a button. To further stress this point, UNICEF Sweden released a bold poster alongside the video clips, saying that every like it receives on Facebook will result in exactly zero vaccinations.
That’s not to say “slacktivists” are a bad thing. Liking, sharing and reblogging do serve their purpose in bringing issues to a wider audience. But then what?
Last year, The Atlantic notes, Zeynep Tufekci, a sociology professor and a fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society, had this to say:
What is called commonly called slacktivism is not at all about “slacking activists;” rather it is about non-activists taking symbolic action—often in spheres traditionally engaged only by activists or professionals (governments, NGOs, international institutions.). Since these so-called “slacktivists” were never activists to begin with, they are not in dereliction of their activist duties. On the contrary, they are acting, symbolically and in a small way, in a sphere that has traditionally been closed off to “the masses” in any meaningful fashion.
The goal then for those working in social media is to simultaneously help the “slacktivist” set help you by building out ambient awareness of an issue through the messaging you create, while also giving activists and more consistently loyal proponents direct calls to action be it donations, volunteerism, network building, etc.
Meantime, if you’re moved to Like a cause, consider volunteering your time and/or other resources to it as well.
The other two commercials in UNICEF’s campaign can be viewed at The Verge. — Michael
