Digital Information World

With the coronavirus pandemic in full swing there are a lot of companies out there that are trying to capitalize on it by providing services that would be in high demand because of the fact that there are so many people that are being forced to work from home. One such company is Zoom that provides excellent video calling capabilities and has therefore become quite a cause for concern for companies like Facebook and Google that were suddenly facing stiff competition in a field where they usually hold a pretty impregnable monopoly.

However, both tech giants have responded in kind by upping their own video conferencing game. Messenger Rooms is what Facebook is calling its group calling feature, and the social media company is putting a lot of effort into making it an enticing option for people to end up looking into all in all. One thing that Facebook has just done is that it has incorporated Messenger Rooms into Instagram, so now if you are hosting a video conference call this means that you can send people links and engage with them in their Instagram DMs as well, something that can provide a lot of benefits in this regard.

This is Facebook’s biggest example of cross platform cooperation, and it happens to be in line with the companies vision of unifying its various properties until eventually they will all be considered parts of the same whole. It remains to be seen whether or not this would make Facebook able to compete with the likes of Zoom, however, since the video conferencing app has become extremely popular and has in many ways become synonymous with the coronavirus lockdown video calls that people are taking part in, something that can prove to be very useful down the line and may just make the company a great deal more viable than it would have seemed otherwise.

An easy way to video chat with up to 50 of your favorite people? Yes please 🙋‍♀️

Starting today, you can create @messenger Rooms on Instagram and invite anyone to join 👇 pic.twitter.com/VKYtJjniEt
— Instagram (@instagram) May 21, 2020

Recently, Facebook issued a fresh set of guidelines to avoid the music copyright infringement issue on Facebook and Instagram Live video streaming sessions. It is also adding an indicator on both the platforms to prevent this issue.

Lately, and especially amid the coronavirus pandemic lockdown and incessant usage of tech apps, it has been noticed that many people are making videos and doing live video streams while using music without giving due credits. Now, this has raised a question mark and has become a point of concern from music publishers, as this also borders to copyright infringement of all this music.

Many musicians are upset about the potential misuse of their music in the content that random people are creating over Facebook and Instagram live sessions, as well as on musical apps like TikTok.

Facebook is all about encouraging musical expression, but they also want to uphold their agreements with the rights holders, and it is understandable because these agreements are solely there to protect the rights of the original creators, songwriters, and music artists.

Although Facebook established certain guidelines of agreements with music publishers two years ago. But seeing the recent increasing trend of usage of music in videos and the way some “wannabe DJs” hold live video streaming concerts in these times of lockdown and social distancing, Facebook had to revise and re-establish some ground rules again.

Also read: Facebook Messenger Introduces New Pop-ups To Warn Users About Fake Friends And Scams

The four rules for permissible music use that apply to both Facebook and Instagram are as follows:

1. If your video contains a great number of full-length recorded tracks, there will be more limitations like the stream may get interrupted, or parts of your video will be muted, or the entire video may be deleted.

2. No limits on music in Stories or traditional musical performances like filming a live artist or band performing.

3. Short clips of music are recommended to be used in your videos or other content.

4. The video must always have a visual component to it, while recorded audio must not be the primary purpose of a video.

These are some general copyright rules with a little tweak here and there, but the point where there is no limit of music on Stories is a little unclear. A little more strictness and clarity were expected about the extent to which music can be used in not only Stories but any content. Especially when they are giving a free pass to record live music performances too. Many a time, these live artists are not given their due credits, and Facebook’s new and apparently re-established guidelines do not add anything for their advantage again!

So, whether these guidelines serve their purpose or not, it is yet to see. However, for the time being, some of these rules make sense, but the others are surprisingly unclear.

Read next: Facebook Brings Messenger Rooms to Instagram

We have seen that Facebook and Instagram has been helping small businesses ever since the coronavirus pandemic hit the world. Instagram is working to make these small businesses efficient enough that the local businesses survive the coronavirus pandemic. The popular application owned by Facebook has also made efforts to encourage the masses to stay indoors to stop the coronavirus from spreading. In one of its attempts to encourage people to stay at home, Instagram started the ‘Stay Home’ project and the weekly takeover of their handle by popular superstars and artists is also one of Instagram’s attempts to make people follow shelter-in-place orders.

Yet, all of this has not stopped the company from introducing new updates for Instagram as well as the Facebook app. Recently, news surfaced that Facebook bought the animated-gif company, Giphy for $400 million. Instagram was also working to introduce new changes to the Instagram app. It is no doubt that the Instagram app comes with enough filters and games for us which made the quarantine period more tolerable for a lot of individuals across the globe.

These filters and games are a source of entertainment for use and influencers as well as creators use them to their benefit and motivate other people to do the same. Now, the popular reverse engineering expert, Jane Manchun Wong tweeted that Instagram is currently developing a new video sticker update. With these video stickers, you will be able to add them in your images and upload them on Instagram as your stories as well as part of your feed. These new video stickers will prove to be fun and unique ways to express yourself in stories as well as in your feed. Moreover, the video sticker update will be a useful feature for influencers to make their Instagram Stories more interesting and appealing.

Instagram is working on video stickers pic.twitter.com/LWrzxbr76k
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) May 19, 2020

The addition of stickers is not entirely new for the platform as users could previously include emojis and a lot of other stickers available on Instagram to their images. However, a video sticker is a little bit different from regular stickers. The video sticker is a part of a small video that is playing on a loop that users could add to their images. Wong posted a screenshot in the tweet displaying a sample picture of how the new video stickers will look like. In the demo, a video sticker can be seen used on an image.

Although the video stickers are different from standard Instagram stickers, users will be able to find them the same way the regular Instagram stickers are found. You will be able to find as well as use the new video stickers in the same way you used the standard stickers.

Moreover, the new update is still in the testing phase which means that the Instagram app is currently only testing out these new video stickers. It is possible that the developer team will take some time before the update is rolled out for public use.

Read next: Facebook New Profile Lock Feature Will Promote Women’s Safety

Have you ever received unwelcome replies to your tweets from people that don’t know you or who you don’t like? This is particularly pertinent to women who use Twitter but at the same time can be considered a valid complaint no matter who makes it because, after all, Twitter is a very open community and many people use it so you are bound to come across someone or the other that you don’t like at any given point in time all in all.

With all of that having been said and out of the way, a new feature that Twitter is testing out might change things completely. You might soon be given the option of controlling who can or can’t reply to your tweet. You can choose to only let those that are tagged reply or restrict it to your followers and there are probably more options that you can look into as well.

Now, this is big news for a few reasons. Firstly, Twitter has always been a very open community, and many would say that the whole point of the platform is to facilitate easy communication and open dialogue between people. However, some people might want to have a conversation with a select few people and this is the sort of thing that can be quite useful for you in a wide variety of ways.

It remains to be seen whether or not this feature will even be rolled out, but since it is being tested so widely chances are that Twitter will be rolling it out at some point or another. Big celebrities like Lil Nas X have already started using it to troll their fans so there is a good chance that this feature could take off and become immensely popular in a wide variety of ways.

Read next: Twitter’s New Terms of Use Reflect Changes to User Control Over Data Privacy

Part of the manner in which Google has been operating these past few years has had quite a bit to do with things like optimizing its search results so that you don’t just get links from other sites, you would get results built into the interface that would make it so that you wouldn’t have to click on any links to see basic information related to the search query that you have entered into the search engine.

The fact of the matter is that this can be quite useful for a lot of people, and Google Jobs is one of the new features that has been rolled out. This is a box that would feature potential job listings near you if you happen to search for something related to jobs. Some users have screenshotted a new related queries section that is shown when you search for jobs. This box is going to show you related topics and queries that you can use to try and expand your search to the point where it would be much easier for you to get a grasp of what you are trying to learn about as well as better understand the manner in which things like this tend to occur all in all.

It is unknown if this is an update that will be rolling out soon or if it is simply some kind of test that is not indicative of incoming new features that you might want to use. If this does get rolled out, however, it is probably going to be highly welcome in a situation where so many people are struggling to come to grips with the virus that is ravaging the world and is also leaving a lot of people unemployed which is the reason behind why job searches are now at an all time high.

Screeshot: SEMRush

Read next: Google Search Trends Displays That People Are Searching For Ways To Stay Connected During The Lockdowns

It has been recently reported that Twitter is considering introducing Audio Tweets. This feature is most likely to go by the name of ‘Hear and Now.’

Now, this is something interesting. With podcast listenership and audio messages on different applications like WhatsApp have enjoyed great popularity, Twitter’s new feature might be a great chance for people to reach their audience whenever they want, behind a mic, without the need to show their face and express their feelings and views without cloaking them behind words.

It is being said that this feature will allow audio clips to be attached to tweets and even highlighted in special segments.

A designated team from Twitter’s headquarters is working on this feature and they have created a initial version of what audio tweets may look like, if they ever make up to get finally rolled out.

However, so far, the concept does not look novel. Different apps in the past have considered this feature of letting people post their feelings in special audio clips. Facebook also rolled out the option of audio posts back in 2018 for some particular regions.

Some third-party apps also allow the linking of audio clips to tweets, and interestingly, Twitter itself launched ‘Audio only live-streams’ for both Twitter as well as Periscope. This feature, as it is, provides a way to share audio clips in tweets.

The rationale behind this whole scheme is simple and sounds impressive. This feature will be useful for people who live in regions where there is an issue of a language barrier or connectivity. There are instances when people cannot read a particular language, but they understand the meaning behind the tone of voice in an added audio clip.

However, there are some reservations too. While it is a good thing, and maybe people will find it easier to connect through audio tweets, it is also going to bring in a lot of other issues.

Social media wars are nothing new, and most of the time Twitter sees intense arguments between different parties on its platform. Most of the time, these wars occur because of the use of hateful language and heated ‘tone’ of words in tweets. Now, just pause and think for a bit. When these people will be given a free pass to translate their views in the form of audio tweets, how heated these wars and arguments will become?

If Twitter decides to roll out this feature, it will be good if they also integrate a system through which the content of these audio tweets could be filtered and worked out before allowing them to be posted.

Another point to note is that the feature of audio posts is not new and has been integrated in different apps already, so Twitter has to add in something special to its audio tweeting feature to improve its game amongst its competitors.

All of these are speculations at the moment, and a complete picture will only be visible if and when this feature eventually launches.

Let us wait till then!

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Matt Navarra, a social media industry commentator and consultant, has recently tweeted that Facebook is testing a new feature with Groups. It is setting “Engagement Alerts” for these Groups, which will notify the admins when a particular post receives most likes and comments.

This feature looks to be quite useful at the moment. It will not only alert the admins and moderators to take quick action, but it will also make the interaction and communication between the admin and the group members smooth.

Those who moderate Groups on Facebook know that at times it is very difficult to keep a track of constant influx of posts from the members. Sometimes, admins get busy and they do not follow posts that require their assistance or their input. This really turns off most members and they start leaving the group, bringing it down or worse, start bombarding the inbox of the admin with messages for personal attention.

Sometimes, angry members start tagging the admin or moderators in their posts, which becomes a lot of hassle for them and in all honesty, pretty annoying.

All these incidents can be avoided now by setting “Engagement Alerts” on a particular post. All engagement with that post will come in the admins’ prompt notice. So, there will be less hassle and more efficacy on their part.

This is not the only new feature that is in the process of getting introduced in Groups. Recently, Facebook announced to introduce Messenger Rooms in these Groups also. These Rooms will allow the admins and members to host video calls with up to 50 people at one time.

Various settings and control features are going to be added for Group Rooms, so that virtual meetings of large groups, virtual hangouts with family and friends and interaction with people is made possible during these trying times of coronavirus pandemic when social distancing and shelter-at-home enforcements are implied all over the world.

With another feature of Engagement Alerts for these groups on the rollout, it is quite evident that Facebook is trying hard to provide a great user experience for the members who are a part of various Groups and provide a breath of fresh air for their admins.

Read next: Facebook Introduces AI to Make eCommerce Easier

After a year of working on it, Whatsapp is now testing the QR Code support on iOS and Android with WhatsApp Beta testers.

A report by WABetaInfo revealed that WhatsApp has been developing this feature for almost a year which will provide complete encryption for the chats and will also store the conversations on iCloud.

A special scan feature has been added to the camera app of Whatsapp to scan the code. To invite people to join a chat, users can generate a QR code and share it with others, who will then scan the QR code to join the chat.

In case a QR code is leaked, users can cancel the previously created code and generate a new one immediately. However, it is preferred that QR codes should not be shared publicly to prevent any inconvenience later.

According to WABetaInfo, QR codes are not private as they contain a phone number, which means that it would allow users to communicate privately but it would not hide anyone’s identity.

Currently, the new feature is available only for beta testers on iOS and Android and it is expected that it would be rolled out to all users in the coming few weeks.

Along with above mentioned updates, Whatsapp is also rolling out Messenger Rooms for group calls to counter the rising popularly of video calling.

Google’s YouTube on Wednesday announced to release a new feature that will help you to log off late at night. The new feature is called bedtime reminders and this tool will remind you to log off late at night. It will help the most committed of extremely online types stop watching videos late at night. The new bedtime reminder tool joins YouTube’s existing ‘Take a Break’ reminders feature. Both the features fall among a broader set of YouTube wellness and screen time features. YouTube rolled the wellness and screen time features back in the year 2018 and these tools were released as a part of Google’s Digital Wellbeing initiative.

The ultimate goal of this new bedtime reminder feature is to help people use Google services in a more responsible way. This issue has only intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic people are spending much of their time online. Most of the individuals are bored during the coronavirus lockdowns and they tend to spend their staring at their screen while being at home. It seems that the company wants us to use Google products more responsibly. YouTube states that the company has sent around three billion ‘take a break’ reminders to its users during the past two years. This shows that people are spending more and more of their time watching videos on YouTube, and staring at screens for such a long span may have negative impacts on mental as well as physical health of the people.

Now, as YouTube has released the bedtime reminder feature, the app will be able to remind you to stop watching videos in the late night. YouTube states that users will be able to set particular times to stop watching videos with the help of this new bedtime reminders feature, and (you guessed it!) go to sleep. The company published a blog post stating that the users will be able to set start and end times with this new tool. You can set the timings and in the Settings tab. You also choose whether you want the prompt to interrupt you while you are watching a video or not. You can choose the prompt to wait and appear once you have watched the video. Users will also be able to snooze or dismiss the bedtime reminder if they wish to.

Also read: YouTube ‘re-defines’ the classic definition of videos by removing 720p from the list of High Definition

The new bedtime feature will be helpful for users to manage their time and sleeping patterns. Given that a lot of people are spending most of their time staring at their screens, this feature will help them to manage their routines, and it will surely become a popular feature among the users. YouTube states that the new bedtime reminders feature will be made available on YouTube’s Android and iOS apps. The company is rolling out the feature starting today. However, it may take a few days for the feature to be rolled out to everyone.

Screenshots: Xda-developers.

Read next: YouTube Is Introducing A New Premium Ad Program Called YouTube Select

According to researches, 5 percent to 15 percent of accounts present on Twitter are fake or bot operated. Users have been complaining about such accounts for years as their impact is bigger than any of the expected numbers. A number of bot accounts are also being used for malicious purposes - including amplification of political messages.

However, when now recently Twitter was asked about the details regarding all the assumptions listed above, the company has come out with a clear statement that such statistics are not only incorrect but Twitter also is rapidly improving at detecting and removing bots.

Moreover, the executives of the company have also been blunt about addressing how the blames of the platform enabling mass-tweeting to influence public opinion is an unfair one too.

Yoel Roth, Twitter's Head of Integrity, and Nick Pickles, the company's Director of Global Public Policy Strategy, together have outlined the various limitations of third-party Twitter bot analysis in a written note, along with presenting their own results as the indicator of performance that you should trust more.

Starting off with utmost honesty, Twitter first accepted that automatic accounts emerged as a big problem for the company initially. But as along the way investments were made and the core team delivered their best work to get rid of such accounts, Twitter has been pretty much successful in eliminating them from the platform.

Twitter also presented a Transparency Report based on the most recent update and said that the total count of malicious accounts has been 15.4 million as of June 2019.

Now if we keep using that as an indicator then Twitter had 139 million mDAU back in that month. Moving on another measure that is connected to the mDAU suggest that there may have been only 11.08% of possible fake profiles. But then this figure also includes all the violations and Twitter’s own spam account count can be as low as single digits - which are constantly getting detected and removed as well.

Twitter has become even more strict on the violations of the platform’s rule but as all automation accounts does not cause contravention, they can also be used for creative purposes by business, copy content despite being original and therefore the company will continue to find a middle ground to improve the situation more.

Furthermore, the kind of data coming out as a part of academic studies includes tweets that are often repeated, word for word, and re-posted in rapid succession for when a topic is trending. This is typical practice on the platform carried by real accounts.

But all being said and done, the company also says that Twitter is not entirely bot free. As people usually run their profile through a bot checker, that still is not an enough evidence to point any finger.

Nevertheless, Twitter is also working to add new tags for bot accounts - similar to the verified ticks for bots that previously used to help in better understanding the origin of any trend on the platform.

It all comes down to how you take both the numbers. In either case, Twitter is working actively to beat the bots and the problem may just be different from what it seems like.

Hat Tip: SMT.

Read next: 'Distractions' keeps us - humans different from bots, reveals a Twitter study

Facebook has brought back Polls in Messenger to help people coordinate their activities and share their opinions by voting in group chats.

‘Polls’ was a part of Facebook before as well, but it was removed sometime back, much to the dismay of many people. It has proved to be a valuable tool to help people reach conclusions when they are indecisive about something.

The new Polls feature is better than before in looks, with new colors and an updated button to vote. Facebook has also made the Messenger Desktop able to feature polls for Windows, as well as Mac users.

Creating a poll is a simple procedure. All you have to do is to Tap on + and select Polls in a group chat. Then you can add your question that you want your friends to vote by clicking on Type in the Poll Question.

You will then have to click in Options and select the option of ‘Create Poll’ to submit your question in the group chat.

To create a poll, it is necessary to have two or more friends in that chat thread.

If you are the recipient of a poll question, and you want to take part in it, then you just have to click anywhere on the Poll in the group chat, so that all the Poll details will come in front of you.

By selecting Polls Options, you can choose your answer and Submit.

‘Polls’ is available on Messenger for all operating systems. Facebook is also rolling out the feature of Messenger Rooms to let people carry out virtual meetings and virtual hangouts. It allows hosting of video calls for up to 50 people at a time.

It seems that this ‘Polls’ feature is also an extension of the effort that Facebook is trying to put forward to help people as much as possible amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Other messaging apps are also trying to keep people engaged during this critical time. So, Facebook must bring as many positive changes as possible to keep shining among so much competition.

There is another important feature that Facebook has announced for the protection of users under 18 from scammers. This new tool will scan through various accounts for suspicious activities. It will pick out accounts sending out a large number of friends’ requests or multiple message requests within a short span of time.

Once it detects any suspicious activity, it will notify the prospective victim through a pop-up chat window and give them the options to either ignore or block that user. This way, many young users will be protected from harmful cybercriminal activities.

Read next: Facebook is working on new “Engagement Alerts” for Groups for better interaction and responsiveness

The coronavirus pandemic has changed a lot of things for us and tech companies are currently reimagining what the future of remote work will look like. Currently, our remote work consists of group video calls and collaborative services such as Google Docs through digital devices. However, what is the future of remote computing?

Facebook on Thursday, traced the company’s vision on the future of remote work and the upcoming computing platform. The company provided details on how Facebook will leverage Oculus, Portal, and Workplace to provide support to remote work. The most striking development of Facebook’s vision is the mixed reality workspace concept.

The company shared an 8-second video displaying a glimpse of how the mixed reality concept will help us to work. In the video, a person is working via an augmented reality/virtual reality headset. The person drags virtual windows and uses their real keyboard for typing. The user is also able to see their hands and surrounding the workplace while working.

As we think through supercharging remote work and productivity, we've been working on mixed reality concepts that builds on existing technologies like Passthrough to allow people to switch between real and virtual worlds pic.twitter.com/cJCEXDxC7b
— Boz (@boztank) May 21, 2020

At the end of that short video clip, the person exits their mixed reality workspace revealing their real single monitor. Facebook’s mixed reality concept is similar to Open Source Virtual Reality, but you might be wondering how much of this concept is real. Leap 1, Google Glass, and HoloLens have promised us such concepts over these years but none of them could provide us a truly mesmerizing mixed reality working experience.

However, Facebook’s spokesman informed media outlets that this video clip is the real footage operating on a prototype. He said that Facebook is always experimenting with upcoming concepts and the company uses various hardware configurations in the process.

We cannot still believe whether the concept will be an immersive experience for us or not. However, Facebook has other companies like Google, Magic Leap, and Microsoft don’t have. As the Oculus Quest is a virtual reality headset, its field of view is not limited. And the cameras are installed on the headset, the headset can layer on pass-through augmented reality on top of the virtual reality world. Moreover, the company’s previous records and Zuckerberg’s obsession with virtual reality depicts that the company is dead serious about this new mixed reality concept.

Read next: Microsoft CEO Says That The "Permanent Work From Home" Decision Can Be Dangerous For The Corporate Culture

CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has predicted that due to the current trend, there is a chance that 50 percent of its employees will be working from home within the next 5 to 10 years.

If the company starts implementing the policy of full-time remote working, the employees will have to notify the company if they shift to another location by 1st January 2021. Their salaries are going to be adjusted according to their new locations, as that will be necessary for accounts and taxes. Zuckerberg has also announced that serious legal steps will be taken if employees fail to produce honest evidence of their location and work.

Apart from the existing employees, the company is going to hire more people for remote jobs. This will pave the way for people who live in different cities and previously could not apply for jobs because they could not move or relocate. Now, they will get a chance to apply as remote workers too. In a way, this will help Facebook with employee retention and improve the diversity of its workforce, while giving more economic opportunities than before.

Due to the current situation of the coronavirus pandemic, approximately 95% of Facebook employees are working from home. According to a survey, 50% of these employees feel that their productivity has not been affected, and their workflow is the same as before when they used to work from their office before the pandemic hit the world.

40% of the employees said that they were interested in full-time remote work, and amongst these 40 percent of people, 75% of them are willing to relocate if they could work remotely.

However, Zuckerberg has also said that Facebook will allow existing employees to apply for remote work policy if they show strong recent performance. There will be a specific criterion that these employees will have to meet to be given a chance to work from home as a full-time employee. They should be on teams that support remote work, and they should get approval from their group leaders. Recent graduates will not be eligible to apply for this policy.

Keeping this new possibility into consideration, Facebook has also announced new features to roll out for its Slack-like chat tool, Workplace, which will allow video conferencing in Workplace Rooms, the usage of Portal TV during Live video calls and automatic audio captioning in six languages during these live video calls.

These new features will set a solid base for the upcoming days where remote working will become the new norm.

Facebook is not the only app that has come to this solution. Recently Twitter made this announcement that it will allow its employees to work from home in the future if they desire. Following the suit, Shopify, Square, Spotify and Coinbase have also announced the same thing.

Surprisingly, when most of the market is down, Facebook’s share price saw a surge of 1% after Zuckerberg’s announcements.

This clearly shows the trend towards which everyone is leaning now.

Read next: A fresh set of guidelines regarding music copyrights by Facebook and its implications

Featured Photo: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

Google published an explainer article about how Knowledge Graph and Knowledge Panels are created which you see in search results. According to Google, Knowledge Graphs like a massive virtual encyclopedia of facts and figures which Google mentions to create specific elements of search results. This virtual encyclopedia has grown to be quite massive and Google’s Search Liaison team said in an announcement that the Knowledge Graph currently consists of more than 500 billion facts about 5 billion individuals, places, and things.

Knowledge Graph creates the boxes which you see in search results regarding your queries related to entities. These boxes you see in search results are known as knowledge panels and display you a list of key facts derived from Google’s Knowledge Graph. In the latest explainer article penned by Danny Sullivan, Google describes the basics of creating knowledge panels. Knowledge Graph automatically creates these knowledge panels, which Google mentions if someone assumes that someone is updating these things manually.

The automated network of Google aims to display you the most suitable and well-known data for an entity on a knowledge panel box. What you see in a knowledge panel will evidently be different for various entities, however, Google usually adds the following into a knowledge panel.

Name and a short summary of the topic you searched for.

A relatively lengthy explanation of the relevant subject.

An image or images of the entities.

You will also see some key facts like the location of something, or the birth date of a popular person.

Google also includes links to social profiles of entities and their official websites in a knowledge panel.

A knowledge panel may also display you a specialized data based on the type of person, place, or thing you searched for. For instance, specific sorts of knowledge panels may also add songs from artists, or forthcoming episodes from a TV show.

Google released the Knowledge Graph back in the year 2012, and Knowledge Graph gathers its data from sources such as website content and licensed databases. Knowledge Graph commonly gathers data from Wikipedia, but Wikipedia is not the only source of information for Knowledge Graph.

Since the release of Knowledge Panels, the search pattern of most users has shifted to the point where they perform most of their search activities on smartphones. Google originally developed and designed these Knowledge Panels for desktop search purposes, and they were also not compatible with smartphone screens. The screen of a smartphone does not offer a side-by-side view in a similar way a desktop screen displays. To resolve this issue, Google displays you multiple knowledge panels in a smartphone search that are stretched throughout the Google Search Engine Results Pages.

Danny Sullivan admits that Knowledge Graph may sometimes also come up with inaccurate information. These inaccuracies often lead to Google displaying wrong data in Google search results. If you want to notify Google about an inaccuracy, you can do so by clicking on the ‘Feedback’ option. The company then uses these feedbacks to enhance the Knowledge Graph by evaluating the feedbacks to analyze how Google’s automated systems were not able to detect these inaccuracies.

Moreover, when you notify Google about inaccurate information, it will also remove those inaccurate facts. If you have claimed your own Knowledge Panel, you interact changes directly to the company any time you want to.

If you are a content creator, Facebook’s Creator Studio app is releasing a new experience for you if you want to manage your content on the go. Creator Studio app allows content creators to check content insights as well as respond to their audience’s comments and messages. The new upgrade will allow the content creators to publish and schedule their posts within the app.

The latest update also provides creators the control to post as one of their Facebook Pages. The new update will save the creators from accidentally posting from their personal Facebook profiles. The new update will also make it easier for you to manage your Facebook Pages as you can now manage your content, check content insights, and communicate with your fans within the same app.

The new update comes with extra tools for video posts. The company added the new ‘Video metadata fields’ that will help you to include a title and description to your video content to offer your audience extra information related to the content you are posting on your Facebook Pages. A ‘Thumbnail Section’ is also added which offers content creators the ability to upload a thumbnail from their smartphone’s library. Content creators can also choose to use Facebook’s thumbnail selector to use one thumbnail from the video they have uploaded.

The latest update joins an existing set of tools such as Rich Insights, Post-Uploading edits and fixes, Connect with audiences, Multi-account support, and Notifications. Rich Insights displays your content performance metrics like average minutes viewed by viewers, etc. With the help of Post-Uploading edits and fixes feature, creators can edit the title of their videos as well as descriptions. The options to delete and reschedule a Facebook post is also present within the Post-Uploading edits and fixes feature. The same feature also offers the option to publish and draft a post.

The Connect with audiences feature helps you to respond to comments and messages in the app, while the Multi-account support tool allows you to manage more than one Facebook Page within the same app and session. You can try the brand new experience by downloading the app for iOS or Android devices.

There are tens of millions of people around the world that require the use of a wheelchair in order to get where they need to go. However, with all of that having been said and out of the way, it is important to note that there are a lot of problems that people who use wheelchairs often face and this has to do with the fact that not every place out there is going to offer accessible entrances as well as amenities for people that are living with disabilities.

Being able to know beforehand whether or not a place is wheelchair accessible can be a big people to people with disabilities. This is why Google has now updated Maps with a feature that is going to make the lives of wheelchair using people much easier than they might have been otherwise. This feature will make it so that you can see all nearby places that are wheelchair accessible on Maps. You would also be able to know if a place has a wheelchair accessible bathroom along with other amenities, and what’s more is that places that are not wheelchair accessible will be marked as well which is the sort of thing that can really end up improving the lives of those that need wheelchairs in order to get around.

If you want to be able to use this new feature you will have to go in the Accessibility section of the settings in the app and toggle Accessible Places on. You will then start seeing all places that do or don’t correspond to accessibility requirements. This is a great new feature to have and it’s good that Google is expanding its features to include those that require a bit more assistance to get by in life due to physical disabilities that they have no control over.

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Tara Walpert Levy, the VP of agency and media solutions at Google and YouTube mentioned that COVID related ads did not have much impact as compared to other scrappy, straight-up ads. In fact, when the entire TV world had started showing ads with inspirational and motivational messages when the pandemic first hit the world, YouTube chose not to follow the trend and kept showing 80% of non-COVID related ads.

But even with COVID centered ads, it was soon noticed that they did not perform much better or worse than any other regular ad on the site.

This forced the company to look into factors like the content that people are interested in watching, how they engage with brands and products after watching their ads on YouTube, even brand considerations and preferences. After closely monitoring all these factors, the company found out that COVID-related or themed ads did not work as they were expecting them to affect the people.

The content of these ads was simple, more realistic, and straight forward. They endorsed the precautions that are mandatory along with restaurants encouraging people to get home deliveries and retailers letting people know about different safe options that they have played around.

Despite having good content, these ads did not add any value more or less than any other straight-up ads, and one important reason for this could be the way these ads are produced and put forward.

We are in the mid-coronavirus pandemic time zone and we all know how adversely it has affected the world economy and all systems of operations. Even big brands have started cutting on the cost of advertisements due to this major financial crunch. Advertisers have started cutting back by delaying the marketing spending, and this situation is expected to get worse with time.

Although Google and YouTube are trying not to let this affect their marketing and advertisement strategies, they still acknowledge that brand advertising has slowed down and there is a significant shift towards direct-response and client-centric advertisement now.

This pandemic has made many advertisers scale down production to keep their people safe, and this has made them lose their touch. Ford and JPMorgan are some big names that are trying to work out and keep the production going with as little crew as possible by employing different techniques.

Another reason why COVID-centric advertisements did not have much impact on people despite their encouraging and motivating content was that they did not give anything new to the audience. All other media had started rushing towards showing such content and soon, these ads lost their influencing power.

So, maybe it is high time that brands should start opting for simpler ads with lesser production value, and people should start appreciating things that are not always glittery and glamorous.

Clearly, the ads that have some significance are not seeing popularity while scrappy productions, disjointed ads with all glitz and glamour are as popular as ever.

Its high time that we take a pause and reflect on our priorities in everything about life in general, isn’t it?

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Facebook has announced that its Slack-like chat tool, Workplace, has more than 5 million paid users now. Approximately, 3 million users have joined Workplace since 2019, but the major influx of users came in during the mid-coronavirus pandemic months.

Considering this increasing popularity as a clue, Facebook has announced that it is bringing in some cool features to the Workplace soon. Some of these features include a proper video conferencing service called ‘Workplace Rooms,’ Portal TV usage for Workplace video calls, and the most exciting of them all, it is bringing in automatic live captioning in six languages for Live videos on Workplace!

Now, these are some amazing features and they are surely going to help the users a lot. Especially the audio captioning in six languages. Just imagine how easy it will become to communicate and carry on important conferences with people of different countries, without having to rely much on the services of interpreters and language translators!

Workplace Rooms for videoconferencing sounds like an extended part of Facebook Messenger Rooms, which is said to allow hosting up to 50 video calls in one sitting. It will let people have virtual meetings and enjoy virtual hangouts with work colleagues, friends, and family.

The usage of Portal TV during Live calls also sounds very useful, and it is definitely going to increase the efficacy of work and quality for many organizations and industries.

Apart from these new features, Facebook has also announced that it is considering to let its many employees work from home permanently. Even after the pandemic is over, just like Twitter has recently announced that it will let its workforce to work remotely in the future also if that is what they desire.

Square, Coinbase, and Shopify are also amongst the apps that are considering creating a permanent remote working policy for all their employees.

Coronavirus pandemic has changed the world in more ways than anyone can comprehend. We are currently going through the mid-COVID period, and already there has been so much damage to the world economy and every other thing, that we cannot imagine how our world will become by the time this pandemic gets over!

Due to the shelter-at-home and social distancing measures during the pandemic, different apps like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, and now Facebook Workplace have seen a great amount of reliance from users all over the world.

Slack has reportedly crossed more than 12.5 million active users, while Microsoft Teams has hit the mark of 75 million daily active users by April 2020, which is a 70% leap from March 2020 only!

This is also because Microsoft Teams allows more exclusive features while Slack has been around for a very long time, but both are enjoying so much popularity because of the various tools that make them quite indispensable for users from all over the world.

It is good to learn that Facebook Workplace is trying to carve its path among so much competition too now.

Let us wish Workplace all the best, and let us hope that it gains more followers with its useful tools and user-friendly experience.

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An analysis by Sensor Tower Store Intelligence reveals that a sharp increase in usage of mobile applications during the coronavirus pandemic accelerated a symbolic rise in the consumption of internet bandwidth across the world. The data used for first-time downloads of leading 250 mobile applications across the world in the first quarter of this year increased by 34% from the previous-year quarter to 596 petabytes. This increased by 52% from the three-year average data of 391 petabytes for Q1 2020.

The total internet bandwidth used by the people to download and install the top-ranked mobile applications from Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store was 446 petabyte during the first quarter of the year 2019 which displays a 4% downturn as compared to a total internet bandwidth of 464 petabytes used in Q1 of 2019. The rise in total internet bandwidth used in the last quarter is not directly related to the increased average file size of the top-ranked 100 mobile applications, which increased around 100% YoY from Q1 2019.

The total internet bandwidth of 596 petabytes used by first-time downloads and installations of 250 top-ranked mobile applications were equivalent to approximately fifty-three million hours of 4K resolution quality Netflix streaming or it was enough to entirely fill the data storage on nearly 9.3 million first-class Apple iPhones. You may also note that this figure does not include the internet bandwidth used to download applications from third-party Android stores in regions such as China or anywhere else in the world. The amount of data used for re-installation of applications, updating the applications, downloading the applications in more than one smartphone devices associated with the same Google account or Apple ID is also not included in the total 596 petabytes of data used for first-time installations of 250 top-ranked mobile apps during Q1 2020.

New downloads of mobile applications from Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store reached 33.6 billion during the first quarter of this year. This displays a total year-over-year increase of 20.3% because of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Accessibility is a big thing for Google since this is a tech company that wants pretty much everyone to end up using their products no matter what else might be the case and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that technology is quickly becoming something that people often rely on for a wide variety of reasons. Hence, it is pretty understandable why Google would want something like this happening all in all, and in a new update the tech giant has brought a number of new features into the mix all of which are designed to optimize accessibility in every single way, shape or form.

The main accessibility feature that you are going to be getting has to do with Action Blocks, a feature that Google has been teasing for quite some time now. This feature will essentially allow you to make your own customized buttons which will be quite large in size which would then be used to fulfill whatever complex task you are having difficulty with such as opening up a music playing app or calling someone that you have on speed dial for example.

The sound amplify feature will also now be usable via Bluetooth which is every important because of the fact that sometimes you would be connected to a speaker or have earpods in and these are things that your sound amplification feature should ideally work with because of the fact that if you are hard of hearing then these are the kinds of places where a feature like this can end up being truly useful all in all.

These are some truly forward thinking features and this update is going to get Google into a lot of people’s good graces, something that the company is going to be able to capitalize on quite a bit in the future.

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