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.
2,200 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Danny Funt / Columbia Journalism Review:
A look at Defector trying to create a journalists’ utopia that isn’t ethically compromised and the accompanying trade-offs, like less revenue and fewer sources
— Defector in pursuit of a journalists’ utopia — Deadspin, the influential sports and culture blog that all but imploded a few years ago …
‘The last good website’
https://www.cjr.org/analysis/defector-last-good-website.php
Defector in pursuit of a journalists’ utopia
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emily Bell / @emilybell:
[Thread] An AI-generated ad from a blue-check Twitter user linking to The Guardian and falsely saying TV presenter Ian Wright died highlights Twitter’s issues
https://twitter.com/emilybell/status/1663300220170403841
Welcome to the @elonmusk
advertising nightmare. Friend sent me this tweet asking wtaf the @guardian
url is doing on this weird AI generated ad suggesting (incorrectly) that Ian Wright is dead . The link goes to an old page on the Guardian site 1/
Which is an article from 2021 (@Okwonga
– you might be interested ) but is certainly not a Guardian ad or promotion (remember – this ad is being PROMOTED into feeds – so presumably paid for)
The account tweeting it hasn’t apparently tweeted since 2016 – though now has a ‘blue tick’ 3/
But there are other versions which don’t link to the Guardian – or pretend to 4/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter to pull back from Europe’s disinformation crusade
EU commissioner Thierry Breton has said he would personally hold site owner Elon Musk to account for complying with the bloc’s content rules.
https://www.politico.eu/article/twitter-to-pull-back-from-europes-disinformation-crusadwe/
Tomi Engdahl says:
EU: Twitter leaves voluntary pact on fighting disinformation
05/27/2023May 27, 2023
The social media giant, owned by Elon Musk, has been warned that “obligations remain” over the removal of fake news. Twitter and other large platforms will face heavier regulation when new EU rules take effect in August.
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-twitter-leaves-voluntary-pact-on-fighting-disinformation/a-65751487
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will Twitter shut down in Europe? Elon Musk is surely heading in that direction
The DSA will also require digital platforms like Twitter to take measures against disinformation and bot farms
https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/will-twitter-shut-down-in-europe-elon-musk-is-surely-heading-in-that-direction-383210-2023-05-29
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fidelity has cut Reddit valuation by 41% since 2021 investment
https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/01/fidelity-reddit-valuation/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cDovL20uZmFjZWJvb2suY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAN1QUWLcfErT7ShV1AHgzgFJWAvkTOcA8JF0Gv5DMi9ifTJ9O2gLS21AMRgHEhPsGyi6e4XEJnkowrIaU_W8RYimFimGVNFelsE1Tn5m6LtFUiOZLlDuNBkaPnMVZhR-qEBiPNE5Ciz06QW4LkdnRZo0UFR5tB2ZlVzu3zYuBS1D
Tomi Engdahl says:
Elon Musk set to ‘shut down Twitter in Europe’ before end of summer
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/us-news/elon-musk-set-shut-down-30100421
Twitter pulled out of the EU’s voluntary code of practice regarding online disinformation, in a move that could signal that the social media platform is planning to cease operations in Europe entirely
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.fiercermedia.fi/maksuton-verkkomarkkinoinnin-opas-pk-yrityksille/?fbclid=IwAR1RfiyBiVwHbWds0KZpXU2aVMGrgCPcFrUboexrHvd87eh1bwSmQajM904_aem_th_AcWvzwBYd8fJRh9SdDVNM-S_UtrHAFWMCwzZaztzaS5mpx4iH_iyzGlfuBhx4XnmVtRYOOiGgN_3LhQah4yEueMS
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-worlds-top-25-websites-in-2023/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.fiercermedia.fi/maksuton-verkkomarkkinoinnin-opas-pk-yrityksille/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.zoner.fi/wordpress/wordpress-hakukoneoptimointi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.digimarkkinointi.fi/blogi/bing-mainonta-microsoft-advertising
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://yrityksille.otavamedia.fi/blogit-ja-ajankohtaista/vahenna-havikkimainokset-minimiin-nappaa-talteen-13-vinkkia-tuottavuus-kasvaa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.fiercermedia.fi/google-analytics-4-tulee-tiedatko-miten-toimia/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.dashhudson.com/blog/how-to-put-a-link-in-your-tiktok-bio
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 proven ways to get more leads with your forms
The Typeform team analyzed 10,000 lead gen forms and discovered the top tricks for better conversion. The best news of all? They’re super simple.
https://www.typeform.com/lead-gen-tips/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://yrityksille.fonecta.fi/maksuttomat-oppaat/ga4-analytiikka-verkkokaupoille/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Motion Canvas Helps Get Your Point Across
https://hackaday.com/2023/06/05/motion-canvas-helps-get-your-point-across/
Generating videos for projects can be difficult. Not only do you have to create the thing, but you film the process and cut it together in a story that a viewer can follow. Explaining complex topics to the viewer often involves a whiteboard of some sort, but as we all know, it’s not always a perfect solution. [Jacob] was working on a video game and making videos to document the progress and built a tool called Motion Canvas to help visualize topics like custom shaders. A few months ago, he decided to release it as an open source project.
Introduction
https://motioncanvas.io/docs/
Motion Canvas consists of two main components:
A TypeScript library that uses generators to program animations.
An editor providing a real-time preview of said animations.
It’s a specialized tool designed to create informative vector animations and synchronize them with voice-overs. It’s not meant to be a replacement for traditional video editing software.
Motion Canvas is now Open Source!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5GETOP7ivs
https://github.com/motion-canvas/motion-canvas
Tomi Engdahl says:
Animating with Code – Motion Canvas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTUafAwrunE
How do I make animations for my devlogs?
Today’s the day I answer this age-old question.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Casey Newton / Platformer:
How Twitter, YouTube, and Meta gave up on removing lies about the 2020 US Presidential elections, having briefly banded together to do the right thing — For a time, they fought the good fight — but not any more — I. — On tech platforms these days you can get away with just about anything …
The platforms give up on 2020 lies
For a time, they fought the good fight — but not any more
https://www.platformer.news/p/the-platforms-give-up-on-2020-lies
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Automattic launches Jetpack AI Assistant for WordPress and Jetpack-powered sites, letting users generate content, translate text into 12 languages, and more — Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and the main contributor to the open-source WordPress project, launched an AI assistant …
Automattic launches an AI writing assistant for WordPress
https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/07/automattic-launches-an-ai-writing-assistant-for-wordpress/
Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and the main contributor to the open-source WordPress project, launched an AI assistant for the popular content management system on Tuesday.
The company said that the assistant easily integrates with WordPress.com and all Jetpack-powered sites. When you’re writing a post or a page, you can add an ‘AI Assistant’ block to your content. Users can then type in a prompt in natural language, the AI assistant will start generating text based on this prompt. Apart from generating content ideas, the AI assistant can create structured lists and tables within a blog post.
Additionally, it can change the tonality of a post and make it more informal, skeptical, humorous, confident, or empathetic. The assistant can also create a summary for the post and suggest titles for it.
Automattic said that the new AI assistant supports 12 languages including Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean, and Hindi. So writers can translate their content into multiple languages — they can write in their native language and translate it later to English for instance. The assistant also offers better spelling and grammar correction features than WordPress’s built-in tools.
Jetpack AI Assistant block will let users send 20 requests as a free trial. After that, they have to pay $10 per month to access the feature.
In the past few months, numerous writing tools have introduced a different set of AI-powered features. Google and Microsoft both are integrating different AI features into their professional application suites — including Microsoft Word and Google Docs. Separately, Google introduced Project Tailwind, an AI-powered note-taking experience, at Google I/O last month. Other writing solutions like Notion and Grammarly have also introduced AI-aided tools into their apps.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Criticism of Musk from Twitter co-founders has ranged from mild (“I don’t think he’s dialed it in quite right yet”) to scathing (“He’s not a serious person”).
Musk on path to turn Twitter into the next MySpace or Yahoo, co-founder suggests
Ev Williams: Generally, “the new thing does not come from the old thing.”
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/musk-on-path-to-turn-twitter-into-the-next-myspace-or-yahoo-co-founder-suggests/?utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=facebook&utm_brand=ars&fbclid=IwAR2U9aVxpj5FGprFjZG8-kElTHkKRfrcjOPyivIitSSElJBpuINYWXmK2HY
Ever since, he hasn’t been encouraged by developments at Twitter. The company’s ongoing financial struggles include most recently recording a five-week period from April to May, where its advertising revenue dropped by 59 percent, compared to ad revenue at the same time last year.
Many believed that Twitter’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, who started this week, would bring advertisers back to the platform. But Twitter’s ad staff thinks that advertisers might still be spooked by shifting Twitter policies leading to more controversial content, like pornography and hate speech, as well as more controversial ads promoting things like gambling and marijuana, The New York Times reported. It seems that many top advertisers are still hesitant to risk brand damage by reinvesting in Musk’s Twitter.
“I don’t think he’s dialed it in quite right yet,”
Williams’ remarks come just a few months after Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey tweeted that he didn’t think Musk was an ideal leader for Twitter
For Musk to succeed, Williams said the Twitter owner would likely have to be prepared to continue taking on a huge loss.
“I don’t know how comfortable Elon is with losing billions of dollars,” Williams told Bloomberg. “Maybe he is—fine. Maybe he can get to break even and then just play with it. If a hundred million people in the world share the most interesting idea or thought, and the computers could algorithmically give you the most interesting slice of that, that’s a hell of a media service—but I also think, generally, the new thing does not come from the old thing.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Over 7,000 subreddits have gone private or read-only to protest Reddit’s API pricing changes; the site experienced issues for about two hours on June 12 — Reddit went through some issues for many on Monday, with the outage happening the same day as thousands of subreddits going dark to protest the site’s new API pricing terms.
Reddit crashed because of the growing subreddit blackout
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/12/23758002/reddit-crashing-api-protest-subreddit-private-going-dark
/ On the first day of a sitewide protest at Reddit’s planned API changes, the website experienced a major outage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Max Read / New York Times:
How Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, became a viral sensation for his absurd acts of altruism and pitching subscribing as an act of charity, sometimes literally — Jimmy Donaldson, a.k.a. MrBeast, has become a viral sensation for his absurd acts of altruism. Why do so many people think he’s evil?
How MrBeast Became the Willy Wonka of YouTube
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/12/magazine/mrbeast-youtube.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Avram Piltch / Tom’s Hardware:
Google’s Search Generative Experience seems like an “AI plagiarism engine” that cobbles together snippets of text from a variety of sites, often word-for-word — The Search Generative Experience seems more like a text-copying experience. — Search has always been the Internet’s most important utility.
Plagiarism Engine: Google’s Content-Swiping AI Could Break the Internet
By Avram Piltch
published 2 days ago
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/google-sge-break-internet
The Search Generative Experience seems more like a text-copying experience.
Search has always been the Internet’s most important utility. Before Google became dominant, there were many contenders for the search throne, from Altavista to Lycos, Excite, Zap, Yahoo (mainly as a directory) and even Ask Jeeves. The idea behind the World Wide Web is that there’s power in having a nearly infinite number of voices. But with millions of publications and billions of web pages, it would be impossible to find all the information you want without search.
Google succeeded because it offered the best quality results, loaded quickly and had less cruft on the page than any of its competitors. Now, having taken over 91 percent of the search market, the company is testing a major change to its interface that replaces the chorus of Internet voices with its own robotic lounge singer. Instead of highlighting links to content from expert humans, the “Search Generative Experience” (SGE) uses an AI plagiarism engine that grabs facts and snippets of text from a variety of sites, cobbles them together (often word-for-word) and passes off the work as its creation. If Google makes SGE the default mode for search, the company will seriously damage if not destroy the open web while providing a horrible user experience.
A couple of weeks ago, Google made SGE available to the public in a limited beta (you can sign up here). If you are in the beta program like I am, you will see what the company seems to have planned for the near future: a search results page where answers and advice from Google take up the entire first screen, and you have to scroll way below the fold to see the first organic search result.
For example, when I searched “best bicycle,” Google’s SGE answer, combined with its shopping links and other cruft took up the first 1,360 vertical pixels of the display before I could see the first actual search result.
For its part, Google says that it’s just “experimenting,” and may make some changes before rolling SGE out to everyone as a default experience. The company says that it wants to continue driving traffic offsite.
“We’re putting websites front and center in SGE, designing the experience to highlight and drive attention to content from across the web,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nic Newman / Reuters Institute:
Reuters’ 2023 Digital News Report finds fragmentation in users’ social media choices yet more reliance on the platforms for news; Facebook drops, TikTok grows
Overview and key findings of the 2023 Digital News Report
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2023/dnr-executive-summary
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2013/06/a-guide-to-website-security
Tomi Engdahl says:
Boone Ashworth / Wired:
Reddit’s management risks putting the company in a death spiral as users revolt, dedicated moderators quit, and its vibrant discussions move to other platforms — When the user revolt ends—if it ever does—Reddit’s community won’t ever be the same. — It’s pretty easy to piss people off on Reddit.
The Reddit Blackout Is Breaking Reddit
When the user revolt ends—if it ever does—Reddit’s community won’t ever be the same.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-reddit-blackout-is-breaking-reddit/
It’s pretty easy to piss people off on Reddit. Less so to piss off seemingly everyone on the platform.
Still, Reddit’s management has succeeded in doing just that as it weathers protests over its decision to charge for access to its API. That ruling risks putting the company in a death spiral as users revolt, the most dedicated community caretakers quit, and the vibrant discussions move to other platforms.
The company’s changes to its data access policies effectively price out third-party developers who make mobile applications for browsing Reddit; two of the most popular options, Reddit Is Fun and Apollo, which together have over 41 million downloads, are both shutting down. After some initial backlash from users and disability advocates who said Reddit’s changes would adversely affect accessibility-focused apps aimed at people with dyslexia or vision impairments, Reddit said it would exempt those apps from the price hikes. Those apps also have far smaller user bases than Apollo or RIF.
“You can’t inflate the balloon forever. It will pop at some point.”
Rory Mir of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Reddit’s plans—driven by an urge to make the company more profitable as it inches toward going public—sparked a protest across nearly 9,000 subreddits, where moderators of those communities switched their groups to private mode, preventing anyone from accessing them. Many of those subs remain inaccessible four days later, and their moderators say they plan to keep up the blackout indefinitely. (Disclosure: WIRED is a publication of Conde Nast, whose parent company, Advance Publications, has an ownership stake in Reddit.)
However unfazed Reddit execs appear to be, this subreddit seppuku sure does seem like a surefire way to sink the company. But does it really signal the death of Reddit?
“I can’t see it as anything but that,”
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:
Similarweb: Reddit had 52M+ visitors on Tuesday, June 13, vs. 57M+ on the day before the blackouts began; the average session was 7.2 minutes, a three-year low
Reddit’s average daily traffic fell during blackout, according to third-party data
The protest appears to have had a small but noticeable effect on the platform.
https://www.engadget.com/reddits-average-daily-traffic-fell-during-blackout-according-to-third-party-data-194721801.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGVjaG1lbWUuY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEHPMX4bBSxZ6dd8wj8esiCOC7Q4J7AXSTnwTaGduM6eGpco7ASb059s3aWiQTEz_Wuooh5a0zIisC3IC_x40sjGyH7X4cqG34k2dJhuIAqK8k8pdksMIJhk23fG0qV6I-6j1PtuQD2BvxGGKvQ7eOOgIApyqR5yl6e_7ZK7S2cx
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thomas Germain / Gizmodo:
Some publishers say they have seen a sharp drop in Facebook traffic since May 2023; Echobox: the share of traffic to publisher sites from Facebook fell ~50% YoY — With no communication from the company, publishers relying on Facebook traffic are at the mercy of the inscrutable algorithm, and they say it’s punishing them.
Website Owners Say Traffic Is Plummeting After a Facebook Algorithm Change
https://gizmodo.com/facebook-traffic-down-algorithm-change-1850549012
With no communication from the company, publishers relying on Facebook traffic are at the mercy of the inscrutable algorithm, and they say it’s punishing them.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wall Street Journal:
A look at TikTok’s effect on small businesses in the US, as the app has become “a billion-person focus group”, disrupting business cycles and corporate R&D
American Companies Held Hostage by the Whims of TikTok
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-trends-pink-sauce-product-development-661c4178?mod=djemalertNEWS
The social-media giant has become ‘a billion-person focus group,’ disrupting business cycles and upending corporate R&D
Smothered in a special sauce, the “Keithadilla” was a breakout hit for Chipotle Mexican Grill in the first quarter. It also gave the company indigestion.
The twist on Chipotle’s traditional quesadilla was invented by a popular TikTok food influencer as an off-menu “hack.” Soon, the Mexican fast-casual chain was overwhelmed by custom orders. The item took longer to make and its mix of ingredients flustered workers, especially when the sauce—a combination of sour cream and chipotle-honey vinaigrette—ran out. When some staffers refused to make the off-menu item, customers began posting angry reviews online.
Chipotle faced a decision: Give in to the whims of TikTok or risk losing business. The Keithadilla is now a permanent menu item. “We want to be at the pulse of culture,” said Chris Brandt, the chain’s chief marketing officer.
TikTok has become an unavoidable consideration for anyone running a consumer-facing business today. Owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, the social app has proved a force in marketing and media, and helped brands monitor consumer trends. According to CEO Shou Chew, five million businesses use the platform.
For all its mind-reading insights, the platform has also become a disruptive force in research and development, upending conventional wisdom about product cycles, testing, differentiation and manufacturing.
Companies scramble to mass-produce products, or fix existing ones, based on feedback that often has a very short shelf life. It’s a gamble—one that many executives say is necessary if they want to win over younger shoppers and keep up with the competition. Even though the app faces bans in the U.S., businesses are shaping their product decisions around it.
“Every single merchant and designer is looking at TikTok,” said Corey Robinson, chief product officer for fashion retailer Abercrombie & Fitch, who calls the platform “a billion-person focus group.”
“You have to get things out right when they are trendy,” Sponaugle said. “If you do it too late, it’s not even worth it.”
TikTok collaborations can be harrowing for even the gutsiest startups.
“We want to be careful about what we tweak,” Charland said. “You have to know what’s a fleeting trend and what’s a trend that lasts.”
The story of how “Pink Sauce” went from viral sensation to the shelves of retail giant Walmart is a good example of the TikTok roller coaster.
The Pepto-Bismol-colored dressing was created by Veronica Shaw, a 30-year-old social-media influencer and private chef based in Miami who is known as Chef Pii. Shaw’s sauce became an online phenomenon last summer thanks to a slew of TikTok videos that featured her smothering different foods—from chicken wings to french fries to shrimp to tacos—with a fluorescent concoction that got its color from dragon fruit.
After Shaw began selling her sauce directly to consumers online, some customers complained on TikTok that her nutrition labels contained mistakes, or that the sauce was spoiled when it was delivered.
“Just like any other up-and-coming brands, they go through trial and error,” said Shaw.
Dave’s Gourmet, a Dallas-based specialty food company, saw an opportunity, according to Chief Executive David Neuman. The company formed a partnership with Shaw giving Dave’s responsibility for the product’s commercial formula, manufacturing, distribution, sales and marketing—outside of digital media. Shaw receives a royalty from each sale and continues to be responsible for driving social media buzz.
Dave’s tweaked the formula to make the sauce vegan, less complicated and suited for mass distribution. At one point, Dave’s had to slow down production because its supplier ran out of dragonfruit. Local investigators from the Food and Drug Administration seized samples of the sauce to be tested for any issues. Neuman believes the product satisfied all the regulators’ needs because he never heard back. The FDA declined to comment.
Dave’s turned the TikTok trend into a nationally distributed product in 90 days, something that usually takes more than a year. Neuman is happy with the result, but said he still has “night tremors” when he thinks about how fast they had to move.
For decades, brands like H & M and Zara copied fashion trends and churned them out in a matter of weeks. Now, a new generation of fast-fashion retailers makes clothes in days, finely tuning their machines to the TikTok algorithm that dictates what’s in style.
Edikted, a fast-fashion company, releases 150 monthly styles based on viral TikTok clips
“For us, it’s like a lab,” Shwartzberg said. “Retailers in the past looked at [forecasting firm] WGSN, catwalks, fashion week, and tried to guess what the trends will be. We don’t need to guess when we have TikTok.”
To keep up with the app’s rapid trend cycle, these companies manufacture on an on-demand basis—a model used by other fast-fashion brands, including Shein. They subcontract to third-party factories, often in China, and place orders in small batches, keeping inventory levels low. Shwartzberg said Edikted averages a 12-day turnaround.
“Most of the trends fade within weeks,” Shwartzberg said, “But some can last years.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mia Sato / The Verge:
Patreon adds a free membership tier for the first time and plans to let creators sell one-off downloadable products such as videos and podcasts, taking a 5% cut
Patreon is launching a free membership tier — and will let fans buy things, too
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/21/23763815/patreon-free-tier-shopping-digital-goods-subscription
/ The subscription-based platform is adding free membership tiers for the first time and will allow creators to sell digital products directly to subscribers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.karhuhelsinki.fi/blogi/digipalvelulain-uudet-vaatimukset/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/javascript-asynchronous-operations-in-the-browser/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kick Just Stole xQc And Amouranth, Twitch’s Top Male And Female Streamers, Within 48 Hours
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/06/19/kick-just-stole-xqc-and-amouranth-twitchs-top-male-and-female-streamers-within-48-hours/?sh=5bebcea97375&fbclid=IwAR15d10eBMcp7ZkgjjPsQaspHIunHRDD552i56zz8ADfzGvl_4wRAThUXKc
At this point, alarm bells must be going off over at Twitch.
With the span of 48 hours at the tail end of last week, Kick had poached xQc with a reported $100 million, two-year, non-exclusive contract, where previously he’d been the biggest streamer on Twitch. Less than 48 hours later, Amouranth, Twitch’s most-watched female streamer announced she too was going to Kick, though the terms of her deal have not yet been made public.
These big-name signings by Kick, and I’m sure these are not the last ones, are in addition to the wild 95-5 revenue split that they are offering “normal” creators, far better than Twitch’s 50/50 for most streamers, and the best-case 70/30. On my own timeline I’ve seen dozens of streamers I’ve followed for years heading over to Kick to at least “try it out.” With that kind of revenue share, it’s hard not to be tempted.
Yes, everyone should probably be enormously skeptical of Kick and its long term prospects. It’s run by Ed Craven, the co-founder of crypto gambling site Stake.com, and there are many theories that all this is just a play to herd viewers into gambling with these huge deals working effectively as marketing. Craven says Kick will operate at a loss, which I mean, given these kinds of numbers, no kidding. But the idea is that some vague concept of “gambling money” is propping all this up, which seems…like not that secure of a situation.
And yet, in the short term, that really doesn’t matter. At a certain point you have to wonder how long this can go on and how many big names can be poached from Twitch before they actually have to do something about it. The same goes for smaller streamers long tired of Twitch’s revenue gobbling. Is it likely Kick’s 95/5 split will last forever? Almost certainly not. But when Twitch is trying to be “generous” by rolling out a 70/30 split for people who have between 350-2200 non-gifted subs, something that can be earned by maybe 1-2,000 total partners across the entire platform, it just looks ridiculous.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloonface / Café Lob-On:
Twitter-to-Mastodon migration that started in November 2022 failed because of Mastodon’s exclusionary culture, decentralization making the UX worse, and more — I’ve been using fediverse stuff (Mastodon and, most recently, Calckey – I’m just going to use “Mastodon” as shorthand here …
Why did the #TwitterMigration fail?
https://blog.bloonface.com/2023/06/12/why-did-the-twittermigration-fail/
Tomi Engdahl says:
James Vincent / The Verge:
AI is killing the web with spam sites, mass article producing “AI editors”, AI-generated junk on Etsy, Reddit, and Wikipedia that exhausts moderators, and more — In recent months, the signs and portents have been accumulating with increasing speed. Google is trying to kill the 10 blue links.
AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/26/23773914/ai-large-language-models-data-scraping-generation-remaking-web
/ Generative AI models are changing the economy of the web, making it cheaper to generate lower-quality content. We’re just beginning to see the effects of these changes.
In recent months, the signs and portents have been accumulating with increasing speed. Google is trying to kill the 10 blue links. Twitter is being abandoned to bots and blue ticks. There’s the junkification of Amazon and the enshittification of TikTok. Layoffs are gutting online media. A job posting looking for an “AI editor” expects “output of 200 to 250 articles per week.” ChatGPT is being used to generate whole spam sites. Etsy is flooded with “AI-generated junk.” Chatbots cite one another in a misinformation ouroboros. LinkedIn is using AI to stimulate tired users. Snapchat and Instagram hope bots will talk to you when your friends don’t. Redditors are staging blackouts. Stack Overflow mods are on strike. The Internet Archive is fighting off data scrapers, and “AI is tearing Wikipedia apart.” The old web is dying, and the new web struggles to be born.
The web is always dying, of course; it’s been dying for years, killed by apps that divert traffic from websites or algorithms that reward supposedly shortening attention spans. But in 2023, it’s dying again — and, as the litany above suggests, there’s a new catalyst at play: AI.
The problem, in extremely broad strokes, is this. Years ago, the web used to be a place where individuals made things. They made homepages, forums, and mailing lists, and a small bit of money with it. Then companies decided they could do things better. They created slick and feature-rich platforms and threw their doors open for anyone to join. They put boxes in front of us, and we filled those boxes with text and images, and people came to see the content of those boxes. The companies chased scale, because once enough people gather anywhere, there’s usually a way to make money off them. But AI changes these assumptions.
Given money and compute, AI systems — particularly the generative models currently in vogue — scale effortlessly. They produce text and images in abundance, and soon, music and video, too. Their output can potentially overrun or outcompete the platforms we rely on for news, information, and entertainment. But the quality of these systems is often poor, and they’re built in a way that is parasitical on the web today. These models are trained on strata of data laid down during the last web-age, which they recreate imperfectly. Companies scrape information from the open web and refine it into machine-generated content that’s cheap to generate but less reliable. This product then competes for attention with the platforms and people that came before them. Sites and users are reckoning with these changes, trying to decide how to adapt and if they even can.
In recent months, discussions and experiments at some of the web’s most popular and useful destinations — sites like Reddit, Wikipedia, Stack Overflow, and Google itself — have revealed the strain created by the appearance of AI systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Patience Haggin / Wall Street Journal:
Adalytics: ~80% of Google’s video ad placements on third-party sites violated the company’s promised standards between 2020 and 2023; Google disputes the claims — About 80% of Google’s video-ad placements on third-party sites violated promised standards, new research shows; Google disputes claims
Google Violated Its Standards in Ad Deals, Research Finds
https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-violated-its-standards-in-ad-deals-research-finds-3e24e041?mod=djemalertNEWS
About 80% of Google’s video-ad placements on third-party sites violated promised standards, new research shows; Google disputes claims
Google violated its promised standards when placing video ads on other websites, according to new research that raises questions about the transparency of the tech giant’s online-ad business.
Google’s YouTube runs ads on its own site and app. But the company also brokers the placement of video ads on other sites across the web through a program called Google Video Partners. Google charges a premium, promising that the ads it places will run on high-quality sites, before the page’s main video content, with the audio on, and that brands will only pay for ads that aren’t skipped.
Google violates those standards about 80% of the time, according to research from Adalytics, a company that helps brands analyze where their ads appear online. The firm accused the company of placing ads in small, muted, automatically-played videos off to the side of a page’s main content, on sites that don’t meet Google’s standards for monetization, among other violations.
Adalytics compiled its data by observing campaigns from more than 1,100 brands that got billions of ad impressions between 2020 and 2023. The company shared its findings with The Wall Street Journal.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SOCIAL MEDIA APP SHUTS DOWN AFTER ADMITTING 95% OF USERS WERE BOTS
https://futurism.com/the-byte/app-shuts-down-95-users-bots?fbclid=IwAR0K_DBsq9tly3JS3GxTg8L_gkGSs75usKl9J6FGMpYRpLhwNG72Oh-WYwk
OUCH!
Bot Party
Social media startup IRL was at one point valued at around $1.2 billion. But now, as The Information reports, it’s shutting down after an internal investigation found that a staggering 95 percent of its users were “automated or from bots.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google to remove news links in Canada over law on paying publishers
https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-block-news-links-canada-over-law-paying-publishers-statement-2023-06-29/
OTTAWA, June 29 (Reuters) – Google will remove links to Canadian news from search results and other products in Canada when a law requiring internet giants to pay news publishers comes into effect, the Alphabet-owned (GOOGL.O) company said on Thursday.
Google joins Facebook-owner Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) in announcing an end to news access for Canadian users of their platforms after Bill C-18, or the Online News Act, was passed into law last week. The law is expected to come into effect in six months.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kent Walker / Google:
Google tells Canada’s government it will remove Canadian news links from Search, News, and Discover and close Google News Showcase when Bill C-18 takes effect — President of Global Affairs, Google & Alphabet … The Government of Canada has enacted a new law called Bill C-18 …
An update on Canada’s Bill C-18 and our Search and News products
https://blog.google/intl/en-ca/company-news/outreach-initiatives/an-update-on-canadas-bill-c-18-and-our-search-and-news-products/
Bill C-18 has become law and remains unworkable. The Government has not given us reason to believe that the regulatory process will be able to resolve structural issues with the legislation. As a result, we have informed the Government that we have made the difficult decision that when the law takes effect we will be removing links to Canadian news from our Search, News, and Discover products and will no longer be able to operate Google News Showcase in Canada. Read our blog and consult our FAQ to learn more.
Canada’s Bill C-18 and Our Search and News Products
https://blog.google/canada-news-en/#overview
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nitish Pahwa / Slate:
Canada may think it can negotiate with tech platforms over Bill C-18 based on Meta’s 2021 deal with Australia, but it should take the firms’ threat seriously — On June 22, the Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-18, also known as the
Why Canada’s Attempt to Save Journalism May End Up Crushing It Instead
https://slate.com/technology/2023/06/online-news-act-meta-google-canadian-journalism.html
On June 22, the Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-18, also known as the Online News Act. The new law, according to a government news release, “will require the largest digital platforms”—in effect, calling out Facebook, Instagram, and Google without naming them—“to bargain fairly with Canadian news businesses for the use of their news content.” The intent here is to even out the skewed market imbalance between Canadian journalism and Big Tech platforms, many of which have offered distribution pathways and occasional payment agreements to digital news sites while also sapping them of revenue from native advertising—a sector dominated by those very corporations.
The logic behind the law goes like this: At first glance, when Facebook or Google displays a news article, whether on a specialized feed or a search-results index, that seems good for the news outlet; the platforms are helping it get information to more eyeballs. But it’s valuable for the website only if a user then clicks on the article and navigates the page in question, which hosts the ads the outlet was paid to feature. If users don’t click—and most users don’t—Google and Facebook get to keep the users’ eyeballs, and the advertising revenue that comes from that engagement. Over time, because they’ve come to rely on Facebook or Google for their news, users become less likely to navigate a media publisher’s site organically.
By requiring digital platforms to compensate news publishers when posting and sharing their links, the Online News Act (in theory) tries to make this dynamic more beneficial for newsrooms. But that depends on the bigger platforms’ willingness to cede any bit of their power. The law is modeled after similar legislation passed in Australia in 2021, and has invited parallel waves of excitement (from continental news organizations and bigger media outlets) and backlash (from trade associations, independent publications, and Big Tech itself). In the months leading up to Bill C-18’s passage, Meta and Google threatened to revoke news access from Canadian users altogether, and they experimented with cutting off displays and shares of media links for small portions of the population, leading Parliament to summon Google executives for questioning. (Earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ruled out any legislative compromises and accused the two companies of employing “bullying tactics.”) Now that the bill is law, Canada’s Heritage Department will take charge of publishing specific regulations and offering guidance on implementation over the next few months; by the end of that period, the bill should be in full effect.
So far, Canada’s Big Tech confrontation seems to be mirroring Australia’s; Google is upset but has been quiet about its next steps, while Meta has aggressively moved to block Canadian Facebook and Instagram users from seeing and sharing news links.
On June 22, the Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-18, also known as the Online News Act. The new law, according to a government news release, “will require the largest digital platforms”—in effect, calling out Facebook, Instagram, and Google without naming them—“to bargain fairly with Canadian news businesses for the use of their news content.” The intent here is to even out the skewed market imbalance between Canadian journalism and Big Tech platforms, many of which have offered distribution pathways and occasional payment agreements to digital news sites while also sapping them of revenue from native advertising—a sector dominated by those very corporations.
The logic behind the law goes like this: At first glance, when Facebook or Google displays a news article, whether on a specialized feed or a search-results index, that seems good for the news outlet; the platforms are helping it get information to more eyeballs. But it’s valuable for the website only if a user then clicks on the article and navigates the page in question, which hosts the ads the outlet was paid to feature. If users don’t click—and most users don’t—Google and Facebook get to keep the users’ eyeballs, and the advertising revenue that comes from that engagement. Over time, because they’ve come to rely on Facebook or Google for their news, users become less likely to navigate a media publisher’s site organically.
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By requiring digital platforms to compensate news publishers when posting and sharing their links, the Online News Act (in theory) tries to make this dynamic more beneficial for newsrooms. But that depends on the bigger platforms’ willingness to cede any bit of their power. The law is modeled after similar legislation passed in Australia in 2021, and has invited parallel waves of excitement (from continental news organizations and bigger media outlets) and backlash (from trade associations, independent publications, and Big Tech itself). In the months leading up to Bill C-18’s passage, Meta and Google threatened to revoke news access from Canadian users altogether, and they experimented with cutting off displays and shares of media links for small portions of the population, leading Parliament to summon Google executives for questioning. (Earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ruled out any legislative compromises and accused the two companies of employing “bullying tactics.”) Now that the bill is law, Canada’s Heritage Department will take charge of publishing specific regulations and offering guidance on implementation over the next few months; by the end of that period, the bill should be in full effect.
So far, Canada’s Big Tech confrontation seems to be mirroring Australia’s; Google is upset but has been quiet about its next steps, while Meta has aggressively moved to block Canadian Facebook and Instagram users from seeing and sharing news links. [Update, June 29, 2023, at 1:51 p.m.: On Thursday, Google officially announced that it will block news links on Search, News, and Discover to Canadian users in response to the Online News Act.] No negotiations, no relief: “We are proceeding toward ending the availability of news permanently in Canada,” Rachel Curran, a Meta executive and former politician, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday. “Our trajectory is set. There is no way to negotiate out of the framework of this bill.”
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But the Canadian government may think there is more room for negotiation, considering that Facebook ended up striking a murky deal with Australia in 2021 following outrage over its initial news blockage—which had the side effect of scrubbing pages belonging to essential weather and emergency services, and affecting the social media presence of unions, government agencies, and sporting organizations. Still, despite Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s assurance that Meta will suffer “reputational impact” and that his government has “options” to aid outlets that stand to lose Facebook traffic, there’s reason to take the platform’s “permanent” threat seriously—especially given the devastating impact the law could have on Canada’s crumbling media sector.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
YouTube is running a test globally that limits ad blocker users to three videos, giving them the option to turn off their tool or subscribe to YouTube Premium — YouTube is currently running what it describes as a “small experiment globally,” warning users to toggle off their ad blockers …
YouTube tests restricting ad blocker users to 3 video views
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/youtube-tests-restricting-ad-blocker-users-to-3-video-views/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2023/06/29/sci-fi-ui-made-easy-with-arwes/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter now requires an account to view tweets
https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/30/twitter-now-requires-an-account-to-view-tweets/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook&fbclid=IwAR3GYIJfyotSazii3uygGQ9TtcgMahutHO22189CnFHrzCB0qhUHA6MBjqk
If you’re not logged into your Twitter account and try to view a tweet, you’ll be presented with a sign-in screen. And if you don’t want to have an account on the bird app, too bad!
Twitter hasn’t commented on this change
it might just be a glitch. However, in a time when Twitter is struggling to grow its user base, it’s possible that this is a tactic to force silent lurkers into creating an account.
Like many of Twitter’s recent changes, this could easily backfire. If tweets aren’t publicly accessible, search engine algorithms could rank the site’s content lower, meaning that fewer people would be directed to the site from Google. Also, it’s just kind of annoying.
Musk — who is no longer CEO of Twitter, but still deeply involved in operations — may also be motivated by a desire to prevent AI tools from searching Twitter.
We’re still not sure what happened there (and Twitter won’t answer our emails), but with Musk in the C-suite, policies can change faster than you can say “$44 billion,” so anything’s possible.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://into-digital.fi/verkkosivuston-hinnoittelun-5-yleisinta-vaihtoehtoa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.digimarkkinointi.fi/blogi/miten-tekoaly-muuttaa-googlen-ads-mainontaa
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.applemust.com/w3c-announces-new-web-standard-for-online-payments/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-code-a-simple-game/?fbclid=IwAR3dePLdVP1yyw1tRZlCtu-BLzv8KOJlXtBZXyEpvDU0KGyZ2fjW3J0zMEM
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is It OK to Remove 301 Redirects After a Year? We Tested It
Patrick Stox Updated: June 9, 2023 4 min read
In 2021, Google’s Gary Illyes said on Twitter that redirect signals consolidate permanently to the new location after one year.
https://ahrefs.com/blog/are-pemanent-redirects-permanent/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://blog.frontkom.com/en/how-to-accommodate-visual-disabilities-in-ui-design
Tomi Engdahl says:
Demystifying WebAssembly: What Beginners Need to Know
https://thenewstack.io/webassembly/webassembly-what-beginners-need-to-know/
Explore the basics of WebAssembly, including how it works with web browsers, how to compile code to Wasm, and the best practices for writing secure code.