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Goodbye Google+
The ailing Google+ will officially shut its doors next year after a 10-month wind-down that will give members time to migrate their data. The announcement came soon after it was revealed that a software glitch had potentially disclosed the private details of nearly half a million Google+ users when Google admitted that it knew there had been a bug in one of its Google+ People APIs that meant third-party apps could access profile fields including name, e-mail, gender and age even if they weren't marked as public. The company kept quiet about the glitch until The Wall Street Journal ran a story about it. Google unveiled Google+ in 2011 in an attempt to beat Facebook at its own game. The platform was initially quite successful, with an invite-only strategy that increased interest and demand. By 2012 Google revealed the platform had nearly 100 million users, but many suggested this was a disingenuous number, with a Google+ account frequently being created as a by-product of using other Google services. After a while, any measurement of user engagement on the platform revealed how little time people actually spent on the site. Now, Google's Vice President of Engineering Ben Smith admits: "While our engineering teams have put a lot of effort and dedication into building Google+ over the years, it has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption and tThe consumer version of Google+ currently has low usage and engagement: 90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds".
https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/project-strobe/
The Many More Times Google Has Pulled The Plug
The news that Google+ is closing its doors after the disclosure of a security flaw that exposed the private data of nearly half a million users is reminding Google followers of the other times the company abandoned products or services that launched with great fanfare but eventually failed to impress. Who remembers the company's other supposedly game-changing social platform: Orkut, released in 2004? By 2008 the platform had become enormously popular in Brazil, India and the Philippines, but Google ended the service in 2014, citing the rapid growth of Facebook, YouTube, Blogger and - believe it or not - Google+. In truth, Orkut achieved what Google+ never did - it built an active and engaged user base. Maybe they just didn't like the name. There were arguably much better name choices with the likes of Picasa - a free and powerful photo editing and managing app - Google Video - launched a year before the company acquired YouTube - and Google Reader, an excellent and popular RSS reader that nevertheless lasted only until 2013, when it was seen as harmful to the still-believed-in potential growth of Google+. How many more apps and platforms has Google launched on waves of optimism but ultimately sent to the bottom over the years? It's probably a lot more than you think. Wikipedia has been keeping count.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_services
How Instagram's Algorithm Works
Like Google and others, Instagram hasn't been in the habit of explaining exactly how its algorithm selects what to show you and what it chooses not to prioritise. But when the Facebook-owned company invited a group of reporters to visit its new (still under-construction) San Francisco offices recently, the lid came off the Instagram feed ranking algorithm to reveal three main factors determining what you see in your Instagram feed. There were also answers for many of the most common questions and conspiracy theories about how things work, for example denying that it hides posts in the feed and that if you keep scrolling it will show you everything posted by everyone. About penalties, Instagram says it doesn’t down-rank users for posting too frequently, or for any specific behaviour, but it might introduce other content in between posts where there are many very rapid-fire separate posts. It doesn't hide people’s content for posting "too many" hashtags. It doesn’t give extra feed presence to personal accounts or business accounts, so switching won't help your reach. Going forward, as more users and businesses join Instagram and post more often, it's inevitably going to be harder for the average post to gain prominence and business posters could get fewer views. User complaints that Instagram is trying to force them to buy ads will increase as a direct result, which is why lifting the lid on the platform's algorithmic innards for a public airing from time to time will be essential to maintaining business trust.
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/instagram-reveals-secret-sauce-powering-151155693.html
Internet Trends
Before the end of this year, 2018, half the world population, or about 3.6 billion people, will be on the Internet. That’s thanks in large part to cheaper Android phones and Wifi becoming more available, though individual services will have a tougher time adding new users as the Web approaches saturation. Although smartphone sales are flat and Internet user growth is slowing, widespread mobile use means US adults spend more time online. Want to understand all the most important tech stats and trends? Legendary venture capitalist Mary Meeker released the 2018 version of her famous Internet Trends report earlier this year and it's been updated with coverage of , everything from mobile to commerce to competition between the tech giants.
http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends
See Spot Run (Or Dance, Twerk, and Do The Running Man)
Boston Dynamics has had a busy time recently, hot on the heels of its video showing its Atlas robot mastering parkour (running, jumping, and climbing to negotiate urban landscape obstacles) and the four-legged Spot getting around construction sites, it has released another video. This one unveils a lighter side to its robots, with Spot dropping some impressive dance moves to Uptown Funk. The ongoing parade of videos pushed out from bostondynamics.com to show off its robots' ever-growing skills tend to be followed by journalists and commentators alluding to a frightening science fiction future where robots take over the world. The science fiction anthology series Black Mirror even devoted an entire episode to a story set in a dystopian future where four-legged robots, that look suspiciously like Boston Dynamics' Spot, mercilessly hunt down humans. To counter such nightmare scenarios, Boston Dynamics has released a video showing that Spot is actually as cute as a kitten.- albeit one with an impressive array of groovy dance moves. From a jerky version of the running man to some terrible twerking - showing off its USB slot - Spot sells itself as Boston Dynamics' most commercially orientated robot, ready to go on sale next year.
https://www.youtube.com/user/BostonDynamics
Search Engine of the Month
Experts from UK Research & Innovation have contributed to a new search tool launched last month by Google that aims to help scientists, policy makers and other user groups more easily find the data required for their work and their stories, or simply to satisfy their intellectual curiosity. There are thousands of data repositories on the Web, providing access to millions of datasets, and where local and national governments also publish their data. As part of the UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) expertise and commitment to easy access to data enabled the cooperation with Google which developed the new search engine. Google approached UKRI's Natural Environment Research Council and Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) to help ensure their world-leading environmental datasets were included. The heritage in these organisations, managing huge complex datasets on the atmosphere, oceans, climate change and even data about the solar system, led Dr Sarah Callaghan, Data & Programme Manager at the UKRI's national space laboratory, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) Space, to work with Google on the project. Working in a similar way to Google Scholar, Dataset Search lets users find datasets wherever they're hosted, whether it's a publisher's site, a digital library or an author's personal site pages.
https://toolbox.google.com/datasetsearch
The ailing Google+ will officially shut its doors next year after a 10-month wind-down that will give members time to migrate their data. The announcement came soon after it was revealed that a software glitch had potentially disclosed the private details of nearly half a million Google+ users when Google admitted that it knew there had been a bug in one of its Google+ People APIs that meant third-party apps could access profile fields including name, e-mail, gender and age even if they weren't marked as public. The company kept quiet about the glitch until The Wall Street Journal ran a story about it. Google unveiled Google+ in 2011 in an attempt to beat Facebook at its own game. The platform was initially quite successful, with an invite-only strategy that increased interest and demand. By 2012 Google revealed the platform had nearly 100 million users, but many suggested this was a disingenuous number, with a Google+ account frequently being created as a by-product of using other Google services. After a while, any measurement of user engagement on the platform revealed how little time people actually spent on the site. Now, Google's Vice President of Engineering Ben Smith admits: "While our engineering teams have put a lot of effort and dedication into building Google+ over the years, it has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption and tThe consumer version of Google+ currently has low usage and engagement: 90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds".
https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/project-strobe/
The Many More Times Google Has Pulled The Plug
The news that Google+ is closing its doors after the disclosure of a security flaw that exposed the private data of nearly half a million users is reminding Google followers of the other times the company abandoned products or services that launched with great fanfare but eventually failed to impress. Who remembers the company's other supposedly game-changing social platform: Orkut, released in 2004? By 2008 the platform had become enormously popular in Brazil, India and the Philippines, but Google ended the service in 2014, citing the rapid growth of Facebook, YouTube, Blogger and - believe it or not - Google+. In truth, Orkut achieved what Google+ never did - it built an active and engaged user base. Maybe they just didn't like the name. There were arguably much better name choices with the likes of Picasa - a free and powerful photo editing and managing app - Google Video - launched a year before the company acquired YouTube - and Google Reader, an excellent and popular RSS reader that nevertheless lasted only until 2013, when it was seen as harmful to the still-believed-in potential growth of Google+. How many more apps and platforms has Google launched on waves of optimism but ultimately sent to the bottom over the years? It's probably a lot more than you think. Wikipedia has been keeping count.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_services
How Instagram's Algorithm Works
Like Google and others, Instagram hasn't been in the habit of explaining exactly how its algorithm selects what to show you and what it chooses not to prioritise. But when the Facebook-owned company invited a group of reporters to visit its new (still under-construction) San Francisco offices recently, the lid came off the Instagram feed ranking algorithm to reveal three main factors determining what you see in your Instagram feed. There were also answers for many of the most common questions and conspiracy theories about how things work, for example denying that it hides posts in the feed and that if you keep scrolling it will show you everything posted by everyone. About penalties, Instagram says it doesn’t down-rank users for posting too frequently, or for any specific behaviour, but it might introduce other content in between posts where there are many very rapid-fire separate posts. It doesn't hide people’s content for posting "too many" hashtags. It doesn’t give extra feed presence to personal accounts or business accounts, so switching won't help your reach. Going forward, as more users and businesses join Instagram and post more often, it's inevitably going to be harder for the average post to gain prominence and business posters could get fewer views. User complaints that Instagram is trying to force them to buy ads will increase as a direct result, which is why lifting the lid on the platform's algorithmic innards for a public airing from time to time will be essential to maintaining business trust.
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/instagram-reveals-secret-sauce-powering-151155693.html
Internet Trends
Before the end of this year, 2018, half the world population, or about 3.6 billion people, will be on the Internet. That’s thanks in large part to cheaper Android phones and Wifi becoming more available, though individual services will have a tougher time adding new users as the Web approaches saturation. Although smartphone sales are flat and Internet user growth is slowing, widespread mobile use means US adults spend more time online. Want to understand all the most important tech stats and trends? Legendary venture capitalist Mary Meeker released the 2018 version of her famous Internet Trends report earlier this year and it's been updated with coverage of , everything from mobile to commerce to competition between the tech giants.
http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends
See Spot Run (Or Dance, Twerk, and Do The Running Man)
Boston Dynamics has had a busy time recently, hot on the heels of its video showing its Atlas robot mastering parkour (running, jumping, and climbing to negotiate urban landscape obstacles) and the four-legged Spot getting around construction sites, it has released another video. This one unveils a lighter side to its robots, with Spot dropping some impressive dance moves to Uptown Funk. The ongoing parade of videos pushed out from bostondynamics.com to show off its robots' ever-growing skills tend to be followed by journalists and commentators alluding to a frightening science fiction future where robots take over the world. The science fiction anthology series Black Mirror even devoted an entire episode to a story set in a dystopian future where four-legged robots, that look suspiciously like Boston Dynamics' Spot, mercilessly hunt down humans. To counter such nightmare scenarios, Boston Dynamics has released a video showing that Spot is actually as cute as a kitten.- albeit one with an impressive array of groovy dance moves. From a jerky version of the running man to some terrible twerking - showing off its USB slot - Spot sells itself as Boston Dynamics' most commercially orientated robot, ready to go on sale next year.
https://www.youtube.com/user/BostonDynamics
Search Engine of the Month
Experts from UK Research & Innovation have contributed to a new search tool launched last month by Google that aims to help scientists, policy makers and other user groups more easily find the data required for their work and their stories, or simply to satisfy their intellectual curiosity. There are thousands of data repositories on the Web, providing access to millions of datasets, and where local and national governments also publish their data. As part of the UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) expertise and commitment to easy access to data enabled the cooperation with Google which developed the new search engine. Google approached UKRI's Natural Environment Research Council and Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) to help ensure their world-leading environmental datasets were included. The heritage in these organisations, managing huge complex datasets on the atmosphere, oceans, climate change and even data about the solar system, led Dr Sarah Callaghan, Data & Programme Manager at the UKRI's national space laboratory, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) Space, to work with Google on the project. Working in a similar way to Google Scholar, Dataset Search lets users find datasets wherever they're hosted, whether it's a publisher's site, a digital library or an author's personal site pages.
https://toolbox.google.com/datasetsearch
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