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.
2,339 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft: Edge update will disable Internet Explorer in February
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-edge-update-will-disable-internet-explorer-in-february/
Microsoft announced today that a future Microsoft Edge update would permanently disable the Internet Explorer 11 desktop web browser on some Windows 10 systems in February.
This comes after a previous warning from June 15, the day Internet Explorer reached its end of support, when the company told customers that the legacy web browser would get disabled via a Windows update.
“The out-of-support Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) desktop application is scheduled to be permanently disabled on certain versions of Windows 10 devices on February 14, 2023, through a Microsoft Edge update, not a Windows update as previously communicated,” Redmond said on Friday.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter won’t let you post your Facebook, Instagram, and Mastodon handles
https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/18/twitter-wont-let-you-post-your-facebook-instagram-and-mastodon-handles/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9sbS5mYWNlYm9vay5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALFH2OLgFrltO20tOszWL7RJr8fnsu70tVnbYr9Eiv2ACFLzGBP05G0d1zxl3w4Mpzv2DYgrhCkeSjXr-XtRZ-3NUNxV1-MBDabVjsJBJ3yyOWFIU2nvD89A7PMwsRZXNlIvwq9uQO2CzqA12lmeDgvO2ol9UBUctaIry_aKCubW
While people around the globe were watching a thrilling FIFA World Cup final, Twitter decided to drop a bombshell and banned links promoting other social networks. The list currently includes Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr, and Post. Plus, link-in-bio tools like Linktree and Lnk.Bio are also banned. Essentially, you can’t post links to your other social profiles or even type out your handle in a tweet.
The Elon Musk-owned company “no longer allows free promotion of certain social media platforms” on Twitter. The company said that it is removing all accounts “created solely for the purpose of promoting other social networks”. It also plans to remove links to content from above mentioned social platforms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Elon Musk seeks to sell Twitter shares in search of new funds
Investors approached to purchase stock at $54.20 buyout price as social media company bleeds cash
https://www.ft.com/content/bb047c8f-f97d-4e3a-8bbb-50d0494c8c48
The head of Elon Musk’s family office has approached investors who helped the billionaire buy Twitter for $44bn in October to try and raise new funds as the social media company continues to bleed cash and faces heavy interest payments on its debts.
Jared Birchall, a former Morgan Stanley banker, approached Twitter’s shareholders on Thursday afternoon, according to two people familiar with the matter. He offered new shares in the company at $54.20 — the same price Musk paid to take the company private.
His note to investors, first reported by Semafor, said Twitter was “pleased to announce a follow-on equity offering for common shares at the original price and terms”, according to one person who received it.
Musk bought Twitter after a dramatic six-month legal row, funding the acquisition with about $13bn of debt and outside equity capital of about $7bn.
But he has been racing to cut costs since then, including by laying off about half of Twitter’s staff, after advertisers fled the platform over concerns about his content moderation strategy, threatening its $5bn-a-year advertising business.
Banks including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Barclays face significant losses on the financing package they provided. Twitter, which made a loss of about $221mn in 2021, has to pay annual interest of about $1bn on the loan.
Between Monday and Wednesday, Musk sold $3.6bn in Tesla, the electric vehicle maker he founded and leads. It was his fourth sale of Tesla stock this year, bringing his total disposals to almost $40bn.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/web-page-rendering-on-the-browser-different-methods/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://x.campwire.com/fi/opas/verkkokurssintekijan-tarkistuslista
Tomi Engdahl says:
After more than 200 takedowns, Meta confirms covert online campaigns have gone global https://therecord.media/after-more-than-200-takedowns-meta-confirms-covert-online-campaigns-have-gone-global/
In a report published Thursday looking back at enforcement actions against these covert influence campaigns, Meta said the problem is now thoroughly global with over 100 different countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe being targeted, even if the United States, Ukraine, and United Kingdom remain the most common targets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brian Fung / CNN:
Twitter deletes @TwitterSafety’s thread and a webpage detailing its new policy to prevent accounts from promoting other social media platforms
Twitter deletes controversial new policy banning links to other social platforms
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/19/tech/twitter-elon-musk-deletes-policy/
Tomi Engdahl says:
James Hercher / AdExchanger:
A look at Performance Max, Google’s black box ad product for all its owned media that can’t break down by price, ad format, media channel, or creative elements
Meet Performance Max, The Blackest Black Box Of All Google Ad Products
https://www.adexchanger.com/commerce/meet-performance-max-the-blackest-black-box-of-all-google-ad-products/
Lost in the Sturm und Drang of Q4 (Q for quarantine) 2020, Google introduced a beta program called Performance Max, its first ad product spanning all Google-owned media.
A year later, Performance Max exited beta. And fast-forward another year to today, and Performance Max has quietly become the fastest growing and potentially most controversial product in the Google portfolio.
For Google, Performance Max is a compass that always points true north, or toward ROAS. But from the marketer perspective, PMax, as the product is unfortunately nicknamed, gives Google more control over campaigns with less oversight than advertisers have ever had before. PMax will also serve ads across more Google-owned media types than marketers would advertise in by self-selection. Sometimes, ads show up in places even against their wishes.
Performance Max could be a lightning rod for antitrust action, especially as it becomes the default way many advertisers spend with Google.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloomberg:
Sources and analysis: Twitter’s Community Notes doesn’t address lies that are divisive; 30K+ or ~96% of notes contributed by community are not visible to users
Twitter’s Fact-Checking System Has a Major Blind Spot: Anything Divisive
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-twitter-birdwatch-community-notes-misinformation-politics/?leadSource=uverify%20wall
After Elon Musk closed his $44 billion deal for Twitter, he tweeted that the network’s mission was to become “the most accurate source of information about the world.” He pointed toward a new fact-checking system called Community Notes, calling it “a game changer for improving accuracy on Twitter.” But the tool has serious limitations.
Community Notes asks fact-checking volunteers to add more context — a “note” — to misleading or incorrect tweets. Other users can then vote on whether a note is helpful or not, and a machine-learning algorithm determines what notes should be shown more broadly on the site.
But in its current design, Community Notes doesn’t address lies that are divisive, according to current and former employees, and an analysis of its open-source algorithm by Bloomberg News. When volunteers add fact-checking notes to tweets, they only become visible to the public if users from a “diversity of perspectives” are able to agree that a note is “helpful.” Twitter uses an algorithm to place volunteers along an opinion spectrum based on their voting history. Without agreement from both sides of this spectrum, the vast majority of inaccurate tweets — especially on the most divisive topics — go unaddressed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Washington Post:
Elon Musk says Twitter polls will decide “major policy changes” and launches a poll asking, “Should I step down as head of Twitter?”; “Yes” leads by over 10%
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/18/twitter-policy-links-to-social-sites/
Tomi Engdahl says:
@twittersafety:
After Elon Musk said polls will decide major new policies, @TwitterSafety posts a poll on whether accounts primarily promoting other platforms should be allowed — Should we have a policy preventing the creation of or use of existing accounts for the main purpose of advertising other social media platforms?
https://twitter.com/twittersafety/status/1604657989977260033
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter abruptly bans all links to Instagram, Mastodon, and other competitors
/ Then seemingly reverses the decision with a Musk apology. It’s been a wild 48 hours.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/18/23515221/twitter-bans-links-instagram-mastodon-competitors
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-generate-wordpress-posts-automatically/
Tomi Engdahl says:
TangibleGrid: Tangible Web Layout Design for Blind Users
http://smartlab.cs.umd.edu/publication/tangiblegrid
Tomi Engdahl says:
Omnibus-direktiivi tuo muutoksia alennusilmaisun markkinoinnin sääntöihin
Muutokset kuluttajansuojaan vaikuttavat monin tavoin esimerkiksi verkkokauppojen toimintaan. Yksi niistä on hinnanalennusilmoituksia koskeva kuluttajansuojalain 2 luvun 11 §, joka uudistuu täysin heti vuoden 2023 alussa.
https://levelup.fi/alennusilmaisut-markkinoinnissa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
KARHULLA ON ASIAA
Verkkosivujen käyttäjätutkimus antaa dataa ja selkänojan uudistukseen tai jatkokehitykseen
https://www.karhuhelsinki.fi/blogi/verkkosivujen-kayttajatutkimus-antaa-dataa-ja-selkanojan-uudistukseen-tai-jatkokehitykseen/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/19/design-and-implement-a-content-governance-system-to-increase-roi/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stephanie Bodoni / Bloomberg:
The European Commission sends Meta a statement of objection for possible antitrust breaches over tying Marketplace to Facebook and imposing unfair trading terms — Meta Platforms Inc. was hit with a complaint from European Union antitrust watchdogs over concerns it’s unfairly squeezing …
Meta Hit With EU Antitrust Charges Over Marketplace Service
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-19/meta-hit-with-eu-antitrust-complaint-over-marketplace-service
EU sends statement of objections over concerns of unfair tying
Case is latest round of EU-wide crackdown on power of Big Tech
Meta Platforms Inc. was hit with a formal complaint from European Union antitrust watchdogs for allegedly squeezing out classified ad rivals by tying the Facebook Marketplace to its own social network.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/618173480/posts/pfbid02AsDgn8sro6K7MLagKDrYAomgUwq8F83Tb5YujZ1ZXZvr7d2oK9ntpztsMKjhMaQbl/
If you’re on Twitter, it is now time to leave. After banning major journalists (WSJ, WP, CNN etc) for just covering aspects of Elon Musk and Twitter, they have now officially banned links to other social media platforms, including Facebook and Mastodon. That’s not the definition of a free and open Internet platform.
Previously you could have done it out of curiosity, but it’s now time to move to Mastodon, built on open Internet standards, like the web and email. Many celebrities and journalists have already moved.
Let me know if you need assistance but Twitter is locked down and not the future.
Tomi Engdahl says:
E-book: Predicting The Future – Web Design Trends 2023
https://generogrowth.com/e-book-web-design-trends-2023/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://valtterilindholm.fi/2022/12/01/kannattaako-joulusesongin-markkinoinnista-maksaa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mikä on Omnibus-direktiivi ja mitä se tarkoittaa verkkokaupalle?
https://yrityksille.fonecta.fi/artikkeli/mika-on-omnibus-direktiivi/?cmp=ECOM_T%2BVerkkokauppa_A%2BOmnibus%2BAlways-on&mxcontentid=6295134722033&utm_source=fb&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Website+traffic+-+ecom+manager&utm_content=Omnibus-1&fbclid=IwAR1__gP4Z-vXu00HXQ7uShwzU7XwqKd_GPNiHqTug1uvH5SODlQq_Gf9PcU
Tammikuun 2023 alussa verkkokauppiaiden toimintaan alkaa vaikuttaa EU:n kuluttajansuojadirektiiviä tarkentava Omnibus-direktiivi. Itse direktiivi astui voimaan jo toukokuussa 2022, mutta sen muutokset astuvat voimaan 1.1.2023, jolloin muutosten on siis jo oltava käytännössä.
Direktiivin tarkoitus on tehdä hinnoittelusta, markkinoinnista ja datan käytöstä kuluttajalle läpinäkyvämpää ja se koskee kaikkia EU-alueen B2C-verkkokaupankäyntiä harjoittavia yrityksiä. Niinpä direktiivillä onkin merkitystä myös suomalaiselle verkkokauppiaalle.
Omnibus-direktiivin tarkoitus on erityisesti selventää kuluttajakauppaa harjoittavien yritysten velvollisuuksia alennus- ja tarjouskaupan hintailmoittelussa. Lisäksi se vaikuttaa yritysten tuotteistaan esittämiin kuluttaja-arvosteluihin.
1. Hinnanalennukset
Jos yritys markkinoi tuotetta alennettuun hintaan, on jatkossa aina ilmoitettava myös alin hinta, jolla tavaraa on markkinoitu hinnanalennusta edeltäneiden 30 päivän aikana.
2. Ehdolliset alennuskampanjat
Toisin kuin yleisissä hinnanalennuksissa, alinta hintaa ei tarvitse ilmoittaa ehdollisissa alennuskampanjoissa, kuten yhdistelmätarjouksissa. Tällaisia ovat esimerkiksi osta tuote x ja y yhdessä tietyllä hinnalla, tai kanta-asiakastarjouksissa.
3. Arvostelut
Direktiivin myötä yritysten täytyy jatkossa antaa kuluttajalle tietoa siitä, ovatko yrityksen internetsivuilla olevat tuotteiden arvostelut todellisuudessa peräisin kuluttajilta, jotka ovat tuotetta käyttäneet tai ostaneet. Tämän ilmoituksen yhteydessä on myös kerrottava, miten on varmistettu, että arvostelut ovat oikeita.
Jatkossa siis edellytetään, että verkkokauppias pystyy todentamaan kaupassa näkyvät arvostelut todellisiksi. Tämän voi helposti tehdä esimerkiksi varmistamalla, että verkkokaupan arvostelu on tehty verkkokaupan tilauksen tai kirjautumisen yhteydessä.
4. Hakutulosjärjestys
Direktiivissä määritellään myös, että verkkokaupassa näkyvien hakutulosten järjestäytymisen perusteen täytyy olla nähtävillä, jos verkkokauppa tarjoaa useiden eri myyjien tuotteita sekaisin. Toisin sanoen kuluttajalle täytyy olla selvää, miksi tuotteet on lueteltu tietyssä järjestyksessä. Onko tuotteet lueteltu suosituimmuuden tai vaikkapa myyntiintulojärjestyksen mukaan, eli esimerkiksi uusimmat tuotteet ensin.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko says the social network reached 2.5M MAUs in November, up from around 300,000 in October, as Twitter users flee the service
More than two million users have flocked to Mastodon since Elon Musk took over Twitter
https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/20/23518325/mastodon-monthly-active-users-twitter-elon-musk
/ The Twitter alternative has skyrocketed in popularity, leaping from 300,000 monthly active users to 2.5 million between October and November.
Mastodon, a decentralized social media platform that many are turning to as a Twitter alternative, saw its userbase skyrocket from about 300,000 monthly active users to 2.5 million between October and November, Mastodon’s CEO, founder, and lead developer Eugen Rochko said in a new blog post. Elon Musk officially took over Twitter in late October, meaning Mastodon’s huge jump in users almost directly followed Musk’s new ownership.
Rochko’s post also addressed Twitter’s now-reversed bans on sharing links to Mastodon, many journalists, and the @joinmastodon account itself following the still-in-place ban on @ElonJet. “This is a stark reminder that centralized platforms can impose arbitrary and unfair limits on what you can and can’t say while holding your social graph hostage,” Rochko said. “At Mastodon, we believe that there doesn’t have to be a middleman between you and your audience and that journalists and government institutions especially should not have to rely on a private platform to reach the public.”
Mastodon isn’t the only Twitter replacement that people are turning to. There’s Post, headed up by former Waze CEO Noam Bardin, Hive, which recently relaunched after dealing with some security issues, and familiar social platforms like Discord, Tumblr, and Reddit. And despite the growing interest in something that’s not Twitter, the bird app is still hanging on; more than 17.5 million people voted in Musk’s recent poll asking if he should step down as the CEO of Twitter, after all. (The people voted in favor of him quitting.) Musk has also repeatedly claimed that the site’s usage is at an all-time high.
Rochko, however, sounds confident in Mastodon’s future. “Understanding that freedom of the press is absolutely essential for a functional democracy, we are excited to see Mastodon grow and become a household name in newsrooms across the world, and we are committed to continuing to improve our software to face up to new challenges that come with rapid growth and increasing demand,” he wrote.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter announces ‘Blue for Business’ to help identify brands and their employees
https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/19/23517733/twitter-blue-for-business-brands-affiliation-gray-checkmark-badge
/ With Blue for Business, you can show which individual accounts are affiliated with your brand.
Twitter has officially announced Blue for Business, a subscription geared toward companies that want to “verify and distinguish themselves on Twitter,” as its press release says. The service will let companies link their main accounts with those of their employees to make it easier to show that someone actually does work for them.
The company is testing the service with “a select group of businesses,” including its own employees.
So far, Twitter hasn’t shared a lot of details about the service. We don’t know how much Blue for Business will cost, who will be eligible, or how it’ll go about actually verifying that a business controls an account; Twitter’s Esther Crawford didn’t immediately reply to an inquiry over Twitter. The company’s press release does say that it plans on letting more businesses subscribe next year. Twitter does warn (in a truly tiny footnote) that Blue for Business’ features may not be available on all platforms and that they “may change periodically.”
The play here for Twitter is obvious. The company is trying to lean into making money through subscriptions, and creating what’s essentially an enterprise tier of its Twitter Blue service could help it do that. The company lists examples of the types of use cases it expects to see for Blue for Business: sports teams affiliating with their athletes, movie characters getting a logo next to their name, or journalists having a badge that shows they really do work for a specific outlet. (Though Twitter may have a hard time courting the press after some of its recent antics.)
Twitter has also officially started rolling out a new gray checkmark badge for “government and multilateral accounts.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
New York Times:
An analysis shows how Chinese-language bots on Twitter drowned out tweets about protests over China’s zero-COVID-19 policy, as people sought to evade censors — Twitter and its new owner, Elon Musk, have recently vowed to crack down on bots. But the flood of spam for Chinese users …
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/19/technology/twitter-bots-china-protests-elon-musk.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter:
Twitter says #WC2022 for the FIFA World Cup generated 147B impressions, surpassing #WC2018 and more than doubling the impressions of the #Tokyo2020 Olympics
#WorldCup on Twitter: The G.O.A.T.
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/events/2022/2022-World-Cup-Insights
Tomi Engdahl says:
Elon Musk / @elonmusk:
Elon Musk says he plans to resign as CEO when he finds someone “foolish enough to take the job”, after which he plans to run the “software and servers teams” — I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.
“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1605372724800393216
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lee Fang / The Intercept:
Internal documents: from at least 2017, Twitter helped the Pentagon in its covert online foreign propaganda campaigns including by whitelisting CENTCOM accounts — Twitter executives have claimed for years that the company makes concerted efforts to detect and thwart government-backed covert propaganda campaigns on its platform.
Twitter Aided the Pentagon in its Covert Online Propaganda Campaign
https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-accounts/
Internal documents show Twitter whitelisted CENTCOM accounts that were then used to run its online influence campaign abroad.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Insider Intelligence: Google will capture 28.8% of US digital ad revenue in 2022 and Meta will grab 19.6%, for a combined 48.4%, down from a 54.7% peak in 2017 — Google and Meta, known together in the ad industry as the “duopoly,” are expected to bring in less than half of all U.S. digital advertising …
Slow fade for Google and Meta’s ad dominance
https://www.axios.com/2022/12/20/google-meta-duopoly-online-advertising
Google and Meta, known together in the ad industry as the “duopoly,” are expected to bring in less than half of all U.S. digital advertising this year for the first time since 2014.
Why it matters: The duo’s ad dominance has for years made both companies the target of antitrust investigations and lawsuits. While they still tower over digital rivals, their momentum is starting to slow as competition moves in.
By the numbers: Google and Meta will together capture 48.4% of all U.S. digital ad revenue this year (28.8% for Google and 19.6% for Meta), down from 54.7% at their peak in 2017 (34.7% for Google and 20.0% for Meta), per data from Insider Intelligence.
By far, the biggest threat to their collective ad dominance is Amazon, which has grown its ad business to over $30 billion dollars annually.
By 2024, Amazon is expected to capture 12.7% of all U.S. digital ad dollars, while Meta is expected to capture 17.9%.
While TikTok’s ad business is booming, it’s still relatively small in the U.S. compared to its Big Tech rivals.
TikTok is expected to earn $8.6 billion in ad revenue in 2024, which will make it the fifth-largest digital ad publisher in the U.S., following Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft/LinkedIn.
Be smart: The ubiquity of screens in the home, workplace and on-the-go has made it so that virtually any company can target customers with digital ads, expanding the set of competitors for Google and Meta from other publishers and social media firms to streamers, e-commerce companies and beyond.
Amazon, along with other e-commerce players like Walmart and eBay, has started to build out a significant digital ad network that can be used to boost products within its own marketplace.
Streaming companies like Hulu, Roku, Paramount’s Pluto and Fox’s Tubi are collectively gaining digital ad market share as more television dollars flow away from traditional television.
Because TikTok is an entertainment platform, Axios categorized it as part of the streaming category, alongside TV video companies and audio streamers, like Spotify and Pandora.
The big picture: Google has long dominated digital search advertising while Meta has conquered targeted social media advertising. But new entrants into the ad market are targeting their dominance in unexpected ways.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ProPublica:
Google’s Display Network, which places ads on 2M+ websites, lets site owners stay anonymous while putting ads beside pirated content, porn, and disinformation — In late 2021, the right-wing site Conservative Beaver published a story falsely claiming the FBI had arrested Pfizer’s CEO for fraud.
https://www.propublica.org/article/google-display-ads-piracy-porn-fraud
Tomi Engdahl says:
New York Times:
Sources: ChatGPT’s release led Google to declare a “code red”, as teams have been reassigned to respond to the threat that ChatGPT poses to its search business — A new wave of chat bots like ChatGPT use artificial intelligence that could reinvent or even replace the traditional internet search engine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/21/technology/ai-chatgpt-google-search.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.securityweek.com/france-fines-microsoft-60-million-euros-over-advertising-cookies
Tomi Engdahl says:
Associated Press:
European Court of Justice says Amazon could be held responsible for breaching Louboutin’s trademark rights by selling counterfeit third-party red-soled shoes
Amazon may breach trademark rights over fake Louboutin ads
https://apnews.com/article/technology-europe-business-amazoncom-inc-belgium-0b009ac0b6a2917986de667a1073e7a1
Online retail giant Amazon could be held responsible for breaching luxury shoemaker Christian Louboutin’s trademark rights over the sale of counterfeit red soled high-heeled shoes on its platform, the European Court of Justice ruled on Thursday.
Third-party sellers on Amazon regularly advertise red-soled stilettos that are not made by Louboutin. The French designer brought cases against the company in Belgium and Luxembourg in 2019, arguing that he did not give his consent for these products to be put on the market.
Louboutin shoes’ red outer sole, for which they are known, is registered as an EU and Benelux trademark.
The EU’s top court said that users could mistakenly think that Amazon itself is selling shoes on behalf of Louboutin, noting that it may be the case when, for instance, Amazon displays its own logo on the third-party sellers’ ads, and when it stores and ships the shoes in question.
“These circumstances may indeed make a clear distinction difficult, and give the impression to the normally informed and reasonably attentive user that it is Amazon that markets — in its own name and on its own behalf,” the court said.
The luxury house said the court’s decision is “a victory for the protection of its know-how and creativity.”
“It initiated these proceedings to obtain recognition of Amazon’s responsibility for the offering for sale of counterfeit products on its platforms by third parties. It also brought this case to encourage Amazon to play a more direct role in the fight against counterfeiting on its platforms,” Maison Louboutin said in a statement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Mastodon, nostr, and other decentralized social networks are having a moment, despite some complexity, propelled by the apparent decline of Twitter and Meta
Why Would Anyone Use Another Centralized Social Media Service After This?
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/21/why-would-anyone-use-another-centralized-social-media-service-after-this/
So, it’s been quite a year for legacy, centralized social media — and all without any really big change to the laws that govern it (yet — the EU’s are coming into force shortly, but possibly too late to matter). Meta seems to be collapsing into its own gravity. Twitter has been taken over by the equivalent of a stoned ChatGPT (very confident, but very wrong) and seems to be rapidly driving the company off a cliff. Turns out maybe we didn’t need antitrust reform: we just needed two obscenely rich tech CEOs to be totally out of touch with humanity.
But, really, after all this, I cannot fathom how anyone can possibly get all that excited about joining yet another centralized social media site. Perhaps I’m biased (note: I am biased) because it was my frustration with the problems of these big, centralized social media services that made me write my Protocols, Not Platforms paper a few years ago. But, after all of that, the big question that kept coming up about it was “sure, but how would you get anyone to actually use it.”
For years I had argued that the best bet was for one of the big companies to embrace this model and move away from a centralized model to a decentralized protocol setup.
something that was truly decentralized, where you controlled your own data, and could choose who can connect to it.
However, with millions of new active users rushing into Mastodon, I’m forced to reevaluate that. I think I may have become too focused on what I saw of as the limits of a federated setup (putting yourself into someone else’s fiefdom), without recognizing that if it started to take off (as it has), it would become easier and easier for people to set up their own instances, allowing those who are concerned about setting up in someone else’s garden the freedom to set up their own plot of land.
And then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was likely bigger players would enter the market as well. I’ve started wondering about when Mastodon/ActivityPub might have its “Gmail moment.” Some people may not remember, but Google entering the webmail space on on April 1, 2004 completely upended the concept of email. It was so different and so much more useful, that many people legitimately thought it was a classic April Fool’s joke.
It seems likely to me that something similar likely could happen with Mastodon. Maybe even Google could do it with their own instance. Or possibly someone brand new. Or maybe someone old. Yesterday, Mozilla announced plans to offer a publicly accessible instance. And that seems like a milestone moment. Automattic (who hosts Techdirt), the owners of Tumblr, have said that Tumblr will add support for ActivityPub as well.
Both of those seem like big moves. Not that Mastodon needs giant players to validate it. It’s doing just fine on its own. But one of the big complaints some people have is that they don’t know which instance to sign up with, and the whole sign up process seems confusing. Most people who get past that initial concern and just choose an instance and start playing around figure it all out, but even that mental cost of having to pick in instance likely scares off a bunch of people it shouldn’t. Having a few “mainstream” instances that new users can be directed to seems like it will be really useful.
Also, having some bigger companies developing for ActivityPub can also be useful.
Mastodon obviously isn’t perfect, and it has some very real issues. Content moderation questions don’t go away, obviously, They just become somewhat different (and somewhat the same). But I’ve been surprised at how quickly the fediverse has already been evolving. I’ve certainly run across some trolls and spammers, but often they disappear incredibly quickly. Earlier this week, I even had an instance admin reach out to me to apologize for a troll who had been hassling me, which was a different kind of experience than on any other social media site.
There remain some pretty big questions regarding scaling, but so far, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how it’s all gone. There are certainly a lot of other questions regarding legal issues for instance operators. I hope that those running instances take those issues seriously, and do basic things like register a DMCA agent. But it’s increasingly seeming like it might even work?
At least on a personal level, Mastodon currently feels like Twitter around the year 2010, when it was… just fun?
Either way, I’m now much more interested in how the federated system could actually fulfill the promise of the protocols, not platforms vision. Whereas before I had feared the many fiefdoms still involved giving up too much control, the ease for individuals or small groups to set up their own instance has me reconsidering that.
That may be an exaggeration, but many people do quickly realize the cool aspects of federation, which allows for a balance between “I don’t want to have to do everything myself” and “oh, hey, I can do everything myself if I want to.”
That said, I’m still quite interested in other, even more decentralized ideas out there. I’m excited to play with Bluesky when it’s finally available. And over the past few days I’ve been playing around with nostr, a very, very early, and very, very basic (but extraordinarily simple) new distributed social media protocol that is based on clients and relays. Jack Dorsey (who has been pushing Bluesky, obviously) is also super excited about nostr and has said he thinks it’s the realization of my paper.
All that is to say… there’s a lot of fun and interesting development going on none of which relies on a big centralized, VC backed social media company. While those are rushing in to try to fill the void… I’m kinda wondering why would anyone invest in building up a social graph and content on one of those?
We have a chance, collectively, to avoid the mistakes of the last decade and a half. We have an opportunity to not put ourselves (and our data) onto someone else’s farm. I absolutely loathe terms like “surveillance capitalism” or the phrase “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product” (because I think both are misleading), but I am perplexed at people who make both of those claims about Facebook and Twitter… and now rush to sign up for some brand new company based on the same sort of model, with the same sorts of risks.
Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech
Altering the internet’s economic and digital infrastructure to promote free speech
https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a-technological-approach-to-free-speech
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chris Stokel-Walker / Nature:
How Twitter played a major role in research and science communication, especially during the pandemic, as researchers and scientists leave the service — In November, Vince Knight decided he’d had enough of Twitter. After more than a decade on the social-media platform, Knight …
Twitter changed science — what happens now it’s in turmoil?
The microblogging platform has transformed research communication, but its future is in doubt.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04506-6
In November, Vince Knight decided he’d had enough of Twitter. After more than a decade on the social-media platform, Knight — a mathematician at Cardiff University, UK — was concerned about the site’s direction under its new owner, entrepreneur Elon Musk, who began laying off vast numbers of staff shortly after he acquired it. “Twitter is getting uncomfortable,” wrote Knight on the platform; he then jumped ship to Mastodon, a competing service. He says he simply didn’t want to support Musk’s Twitter any more.
The past few weeks have been tumultuous for Twitter. After Musk laid off staff, the site has repeatedly malfunctioned as the remaining engineers have struggled to keep on top of issues. Musk has also said he wants to take the platform in a new direction, encouraging accounts that were previously banned to return. Some reports, including one from researchers at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, say abuse is rising on the platform
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/19/meta-abused-its-dominant-market-position-to-benefit-facebook-marketplace-eus-initial-findings-show/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Inventor of the world wide web wants us to reclaim our data from tech giants
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/16/tech/tim-berners-lee-inrupt-spc-intl/index.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://lamia.fi/blog/miten-suunnitellaan-onnistunut-palvelu?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign=Lamia%20-%20CMO%20-%20Traffic%20-%205%2F2022&utm_content=Lamia%20-%20CMO%20-%205%2F2022__%20-%20data%20-%20Interest%20-%20Single%20image____onnistunutpalvelu&placement=Facebook_Mobile_Feed&fbclid=IwAR0-LZ-5BCAuAbIGRnzQQO14DitRTsISL2g2yoUOUYL09VXO9mHbtVQtHTQ
Tomi Engdahl says:
Musk’s Twitter Takeover: Almost Half Of Top 100 Tweets Since Buying The Site Are His
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/12/23/musks-twitter-takeover-almost-half-of-top-100-tweets-since-buying-the-site-are-his/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie&sh=455493d39524
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to migrate your code from PHP 7.4 to 8.1
With the recent end-of-life for PHP 7.4, it’s time to migrate your code. Here are a few options to do that.
https://opensource.com/article/22/12/migrate-php-code
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://react-etc.net/entry/php-ffi-allows-embedding-raw-c-code-in-php-scripts-php-7-3
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-your-own-saas-pagerduty-clone/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mastodon creator Eugen Rochko talks funding and how to build the anti-Twitter
A wide-ranging interview with the creator and sole employee of the platform
https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/23/mastodon-creator-eugen-rochko-talks-funding-and-how-to-build-the-anti-twitter/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-to-add-mastodon-verification-for-the-discourse-forum/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.pakettikauppa.fi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amanda Hoover / Wired:
Mastodon’s decentralized nature raises concerns about the legal risks for users hosting instances, which must comply with copyright and privacy laws globally
Mastodon Is Hurtling Toward a Tipping Point
https://www.wired.com/story/mastodon-legal-issues-tipping-point/
As the niche, decentralized social networking platform rises in popularity, it faces rising costs, culture shifts—and potential legal risks.
Rodti MacLeary started a Mastodon instance, mas.to, in 2019. By early November 2022, it had amassed around 35,000 users. But since Elon Musk bought Twitter and unleashed one chaotic decision after another, people have signed up for mas.to and other instances, or servers, in surging waves that have sometimes kicked them briefly offline. The influx of users is propelled by each haphazard policy update Musk professes from his own Twitter account. Last week, Twitter’s billionaire owner suspended several high-profile journalists and accused them of doxing him, and then briefly banned links to any social media competitors, including Mastodon. But the mas.to instance continued to grow, hitting 130,000 total users and 67,000 active users by Tuesday.
That’s minuscule compared to Twitter’s hundreds of millions of tweeters. But it’s a heavy lift for someone like MacLeary, who has a day job and no paid staff, and has funneled time and money into mas.to as a labor of love. As a decentralized, open-source social media platform, Mastodon is markedly different in its construction from Big Tech platforms like Meta, Twitter, and YouTube. That’s part of its appeal, and it’s working its way from a niche into the mainstream consciousness: Mastodon now has more than 9,000 instances and some nearly 2.5 million active monthly users.
“There’s definitely momentum behind it,” MacLeary says. “Whether that momentum has pushed it over the tipping point, I don’t know. It reminds me of my experience in early Twitter, which was very positive. You felt like you knew everyone there.”
Whether Mastodon stays a nice, utopian “early Twitter” or becomes a ubiquitous, messy social network is yet to be seen. But it’s growing in its potential to replicate some of what Twitter does, with politicians, celebrities, and journalists signing up.
And with that growing number of users comes more responsibility—not just for Mastodon itself, but for volunteer administrators, whose hobbies running servers have become second jobs.
“There are a lot of people who really don’t realize what they’re getting themselves into,” says Corey Silverstein, an attorney who specializes in internet law. “If you’re running these [instances], you have to run it like you’re the owner of Twitter. What people don’t understand is how complicated it is to run a platform like this and how expensive it is.”
Because Mastodon is decentralized, it relies on various server administrators instead of one central hub to stay online. These admins aren’t just glorified users; they become more like internet service providers themselves, says Silverstein, and thereby responsible for keeping their servers compliant with copyright and privacy laws. If they fail, they could be on the hook for lawsuits. And they must follow complex legal frameworks around the world.
In the US alone, there’s the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes social platforms liable for copyrighted material posted there if they don’t register to protect themselves and work to take it down (registering takes just a few minutes and costs $6). There’s also the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule, which dictates how platforms handle children’s data. If admins become aware of child exploitation material, they must report it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Then there’s Europe, with its General Data Protection Regulation, a privacy and human rights law. Europe’s new Digital Service Act could apply to Mastodon servers too, if they become large enough. And administrators must comply with not only their local laws, but laws that exist anywhere their server is accessible. That’s all daunting, experts say, but not impossible.
“I worry that people will not want to host instances at all, because they go, ‘this is too scary,’”
MacLeary says server administrators are vulnerable in a few ways—to harassment from users who don’t like their decisions, and to legal issues.
These are growing pains that startup social networks are accustomed to, but they have had different goals than Mastodon—chief among them: make money. Twitter’s intent is to grow and profit, whereas Mastodon did not launch with such ambitions. Twitter and Mastodon are not twins, and they sit far apart in capitalist identity. But they are inextricably tied: As Twitter stumbles, Mastodon surges.
Twitter had a major uptick in popularity after appearing at SXSW in 2006. But it became ubiquitous and unignorable
People fear losing Twitter for both valuable news information and the spectacle that comes with it. Mastodon isn’t there—yet. But it did become a go-to place for journalists suspended by Musk last week.
“It’s a natural tendency for people to go elsewhere online to try to find a replica of Twitter,” McCammon says. “But Mastodon is not Twitter. It is not built like Twitter. And it is not aiming to churn a profit. So there is undoubtedly going to be friction that arises in that moment of migration.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/got-a-tip/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ian Johnston / Financial Times:
Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko rejected more than five Silicon Valley VC offers for “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to protect the platform’s nonprofit status
https://www.ft.com/content/de808736-2e05-4c3b-a53c-55b170ae9efd
Tomi Engdahl says:
TikTok Is No Longer The Most Popular Social Media Website
Neither is Twitter.
https://www.iflscience.com/tiktok-is-no-longer-the-most-popular-social-media-website-66842
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.howtogeek.com/856212/mozilla-just-fixed-an-18-year-old-firefox-bug/