Here are some web trends for 2020:
Responsive web design in 2020 should be a given because every serious project that you create should look good and be completely usable on all devices. But there’s no need to over-complicate things.
Web Development in 2020: What Coding Tools You Should Learn article gives an overview of recommendations what you learn to become a web developer in 2020.
You might have seen Web 3.0 on some slides. What is the definition of web 3 we are talking about here?
There seems to be many different to choose from… Some claim that you need to blockchain the cloud IOT otherwise you’ll just get a stack overflow in the mainframe but I don’t agree on that.
Information on the web address bar will be reduced on some web browsers. With the release of Chrome 79, Google completes its goal of erasing www from the browser by no longer allowing Chrome users to automatically show the www trivial subdomain in the address bar.
You still should target to build quality web site and avoid the signs of a low-quality web site. Get good inspiration for your web site design.
Still a clear and logical structure is the first thing that needs to be turned over in mind before the work on the website gears up. The website structure for search robots is its internal links. The more links go to a page, the higher its priority within the website, and the more times the search engine crawls it.
You should upgrade your web site, but you need to do it sensibly and well. Remember that a site upgrade can ruin your search engine visibility if you do it badly. The biggest risk to your site getting free search engine visibility is site redesign. Bad technology selection can ruin the visibility of a new site months before launch. Many new sites built on JavaScript application frameworks do not benefit in any way from the new technologies. Before you go into this bandwagon, you should think critically about whether your site will benefit from the dynamic capabilities of these technologies more than they can damage your search engine visibility. Well built redirects can help you keep the most outbound links after site changes.
If you go to the JavaScript framework route on your web site, keep in mind that there are many to choose, and you need to choose carefully to find one that fits for your needs and is actively developed also in the future.
JavaScript survey: Devs love a bit of React, but Angular and Cordova declining. And you’re not alone… a chunk of pros also feel JS is ‘overly complex’
Keep in mind the recent changes on the video players and Google analytics. And for animated content keep in mind that GIF animations exists still as a potential tool to use.
Keep in mind the the security. There is a skill gap in security for many. I’m not going to say anything that anyone who runs a public-facing web server doesn’t already know: the majority of these automated blind requests are for WordPress directories and files. PHP exploits are a distant second. And there are many other things that are automatically attacked. Test your site with security scanners.
APIs now account for 40% of the attack surface for all web-enabled apps. OWASP has identified 10 areas where enterprises can lower that risk. There are many vulnerability scanning tools available. Check also How to prepare and use Docker for web pentest . Mozilla has a nice on-line tool for web site security scanning.
The slow death of Flash continues. If you still use Flash, say goodbye to it. Google says goodbye to Flash, will stop indexing Flash content in search.
Use HTTPS on your site because without it your site rating will drop on search engines visibility. It is nowadays easy to get HTTPS certificates.
Write good content and avoid publishing fake news on your site. Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it’s learned may be crucial to Western democracy,
Think to who you are aiming to your business web site to. Analyze who is your “true visitor” or “power user”. A true visitor is a visitor to a website who shows a genuine interest in the content of the site. True visitors are the people who should get more of your site and have the potential to increase the sales and impact of your business. The content that your business offers is intended to attract visitors who are interested in it. When they show their interest, they are also very likely to be the target group of the company.
Should you think of your content management system (CMS) choice? Flexibility, efficiency, better content creation: these are just some of the promised benefits of a new CMS. Here is How to convince your developers to change CMS.
Here are some fun for the end:
Did you know that if a spider creates a web at a place?
The place is called a website
Confession: How JavaScript was made.
2,214 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here comes the web browser 100 problem | ZDNet
https://www.zdnet.com/article/here-comes-the-web-browser-100-problem/
Google Chrome and Firefox will both soon release their 100th version — and that could mean trouble for both website developers and web browser users.
Soon both Google Chrome, the most popular of all web browsers, and the Firefox web browser will release their 100th version. Now, besides just being a cool number, there are technical issues that come with these anniversary releases. Some of those issues may cause your websites to fail.
Yes, fail. Here’s why.
All web browsers come with a User-Agent (UA). This is a string that browsers send in HTTP headers, so servers can identify the browser. JavaScript also uses it with the JavaScript navigator.userAgent. Web developers use the UA in all kinds of ways with their server-side programs.
You can check today if your site has such a problem using a Chrome feature flag, which forces Chrome to send a three-digit UA. Then, you can check to see if the new UA is being presented properly by visiting the test site, Is Chrome 100 Yet? Then you can use this browser to check out your own sites for problems. Firefox is also offering similar tests.
https://is-chrome-100-yet.glitch.me/
https://www.otsukare.info/2021/04/20/ua-three-digits-get-ready
Tomi Engdahl says:
Html-hakkeriksi väitetty toimittaja pääsi pälkähästä katsoi vain sivuston lähdekoodia https://www.tivi.fi/uutiset/tv/7bc5feec-bb40-4843-8c16-d892ef796bef
Verkkosivun html:ää vilkaissut toimittaja on vapautettu rikosepäilyistä Missourissa Yhdysvalloissa. Toimittaja oli yrittänyt kertoa paikalliselle kouluhallinnolle tietovuodosta sen sivuilla, mutta joutui itse oudon raastuvalla uhkailun kohteeksi.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter restricted in Russia amid conflict with Ukraine
https://netblocks.org/reports/twitter-restricted-in-russia-amid-conflict-with-ukraine-JBZrogB6
NetBlocks metrics confirm the restriction of Twitter in Russia from the morning of Saturday 26 February 2022. The restrictions are in effect across multiple providers and come as Russian authorities and social media platforms clash over platform rules in relation to the conflict with Ukraine. Network data show that access to the Twitter platform and backend servers are restricted on leading networks including Rostelecom, MTS, Beeline and MegaFon as of 9:00 a.m.
Saturday morning UTC. Circumvention is currently possible using VPN services, which can help users work around the online censorship.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ukrainan sota kasvattaa kybervaikuttamisen uhkaa myös Suomessa Suojelupoliisi kehottaa yrityksiä varautumaan kriittisen infrastruktuurin suojaamiseen https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/ukrainan-sota-kasvattaa-kybervaikuttamisen-uhkaa-myos-suomessa-suojelupoliisi-kehottaa-yrityksia-varautumaan-kriittisen-infrastruktuurin-suojaamiseen/a6113df9-8029-4975-bd9a-4a9c4dcf626a
Suojelupoliisin tehtävä on torjua kriittiseen infrastruktuuriin kohdistuvia uhkia, mutta Suomessa se on yksityisten yritysten hallussa. Siksi yrityksillä on keskeinen merkitys kybervaikuttamiselta suojautumisessa. Venäjän hyökkäys Ukrainaan on lisännyt jännitettä myös Suomen turvallisuuspoliittiseen tilanteeseen. Näin arveli myös suojelupoliisi, joka kehotti perjantaina Twitterissä yrityksiä varautumaan kybervaikuttamisen uhkaan.. Huomio yritykset! Erittäin jännittynyt turvallisuuspoliittinen tilanne kasvattaa myös Suomen kriittiseen infrastruktuuriin kohdistuvan kybervaikuttamisen uhkaa, Suojelupoliisi kirjoitti Twitterissä.
Concetto Labs says:
Concetto Labs Is, Chicago based company established in 2014. Concetto Labs is a leading solution provider for Cross-Platform / Hybrid Mobile App development.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HTML section elements are a lie (sort of)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULdkpU51hTQ
Semantic HTML elements like the main, aside, footer, nav, and others all come with, well, semantic meaning… sections don’t actually have that extra meaning, unless we take an extra step though!
00:00 – Introduction
01:29 – Typical usage of sections
02:15 – landmarks
02:43 – the region role
03:50 – adding semantic meaning to sections
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Several US state AGs launch a probe into TikTok, focusing on whether the app’s design and operations negatively impact young users’ physical or mental health — – TikTok is under investigation by a bipartisan group of state attorneys general to determine if the popular short-form video …
TikTok’s effects on kids and teens under investigation by states
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/02/bipartisan-state-ags-investigating-tiktoks-impact-on-kids-and-teens.html
TikTok is under investigation by a bipartisan group of state attorneys general to determine if the popular short-form video platform negatively affects the health of their younger users.
The AGs are seeking to find out if the app violated state consumer-protection laws.
The probe is the latest evidence of momentum behind the push for greater protections for children online.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cybersecurity Experts Urge EU Lawmakers to Fix Website Authentication Proposal That Puts Internet Users’ Security and Privacy at Risk https://www.eff.org/press/releases/cybersecurity-experts-urge-eu-lawmakers-fix-website-authentication-proposal-puts
A letter today to members of the European Parliament said requiring browsers to accept Qualified Website Authentication Certificates
(QWACs) would put the entire website security ecosystem at risk by requiring browsers to trust third parties designated by the government without any security assurances.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Love the jq command? Now we have htmlq tool. It is like jq, but for HTML.
https://www.cyberciti.biz/open-source/command-line-hacks/using-htmlq-to-extract-content-from-html-files-on-linux-unix/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cybersecurity Experts Urge EU Lawmakers to Fix Website Authentication Proposal That Puts Internet Users’ Security and Privacy at Risk
Proposed Amendment Will Expose Users to Cyberattacks
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/cybersecurity-experts-urge-eu-lawmakers-fix-website-authentication-proposal-puts
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) technologists, along with 36 of the world’s top cybersecurity experts, today urged European lawmakers to reject proposed changes to European Union (EU) regulations for securing electronic payments and other online transactions that will dramatically weaken web security and expose internet users to increased risk of attacks by cybercriminals.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.mysafety.fi/lehdistohuone/sosiaalisessa-mediassa-kiusataan-aina-paitsi-linkedinissa-miksi
Tomi Engdahl says:
Onko Google Analytics laiton? – 3 vaihtoehtoista tapaa reagoida viranomaislinjauksiin
https://www.hopkins.fi/artikkelit/onko-google-analytics-laiton/
Tomi Engdahl says:
TikTok Was Designed for War
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine plays out online, the platform’s design and algorithm prove ideal for the messiness of war—but a nightmare for the truth.
https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-russia-war-tiktok/#intcid=_wired-bottom-recirc_8e802014-a05f-48c5-89e8-9dad931361ad_text2vec1-reranked-by-vidi
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloomberg:
TikTok suspends livestreaming and new content uploads in Russia in response to the country’s new law that would impose prison terms for spreading “fake news”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-06/tiktok-says-it-is-suspending-livestreaming-in-russia
Tomi Engdahl says:
WebGPU… Better Than WebGL?
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/09/webgpu-better-than-webgl/
As the browser becomes more like an operating system, we are seeing more deep features being built into them. For example, you can now do a form of assembly language for the browser. Sophisticated graphics have been around using WebGL since around 2011, but some people find it hard to use. [Surma] was one of those people and tried a new method that is just surfacing to do the same thing: WebGPU.
[Surma] liked it better and shares a lot of information in the post and — oddly — the post doesn’t use WebGPU for graphics very much. Instead, the post focuses on using GPU cores for fast computation, something else you can do with WebGPU. If your goal is to draw on the screen, though, you need to know the basics and the post links to a site with examples of doing this.
https://surma.dev/things/webgpu/
https://austin-eng.com/webgpu-samples/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kuinka paljon somevaikuttajat saavat palkkaa?
https://www.wideworld.fi/organisaatio/kuinka-paljon-somevaikuttajat-saavat-palkkaa/
Tyypillisesti vaikuttajat odottavat saavansa noin 12 euroa jokaisesta 1000 seuraajasta. Mutta jos esimerkiksi vaikuttajan viimeisimmät videot saavat noin 10 000 katselukertaa verrattuna aiempien videoiden 5 000 katselukertaan, voi hän huoletta pyytää enemmän palkkaa. Antaaksemme sinulle käsityksen yhteistöiden pituuksista markkinoijat keskimäärin odottavat maksavansa 250 euroa vaikuttajalle, jolla on alle 20 000 seuraajaa, 500€ alle 50 000 seuraajalla ja 1000€ per julkaisu somevaikuttaja pääsee yli 100 000 aktiivisella seuraajalla.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.jcdecaux.fi/fi/uutiset/hyvia-uutisia-digitaalista-ulkomainontaa-voi-ostaa-nyt-ohjelmallisesti
Tomi Engdahl says:
Russia bans Instagram, a week after blocking Facebook, Twitter https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/russia-bans-instagram-a-week-after-blocking-facebook-twitter/
Russian Internet watchdog Roskomnadzor announced that Instagram will also be banned in Russia one week after blocking the Facebook and Twitter social networks. “As you know, on March 11, Meta Platforms Inc. made an unprecedented decision by allowing the posting of information containing calls for violence against Russian citizens on its social networks Facebook and Instagram, ” the Russian Internet watchdog said. myös:
https://www.is.fi/digitoday/art-2000008676248.html – Venäjä aikoo estää Whatsappin ja Instagramin käytön Interfax: Syyttäjät pyytävät nimeämään Metan “äärijärjestöksi”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook- ja Instagram-mainonta tuotti 89 % paremmin, kun NOSH panosti testaukseen, automatisointiin ja visuaalisuuteen
https://www.hopkins.fi/kokemuksia/nosh/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/15/run-your-own-server-for-fun-and-zero-profit/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Interview with Automattic CEO on the company’s growth, the future of open-source WordPress, Tumblr and Apple’s App Store rules, Web3, Bitcoin, Ethereum, more
How WordPress and Tumblr are keeping the internet weird
CEO Matt Mullenweg on why he bets big on small companies
https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22977857/wordpress-tumblr-simplenote-internet-automattic-matt-mullenweg-interview?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
MattMatt Mullenweg is the CEO of Automattic, the company that owns WordPress.com, which he co-founded, and Tumblr, the irrepressible social network it acquired from the wreckage of AOL, Yahoo, and Verizon.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Web3 holds the promise of decentralized, community-powered social networks
https://venturebeat.com/2022/02/26/web3-holds-the-promise-of-decentralized-community-powered-social-networks/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Create a Form in HTML and Send it to Email
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/html-form-email
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/google-maps-down-not-working-b2039118.html#Echobox=1647619502
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 mistakes small business websites often make
https://www.namecheap.com/blog/small-business-website-mistakes/
Customers are more web-savvy than ever and have become accustomed to all the amenities and options that big companies offer online. But don’t let this discourage you as a small business owner. Designing a focused, well-curated, and customer-oriented website will engage your customers organically.
Here are five easy tips from our partners at .BIZ domains that you can implement on your website today to get visitors staying longer, learning more, and buying products from your website.
Mistake #1: Creating a bare-bones website
Simply having a template with a single page is a good place to start but is not going to get you the results you want. Work to build and design a site that guides your users through a customized and seamless shopping experience. A homepage should clearly display your company title, logo, and what it does.
Mistake #2: Info overload
Thanks to innovations in web design, even small businesses can leverage contact forms, call-to-action buttons, chatbot messengers, and pop-ups. But it’s equally harmful to jam-pack everything on a single page and overwhelm the user. It’s the equivalent of sending five sales associates to a customer who has just walked through your business’ front door.
Mistake #3: Treating great web design as an afterthought
Think about adding vibrant and attractive images of the products you sell or your store itself. Think about having good mobile versions of your images, including images for retina display. Think about all the website design details such as the color, layout, and typography, which should all reflect your brand’s personality. Appearing off-brand, unprofessional, or having a poorly designed homepage will push customers away (and to the next website). Great web design is a must.
Mistake #4: Fearing the concept of search engine optimization
Don’t let SEO intimidate you as a small business owner. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your new website is, if search engines can’t find it, then your customers won’t find you.
Mistake #5: Not building a seamless checkout experience
Online shoppers have high expectations these days. With a cart abandonment rate of 75.6% on average, there should be an easy and fast checkout process where payment allows buyers to buy quickly and directly from the product page, without redirecting to a separate page. You must also make sure this seamless experience transfers to mobile users. It is worth investing in a professional designer to accomplish this.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HTML forms to email etc..
https://html.form.guide/html.form.guide/email-form/html-email-form/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/html-form-email
https://github.com/levinunnink/html-form-to-google-sheet
Tomi Engdahl says:
The People With Power at Shopify
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-people-with-power-at-shopify
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will Oremus / Washington Post:
Social media platforms are hastily rewriting their rules on hate, violence, and propaganda amid the war on Ukraine, setting precedents that may haunt them later — A month ago, praising a neo-Nazi militia or calling for violence against Russians could get you suspended from Facebook in Ukraine.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/25/social-media-ukraine-rules-war-policy/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/354242781693050/posts/1431390673978250/
Internetin uusi muoto eli Web3.0 tekee tuloaan. Aiemmista verkoista poiketen Web3.0 tulee olemaan täysin hajautettu ja avoin verkko. Lisäksi oman tiedon omistaminen, eli oman digitaalisen identiteetin ja henkilökohtaisten tietojen hallinnoiminen, on yksi sen avainominaisuuksista.
Lue lisää Web3.0:sta ja muista mieltä kutkuttavista teknologiatrendeistä Teknologiatrendit 2022 -raportistamme!
https://www.dna.fi/yrityksille/teknologiatrendit2022?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=linkad&utm_content=ILTEKIKA-opas-teknologiatrendit2022&utm_campaign=A_SESMES_21-51-22_teknologiatrendit&fbclid=IwAR2ucElXvkIIYBs8QbP454GcEyqOeaJAyP9yqhT0S72dARR7ARpO2fhk6Ts
Tomi Engdahl says:
Trendit ovat hienoja. Mutta ottaen huomioon, että Web2.0 ei ole vielä toteutunut, niin ehkä ei kannata hengitystä pidättäen odotella.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Julie Jargon / Wall Street Journal:
Research shows TikTok tic videos contribute to a rise in cases of girls with tics; US ER room visits among teen girls with tics has tripled during the pandemic — Tourette videos posted on the platform continue to draw many viewers, and doctors say teen girls keep showing up at their offices with functional neurological issues
Teen Girls Are Still Getting TikTok-Related Tics—and Other Disorders
https://www.wsj.com/articles/teen-girls-are-still-getting-tiktok-related-ticsand-other-disorders-11648248555?mod=djemalertNEWS
Tourette videos posted on the platform continue to draw many viewers, and doctors say teen girls keep showing up at their offices with functional neurological issues
Tomi Engdahl says:
Washington Post:
Meta paid Republican consulting firm Targeted Victory for a campaign to paint TikTok as a danger to the US, including placing op-eds in regional news outlets — Facebook parent company Meta is paying one of the biggest Republican consulting firms in the country to orchestrate …
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta confirms a now-fixed Facebook bug led to a “massive ranking failure” that increased views of harmful content up to 30% over the past six months — A group of Facebook engineers identified a “massive ranking failure” that exposed as much as half of all News Feed views to …
A Facebook bug led to increased views of harmful content over six months
https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/31/23004326/facebook-news-feed-downranking-integrity-bug?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
The social network touts downranking as a way to thwart problematic content, but what happens when that system breaks?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shirin Ghaffary / Vox:
Analysis: majority of the most-viewed Reels on Meta’s platforms are anonymous or reposted; Meta says Reels is Instagram’s biggest engagement growth contributor
Reels is Facebook’s TikTok clone — and its future
Facebook’s pivot back to video shows how badly it needs young people.
https://www.vox.com/recode/23002679/reels-facebook-tiktok-video?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, needs to stay relevant. While it boasts over 3.5 billion users a month across its Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp platforms, its user base is aging, it’s facing fierce competition from the short-form video platform TikTok, and its ad-targeting business model is confronting a painful disruption. What it focuses on next will determine its future and have an impact on the many people who rely on its products.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made the company’s long-term plan clear: It’s all-in on the metaverse, a virtual world where people can use augmented and virtual reality tech to interact with each other. But the metaverse for now is mostly a concept and will take five to 10 years to build.
On a recent earnings call, Zuckerberg mentioned Reels at least 20 times and listed it as his top key investment area for 2022, saying, “It’s definitely the right thing to lean into this and to push hard to grow Reels as quickly as possible and not hold on the brakes at all.”
So far, Meta’s push for Reels seems to be working, at least in terms of grabbing Facebook users’ attention: According to an exclusive analysis provided to Recode by the social internet think tank the Integrity Institute, Reels has become so popular that more than half of the top 20 most-viewed posts across Facebook (the report does not include Instagram views) in the US last quarter were Reels that were originally posted to Instagram.
Still, there’s a caveat: A majority of most-viewed Reels were shared by accounts that are anonymous or primarily aggregate and repost other creators’ content, like TikTok videos.
That finding reflects a broader weakness of some Reels videos: They aren’t unique. And while Facebook is pushing creators to make more fresh content, that doesn’t always result in better videos.
Still, the early popularity of Reels shows that when a company of Meta’s size wants the almost 4 billion people using its products to embrace something (regardless of its quality), it’s hard to resist.
“Reels is part of a broader industry arc toward short-form video,” Meta’s director of product for Reels, Tessa Lyons-Laing, told Recode. The feature “is absolutely a core part of our young adult strategy,” Lyons-Laing said. “It’s one that we’re going to continue to invest in for that reason.”
The fight with TikTok for short-form video dominance
The two most important drivers of Meta’s Reels push are connected: The company’s relevance for younger people in the US is fading, just as younger generations are embracing TikTok — which was 2021’s most downloaded app in the world.
Facebook’s younger user bases in the US have declined significantly, with teenage users declining by 13 percent from 2019 to 2021, according to internal documents revealed by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen last year. At the same time, the leaked documents showed how Facebook has publicly downplayed its own research that found a connection between its products and mental health issues in some teenagers, including that Instagram made body image issues worse in one out of three teenage girls. This led US regulators to pressure Meta to slow down its efforts to attract the younger users who are critical to its long-term business success.
But the scrutiny doesn’t change the fact that for any social media company, younger users are still the most valuable demographic to have.
“It’s all about the ‘LTV,’ the lifetime value of a given user,” said Mae Karwowski, the CEO and founder of Obviously, a social media influencer marketing firm. “You always need to make sure you’re catering to younger and younger people so that you don’t phase out or become perceived as an app for older people.”
TikTok, meanwhile, has exploded in popularity with teenagers. In the past year, 3 percent of TikTok’s users were 18-25, while only 27 percent and 23 percent of Instagram and Facebook users were in that younger demographic, respectively, according to online measurement company SimilarWeb.
But while TikTok seems to be ahead of Meta when it comes to its younger audience and its sudden cultural impact, that might not be enough. Meta has the power of scale.
“TikTok is a wonderful product and has nailed the short-form video format. It was lightning in a bottle,” Benjamin Black, co-head of US internet equity research at Deutsche Bank, told Recode. “But Meta has a bigger user base, which by definition means more eyeballs. … I think they’re well-positioned to narrow the gap.”
He added that convincing more creators to embrace Reels will be a key part of Meta’s strategy to compete with TikTok.
If history is any indication, remember how quickly Meta’s Instagram copied and then overtook Snapchat, which was a major threat to Facebook back in 2016. Snap is still around, profitable, and popular with younger users — but it’s not seeing the levels of rapid growth and cultural influence some once thought it could grasp, and that TikTok currently has.
It is too soon to say whether the Meta versus TikTok fight over short-form video will pan out the same way the Meta versus Snap situation did. But one thing’s for sure: Reels is here to stay; it’s not just a throwaway copycat feature but a core part of Facebook’s ever-evolving strategy to remain relevant and beat its competition.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Google plans to add “highly cited” Search labels for original reporting and press releases, coming “soon” in the US on mobile and “in the coming weeks” globally
Google Search’s new highly cited label helps you get to the source of a story
And new notices will help searchers check the validity of information
https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/31/23004348/google-search-highly-cited-label-rapidly-evolving-topics-notice-about-this-result?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Google is adding a new “highly cited” label to search results frequently sourced by other publications, the company is announcing today. Anything from local news stories, to interviews, announcements, and even press releases will be eligible for the new label being added to the search result’s preview image, so long as other websites are linking to it. More info is also being added to Search’s “rapidly evolving topics” and “About this Result” notices.
The search giant’s hope is that its highly cited label will help highlight original reporting, which can include important context that’s stripped out when a story gets picked up more widely. But it should also be helpful to find press releases, where you can get information directly from companies themselves. Google says it hopes the label will help readers find “the most helpful or relevant information for a news story.” It’ll launch “soon” in the US on mobile for English-speaking users, and will start appearing globally “in the coming weeks.”
Alongside the highly cited label, Google is expanding its attempts to help search users critically evaluate the results they’re being shown. The notice it shows on searches relating to “rapidly evolving topics” will now remind users to check whether a source is trusted, or simply tell them to come back later when more information is available.
Check the facts with these Google features
https://blog.google/products/news/fact-checking-misinformation-google-features/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2022/03/31/lasten-koodauskirjat-pian-myos-aanikirjoina/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Psychologists Turn Conservatives Into Liberals With One Strange Thought Experiment
https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.iflscience.com%2Fbrain%2Fpsychologists-turn-conservatives-into-liberals-with-one-strange-thought-experiment%2F&h=AT0LWXmqUBsgR3BVvFcvTclPsiGVFZ0DqfmTni7Kji8lVFYYzrz9oBqYbok3apjPzfq8OeAsjRnEuZiJEFJ3UTpzkVYK5Eqb3p8S1x5ALDJuyj0zGwhJMWMXJ8fA4wreEQ
Tomi Engdahl says:
Trump’s Truth Social app branded a disaster
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60922717
In October, Donald Trump announced he was planning to launch a revolutionary technology company.
“I created Truth Social… to stand up to the tyranny of big tech,” he said.
“We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter yet your favourite American president has been silenced.”
The app launched on Presidents’ Day, 21 February, but six weeks later is beset by problems. A waiting list of nearly 1.5 million are unable to use it.
Truth Social looks a lot like Twitter, a platform that banned Mr Trump after a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building.
Twitter believed Donald Trump, by making false claims the election had been “stolen”, had incited violence. He was banned for life on 8 January, 2021.
Truth Social might look like Twitter, but it isn’t available on Android phones, web browsers or, apparently, to most people outside the US.
“It’s been a disaster,” Joshua Tucker, director of NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics, said.
My attempt to register, this week, was placed at number 1,419,631 on the waiting list.
While YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook are among the 10 most downloaded apps, according to Similar Web, Truth Social is outside the top 100.
Truth Social chief executive Devin Nunes said its goal was to be “fully operational” by the end of March.
Truth Social chief executive Devin Nunes said its goal was to be “fully operational” by the end of March.
Some have pointed to Truth Social’s partnership with Rumble, a video-sharing platform that looks a bit like YouTube.
Popular with conservatives and the far right, Rumble was supposed to provide a “critical backbone” for the site’s infrastructure.
But if Truth Social is having server problems, why has it taken so long to fix?
“It should take a few days to fix, not six weeks,” a Republican source close to Mr Trump said.
“There’s always going to be hiccups at the beginning – but at this point, I would have thought it would have been resolved.
“Nobody seems to understand why.”
Mr Trump is said to be furious, asking why more people are not using Truth Social.
He has about 750,000 followers but has not posted a “truth” for well over a month.
“That’s his last chance to launch it – when suddenly Trump comes in and starts being really active on it, that will get a buzz.”
A platform supposed to stand up to Silicon Valley’s heavyweights has barely been able to get to its feet.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/technology/elon-musk-just-became-twitters-largest-shareholder/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fox viewers are less likely to believe lies after being paid to watch CNN for 30 days: study
https://www.rawstory.com/fox-viewers-changed-after-viewing-cnn/
A groundbreaking new study paid viewers of the Fox News Network to watch CNN for 30 days. What they found is that the viewers ultimately became more skeptical and less likely to buy into fake news. The early impacts, after just three days, showed that the viewers were already starting to change.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to detect the country of a visitor in php or javascript for free with the request ip
https://ourcodeworld.com/articles/read/51/how-to-detect-the-country-of-a-visitor-in-php-or-javascript-for-free-with-the-request-ip
Fastest Way Of Detecting User’s Country
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5206015/fastest-way-of-detecting-users-country
The best way to do this I have found is using the “GAE-IP-TO-COUNTRY” library: https://github.com/andris9/GAE-IP-TO-COUNTRY/tree/master/src/ip_files
Example of use (you have to copy the “ip_files” directory to your server):
function iptocountry($ip) {
$numbers = preg_split( “/\./”, $ip);
include(“./ip_files/”.$numbers[0].”.php”);
$code=($numbers[0] * 16777216) + ($numbers[1] * 65536) + ($numbers[2] * 256) + ($numbers[3]);
foreach($ranges as $key => $value){
if($key=$code){$country=$ranges[$key][1];break;}
}
}
return $country;
}
$country=iptocountry($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
echo $country;
Tomi Engdahl says:
“how to detect country from ip address in php” Code Answer
https://www.codegrepper.com/code-examples/php/how+to+detect+country+from+ip+address+in+php
How to detect visitor’s country from his IP for my PHP website right on the server [closed]
https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/108045/how-to-detect-visitors-country-from-his-ip-for-my-php-website-right-on-the-serv
https://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/geolite2/
This will give you a database of IP ranges and associated country. You can query this with PHP to find out the country for a given IP address.
Make sure you read the license conditions. You will also need to keep the data updated, as otherwise it will get less accurate over time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloomberg:
Filing: Elon Musk acquires a 9.2% passive stake in Twitter, worth ~$2.89B at Friday’s market close, becoming its largest shareholder; Twitter shares rise 27.2% —
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-04/musk-takes-9-2-stake-in-twitter-after-questioning-platform
Tomi Engdahl says:
Two executives working for former President Donald Trump’s social media website Truth Social have quit their lead roles. According to reports, Josh Adams and Billy Boozer, the company’s heads of technology and project development, quit their posts. The news comes as shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp. have plummeted in recent weeks. The platform struggled to meet a self-imposed March 31 deadline to be “fully operational,” with more than 1 million perspective users stuck in a waitlist. https://trib.al/4Pj7dE2
Tomi Engdahl says:
John Paul Tasker / CBC News:
Canada’s government introduces legislation that would force major online platforms run by Google and Meta to negotiate deals with publishers, like in Australia
Liberal government tables legislation to force online giants to compensate news outlets
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/online-giants-must-pay-for-news-bill-1.6408856
Bill demands that companies like Google and Facebook pay news businesses to use their content
The federal Liberal government introduced legislation Tuesday to force digital giants to compensate news publishers for the use of their content.
The new regulatory regime would require companies like Google and the Meta Platforms-owned Facebook — and other major online platforms that reproduce or facilitate access to news content — to either pay up or go through a binding arbitration process led by an arms-length regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
The compensation extracted from these digital giants must be used, in large part, to fund the creation of news content to protect the “sustainability of the Canadian news ecosystem,” according to a government backgrounder distributed to reporters.
The government is pitching the arrangement as a way to prop up an industry that has seen a steady decline since the emergence of the internet.
According to government figures, more than 450 news outlets in Canada have closed since 2008 and at least one third of Canadian journalism jobs have disappeared over that same time period.
News businesses have struggled to make money from their content after losing major revenue streams, such as classified ads and print subscriptions.
In an era of cord-cutting, some private and public broadcasters also have struggled to monetize their airwaves and pay for local, regional and national radio and TV news.
The dominance over advertising once enjoyed by legacy media is over. Google and Facebook have a combined 80 per cent share of all online ad revenue in Canada and rake in an eye-popping $9.7 billion a year, according to government data.
‘News deserts’
The loss of advertising revenue has upended previous media business models. Thousands of Canadian journalists have lost their jobs and some communities have become “news deserts” — without access to newspapers, digital news sites, TV or radio programming.
Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said Canada’s news businesses should be compensated for helping Google and Facebook attract eyeballs.
“The news sector is in crisis,” Rodriguez told a press conference Tuesday. “Traditionally, advertising has been a major source of revenue for the news business. That’s less and less the case. I would say the reality is grim.”
To preserve access to Canadian news, the federal government has adopted much of the so-called “Australian model,” named after the country that first forced digital companies to pay for the use of news content.
According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, more than $190 million has been paid already to Australian media companies since the model was enacted last year. The big winners have been legacy media and larger media outlets.
The new Canadian scheme would require that Facebook, Google and other digital platforms that have “a bargaining imbalance with news businesses” make “fair commercial deals” with newspapers, news magazines, online news businesses, private and public broadcasters and certain non-Canadian news media that meet specific criteria.
The goal is to have these digital platforms negotiate deals with publishers without the need for government intervention. Rodriguez said the amount of money each news business gets from these digital giants will be decided by those negotiations — there’s no preset formula.
In the absence of some sort of voluntary arrangement, news businesses can initiate a mandatory bargaining process and go to a CRTC arbitration panel for a binding decision.
Google backed down in Australia
Google strenuously opposed Australia’s efforts to make it pay for news — it even threatened to shut down access to the search engine in that country if the bill went ahead as planned. Google ultimately relented and cut deals with a number of news outlets to avoid a binding arbitration process.
Google maintains its current model is fair to publishers because its search engine directs substantial traffic to the sites of news outlets.
In a statement Tuesday, Google said it is “carefully reviewing the legislation to understand its implications.”
CRTC to decide which outlets qualify
This sort of pay-to-post regime has been opposed by some academics and observers who claim it will undermine freedom of the press because outlets may become more reliant on CRTC-brokered deals with digital giants for revenue.
“This represents nothing less than a government-backed shakedown that runs the risk of undermining press independence, increasing reliance on big tech, and hurting competition and investment in Canadian media,” said Michael Geist, a Canada research chair in internet and e-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, a position partly funded by the federal government’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
“This bill is terrible policy,” Geist said in a recent blog post on the subject.
In a later interview with CBC News, Geist said he thinks “the bulk of the benefits” will accrue to a “handful of very large media players” that have been lobbying the government for this sort of legislation.
Geist said he calls the legislation a “shakedown” because digital giants essentially would be forced to pay for something that is of little value — links to news articles that refer users back to the original source.
“Trusted information is needed more today than ever before, and real news reported by real journalists costs real money,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘No one will ever listen to Russia:’ Why Ukraine is winning the propaganda war
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-russia-information-war-1.6408380
Analysts say Russia showing unexpected weakness at influencing foreign opinion
On the very first day of Russia’s invasion, a tiny island along Ukraine’s Black Sea coast became an early target. It was a minor military loss that Kyiv would turn into a major propaganda victory, in a narrative aimed at a Western audience as much as a domestic one.
Ukraine was about to show its strength at information warfare in the global arena; Russia, to reveal its unexpected weakness at influencing foreign opinion in this conflict, especially in the West.
“Its standing in the world is damaged, probably beyond repair,” said Ilya Metveev, a St. Petersburg-based political analyst. Moscow “understands now that it is useless to push Russia’s narrative in the West. Whatever they try, this will not work.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Meta introduces “Sharing to Reels”, an integration that lets developers add the ability to post videos directly to Facebook Reels from their third-party apps — Facebook is adding the ability to post Reels from third-party apps, its parent company Meta announced on Tuesday.
Meta adds the ability to share video from third-party apps directly to Facebook Reels
https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/05/meta-share-video-third-party-apps-facebook-reels/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter is wiping embeds of deleted tweets from the web
https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/06/twitter-deleted-embedded-tweet/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
The edit tweet button isn’t Twitter’s only new feature that can rewrite history. The company has apparently changed the way it handles embedded tweets that were deleted after the fact, littering web pages across the internet with holes.
Previously, a deleted tweet embedded in a web page would still display the text content of a tweet. Now that text is gone, showing only a blank box. Twitter is altering web pages with deleted embedded tweets by hiding the text with JavaScript — a choice that has many developers and open web advocates up in arms.
In a blog post, IndieWeb developer and former Google Developer Advocate Kevin Marks slammed Twitter’s change, likening it to “tampering with the public record.” Marks cites former President Trump’s since-deleted tweets as an example of content in the public interest that should remain available, adding that Twitter’s new approach toward deleted embedded tweets is “disturbing.”
In a tweet replying to Marks’ concerns, Twitter Senior Product Manager Eleanor Harding said that Twitter is seeking to “better respect when people have chosen to delete their Tweets” with the change. Harding said that the deleted tweet embeds would soon display a message rather than just leaving a completely blank box, which is what’s happening right now.
Marks isn’t the only one raising concerns that the ahistorical approach to old tweets will damage the web.
“Twitter is doing more than just preserving the privacy of people who choose to delete their tweets: they’re using JavaScript to retroactively hide the quoted plain text in their embeds, even though it’s still there in the HTML,” said Andy Baio, who created the virtual event platform Skittish and previously served as the CTO of Kickstarter. “This is a huge problem for preserving the historical record.”
“… Anyone writing on the web could have used a screenshot of a tweet or just quoted the text, but had the confidence of knowing that if an embedded tweet was deleted, the plain text would still remain. Twitter broke that pact by changing this behavior.”
Much like public reception of the once-mythological edit tweet button, people are likely to be split on if Twitter deleting bits of the internet’s collective memory is a good move or an ominous step in the wrong direction. There’s a natural tension between the ethos of the “right to be forgotten” movement, which seeks to empower people to have certain kinds of content about them deleted from the internet, and the researchers, developers and other open information advocates that view the web as a living document — one to be updated constantly but never altered outright.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post:
Algospeak, like saying unalive instead of dead, is becoming common on the internet as people seek to bypass content moderation filters on platforms like TikTok — “Algospeak” is becoming increasingly common across the Internet as people seek to bypass content moderation filters …
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/08/algospeak-tiktok-le-dollar-bean/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
China will begin on-site inspections of large internet platforms to assess potential abuse of their algorithms, likely including Tencent and ByteDance — China kicked off a formal campaign to rein in the potential abuse of algorithms by internet giants from ByteDance Ltd. to Tencent Holdings Ltd. …
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-08/china-targets-tech-giants-for-abusing-online-content-algorithms