Facebook adds spoken photo captions for iOS screen readers

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Facebook today announced the launch of a feature called automatic alternative text. It's a big step forward in accessibility, because it will allow people who use screen readers - software that provides spoken descriptions of what's onscreen - to receive summaries of what's contained in photos that people post on Facebook.

Until this point, only the name of the person, the person's share text, and the word “photo” was declared by a screen reader's automated voice when a post with a photo appeared in the News Feed. Now, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), certain people with disabilities will be able to get a better understanding of what their friends are trying to communicate.

The new captions are short and at times so simple that they're poetic. For instance: “image may contain sky, tree, outdoor.” Facebook is initially testing out this feature on iOS for people who use the social networking app in English.

“We're … making it possible for people to feel totally included in the social interaction nd be able to feel part of it without having to feel awkward, without having to be annoying to all of your friends, being like, 'What's so funny in this photo?' Nobody wants to do that,” Facebook accessibility specialist Matt King told VentureBeat in an interview.

The launch of the feature comes one week after Twitter announced that users could manually include captions of the photos they tweet out. And in the days since then, both Apple and Microsoft have both hinted at their commitment to accessibility.

But the contrast between what Twitter did and what Facebook is doing lines up with how Facebook is Facebook is spending a lot of money on AI research, while Twitter only last year established its Cortex AI research lab.

Like other parts of Facebook, deep learning - a type of artificial intelligence that involves training artificial neural networks on lots of data, like photos, and then getting them to make predictions about new data - is at the core of the new feature. Facebook's neural networks have certainly seen a lot of photos and have learned how to recognize what's in photos. In fact, people now share more than 2 billion photos every day on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.

Even so, Facebook doesn't want to be overly presumptuous when it tells people what's in a photo. Automatic alternative text only presents users with just a select few words to describe what's in image. It only mentions things that it's very confident are actually in the image, Facebook head of accessibility Jeff Wieland told VentureBeat. As Wieland likes to say, less information is better than inaccurate information.

King doesn't seem to mind the feature's punctuality. Since he began using the new feature internally, he's seen it get better. During the interview, on Facebook's campus in Menlo Park, California, King, who is blind, found himself impressed that the system informed him about the presence of cauliflower and deviled eggs in the photos attached to one Facebook post. “It recognizes those things - that's sweet!” He said. “Oh, wow!”

For those who aren't blind, this change to Facebook might sound like a novelty. But for those who struggle to see exactly what's onscreen, it could make a big difference in usability and usefulness. King, who spent more than 20 years working on accessibility and other things at IBM before joining Facebook's accessibility team last year, remembers when using Facebook was “really frustrating.” It wasn't that long ago. But the experience has improved since the company formed the accessibility team a few years ago, King said.

Facebook is a service for anyone, and the company isn't selling software to government agencies, where employees will be required to use it, even if the accessibility bar there is low. But people aren't required to use Facebook; they'll only use it if they enjoy it. And in this case, Facebook is trying to make things a little bit better for certain people.

“How to make software just as fun and enjoyable and easy to learn for people with disability as it is for everybody else -

that's what I've always wanted to do,” King said. “I want to make the world as good for people with disabilities as it is for everybody else.”

When you look at the big picture, then, this addition to Facebook is actually pretty important. It could help attract and retain more people as users - right along with other company initiatives, like its Aquila drone for beaming down the Internet from the sky, and it's Free Basics program.

People can turn on automatic alternative text by enabling VoiceOver in the Accessibility menu on iOS devices. The technology is pretty much ready to go on Android, too, Wieland said. The feature will be come available languages other than English later.

See Facebook's blog post on the news for more detail.

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5 Proven Ways For Driving Traffic to Your Website With Visual Content

Driving traffic to your website has become a major marketing priority.

But with so much competing advice, contributing factors and variable opportunities it's often hard to figure out exactly how to get the best results.

When putting together a traffic-driving strategy you need to get a little creative, because one of the most effective ways to drive website traffic is to leverage visual content.

The Visual Content Era

We are living in the era of visual content. The facts suggest that around 65% of people today are visual learners.

Along with this discovery, we also realize that with visual understanding also comes a big challenge for organizations to present the information in an attractive, fun and engaging way.

Our customers attention spans are getting shorter. So it is very challenging to create content that is visually appealing, catchy and engaging, and especially short and condensed.

We need to integrate all of these factors into our content so our customers have access to all types of media and want to stay on our website for longer. It only takes seconds for viewers to close a tab, or switch to another site or source of information.

With the growing trend toward using visual content, we see more and more images, videos, graphs, maps, diagrams and charts being used in order to present viewers with the latest information in an engaging way.

What would be more effective for your learning; Watching a video tutorial or reading it?

Watch this video and make your own judgement…

 

Let's now have a look at the 5 best visual ways for increasing website traffic.

1. Landing page videos

We are all well aware about the growing popularity of landing page videos. Landing page videos are the best visual method to convey a product/service message in a quick, appealing and engaging way.

Animated explainer videos are regularly used on landing pages as a way of informing web visitors about the product/service details in a fun and engaging way.

(Source: Boston Commercial Services)

A bright explainer video placed above the fold on your landing page is the perfect catch: visits go from that initial 8 seconds up to 2 minutes on average. That's a 1500% boost right there.

When viewers visit a website, they look for a landing page video as they know that it can provide them all the necessary information in a short time span and an appealing way.

Landing page videos work really well in increasing the viewers' visit duration on your website. Adding videos to landing pages can also increase conversions by nearly 90% (Superkrush)

For getting a landing page video that exactly demonstrates your business to customers in a fun and engaging way, you can contact a video animation company that specializes in video making.

2. Infographics

Your customers are well informed. They not only require the latest information, but they also need to discover evidence that proves the credibility of the content. They need research surveys, facts and figures that define the worth of any concerning topic.

With infographics, you get the opportunity to give your users all the information they need, even if the data tends to be boring or doesn't look interesting, in a visually appealing way.

Infographics work really well in making the data look engaging for viewers. They depict the information supported by moving objects and animation that gives the data a more attractive look and entices customers to keep watching or scanning it till the end.

For infographics you need to:

• Research your latest industry information


• Include facts and figure that support the recent studies and developments


• Get the infographic designed by good creative designers


• Publish the infographic on your website


• Provide an embeddable code so others can share your infographic

3. Blog images

Writing up a good blog is no doubt a great task. The more information you put into the blog, the more trustworthy you appear to readers. But you can make it even more interesting…

Blog posts incorporating video attract three times as many inbound links as blog posts without video.

You can:

• Add graphs in the blog to demonstrate results


• Add charts to visually show people the importance of the topic being discussed


• Add infographics to the blog. This will do two things at one time. Enable you to offer users a lot of information, but in a visual way that will not bore them.


• Add videos within the blog to make it easier for the audience to understand things


• Include eye-catching and unique blog images

If you want to create an eye-catching and unique blog image;

• Do enough blog content research


• Write an in-depth blog post


• Integrate your blog concept in one single image by imagining the blog concept in your mind


• Get the best designers to design the blog image for you (Or use a tool like Canva)


• Make sure the blog image communicates the blog concept

Just like this:

4. Calls to action

Call to action buttons are extremely important for guiding web visitors toward the next desired step.

With the proper and effective delivery of the content supported by visual means, you can get prospects, leads and even customers!

Your call to action buttons should include:

• Engaging call to action copy


• Red or green colors. A lot research has been done on this. The research suggests that red and green colors should be used mostly for call to action buttons as red indicates a sense of urgency and green indicates something good is coming your way.

Here are some example of call to action buttons:

Here's a live example of an effective call to action button from Hootsuite:

The call-to-action in this case is the “See business plans” which is visible on the website landing page. The ideal button placement should be below the header in order to make sure that it grabs the users' attention.

Also, the title used for your call-to-action should be catchy and engaging enough to encourage visitors to click on it.

5. Client testimonials

Client testimonials enable us to build trust and enhance our credibility with prospects and leads, thus helping turn them into customers!

You can present client testimonials in two ways:

• Either you can show the client testimonial in video form


• Or you can show the client's statement about your services along with their picture.

Under the client's picture, make sure to mention the client's designation and company. People are interested in WHO is saying WHAT!

Wrap

Today, there are many smart strategies you can adopt to drive website traffic. Among these strategies, includes the visual presentation of web content that can hook customers to your website and increase their stay.

Visual content is very powerful. It enables us to provide customers with all the latest information in an attractive and engaging way. It helps us grab our customers' attention.

Guest Author: Mehroz Khan is an Entrepreneur and Co-founder at Videoexplainers-Video production company. He is a blogger, strategist, social media marketing specialist and growth strategist. His expertise includes marketing and video production. Follow Merhoz on Twitter @mehrozanwer, LinkedIn Mehroz Khan or contact him over email mehroz@videoexplainers.com.

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Reddit change raises alarm about possible U.S. government spying

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(Reuters) – Digital privacy advocates and users of Reddit expressed their alarm on Friday over a change in the forum's transparency report that suggested it may have been asked to give customer data to FBI investigators under a secretive government authority.

The annual report lists a variety of requests the site has received for information on users and for removal of content. On Thursday, Reddit deleted a paragraph known as a “warrant canary.”

The paragraph had said that Reddit had not been subject to national security letters, which are used by the FBI to conduct electronic surveillance without the need for court approval, or “any other classified request for user information.”

Privacy advocates have long contested the letters, saying they are not subject to sufficient judicial oversight or transparency safeguards.

Brett Max Kaufman, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said on Friday that authorities were possibly seeking the IP address, or an identifying number that corresponds to a specific computer, of an anonymous user on Reddit. Private messages between users could also be subject to search.

Reddit collects relatively little customer data that could be subject to a national security letter and useful for investigators, Kaufman said. Reddit does not require users to reveal their identities and stores less customer data overall compared to email or other social media such as Facebook, he said.

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who gave classified documents about U.S. spying to journalists in 2013, expressed concern on Twitter.

“Is dissent a threat to national security?” tweeted Snowden (@Snowden), whose leaks prompted a vigorous international debate about digital privacy and surveillance.

The leaks helped popularize the use of “warrant canaries” by tech firms eager to display resistance to government attempts to obtain access to user data.

“When you ask someone 'Are you helping authorities in investigations?' and they say 'I'm not allowed to discuss that with you,' I think the question has been answered,” wrote Reddit user khegiobridge.

National security letters are almost always accompanied by an open-ended gag order barring companies from disclosing the contents of the demand for customer data, making it difficult for firms to openly discuss how they handle the subpoenas.

That has led many companies to rely on somewhat vague warnings. Apple previously had a “warrant canary” but removed it in 2014.

“I've been advised not to say anything one way or the other,” Reddit Chief Executive Officer Steve Huffman, who goes by “spez” on the site, said in a thread discussing the change. “Even with the canaries, we're treading a fine line.”

The FBI can use national security letters to compel Internet and telecommunications firms to hand over a wide range of customer data, including web browsing history and records of online purchases.

San Francisco-based Reddit did not respond to a request for comment. The Federal Bureau of Investigation did not respond to a request for comment.

National security letters have been available as a law enforcement tool since the 1970s, but their frequency and breadth expanded dramatically under the USA Patriot Act, which was passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States by Islamist militants.

Several thousand of the letters are now issued by the FBI every year. At one point more than 50,000 such letters were issued annually.

In 2014, Twitter sued the U.S. Department of Justice on grounds that the restrictions placed on its ability to reveal information about government surveillance orders violates free speech rights. Reddit and others have filed friend of the court briefs in Twitter's lawsuit.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Additional reporting by Amy Tennery, Anjali Athavaley and Melissa Fares in New York; editing by Frances Kerry and Grant McCool)

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We need a new username system

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GUEST:

What do Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and a gazillion other digital platforms have in common? They all treat usernames like a baby treats a diaper instead of the precious and lucrative resource they are.

Because usernames are dished out using an archaic first-come, first-served model, early adopters snag the dictionary-friendly handles. Everyone else gets smacked with alphanumeric nonsense. Soon perfidy and confusion take over as the black hats win and power users settle for names like “boogie2988”, “Rclbeauty101”, and “realDonaldTrump” even while “boogie”, “beauty”, and “trump” languish.

How did we get to this point?

First-come, first-served emerged with domain name registrations. Back then, claiming a domain name was an esoteric chore, so anyone who figured out the hows and whys deserved their three-letter dot com. As demand and accessibility grew, the flaws of first-come, first-served became obvious (more on that later), but by then it was too late. Early tech companies had already adopted the domain model for their identity systems, and later companies thoughtlessly followed the tradition. So here we are with almost every web service severely misallocating a key asset.

What's wrong with first-come, first-served?

The underlying assumption behind first-come, first-served is that early users are more valuable than late users. This is not only false, it's backwards!

When you're desperate for your first 1,000 members, you figure your best usernames to be a small price to pay. But remember that you haven't completely figured out your product yet, your onboarding process is untested, and your service is light on content and features. In other words, your early retention rate will be terrible, so all your good names will end up like a clump of dry hot chocolate powder goo at the bottom of a cup. While early adopters are great for buzz, they're not motivated by usernames and have a one-night-stand mentality anyway; they'll spread your product for a day and then leave you in the morning for the next shiny service. Save your best names for later!

Abandoning first-come, first-served won't be easy; three types of members will revolt: Squatters will hate you, scammers will abandon you, and spammers will betray you for someone else. Think of the starving server admin in China who can't register hundreds of your best account names at a time. Or the copyright infringer in Kentucky who misses rent because he can't snag “apple.”

Michael Lee, partner at law firm Morrison & Lee LLP, has spent many years cleaning up after haphazard registration systems. “The effort needed to maintain the status quo is staggering. Dummy pages clog up search results, customers don't know what they're liking or following, and increasingly desperate brands have to resort to expensive lawsuits. There are big question marks abroad, too, especially in China where their trademark system is not always equitable.” He points to a recent lawsuit between GoDaddy and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where the Academy, in essence, tried to unsuccessfully block the registration of all domains containing the word “oscar” and “academy awards.”

First-come, first-served even turns benign members into villains. When Pinterest launched, I registered “nimble” with high hopes. Years later, my Pinterest page is, well … sparse. Meanwhile, legitimate companies like Nimble CRM, Nimble Systems, and Nimble Storage are sunk. Did I deserve “nimble” because I got in early? Obviously not. Will I ever let “nimble” go? Hahahahaha, that name is my retirement plan!

What about implementing a verification system?

Twitter's famous blue check mark isn't the solution to first-come, first-served; it's a desperate and clunky hack that proves the system is broken. Consider it a warning: Build your identity system the right way or suffer the wrath of endless whining support tickets (“But, but do you know who I am, Mr. Dorsey!??!”).

What's the alternative?

I wrote this post to inspire brainstorming about alternative systems. To kickstart the process, here's an idea in three simple steps:

Step 1: De-emphasize usernames by asking members to login with their email

Step 2: Members start with a three-word username, so my Pinterest account would be: http://ift.tt/1SISHHH

Step 3: Let members earn their way to two-word and then one-word usernames. After six months and 1,000 pins, I can shrink my name to http://ift.tt/1V0OgLR. After 2 years and 5,000 pins, I can transform into pinterest.com/nimble. It goes without saying that anyone who types in “adam-is-nimble” will be redirected.

With this system, your best users will own the best names and the majority of one-night-stand types and scammers will give up before they cause any harm. And that's just for starters. With a little effort you'll:

• Drive participation. LinkedIn is pushing its members to write articles. I'd submit a dozen today if it meant I could get a better username out of the deal.


• “Game-ify” your service. Earning a better username will be fun! Fun makes your product stickier.


• Improve retention. If someone's worked hard to upgrade their username, they'll have more to lose by leaving


• Create envy and curiosity. A person who sees another member with a short name will grow curious. What's going on? How can I do that too?

But wait, there's more!

Copyright enforcement becomes MUCH easier because you're handing out fewer one-word names per day and can more closely monitor them. People will also be hesitant to request potentially infringing usernames, knowing that they could lose years of work if they get into trouble.

Share your own idea

Know anyone with a novel identity system? Devised a clever one of your own? Tweet me and I'll post the ideas in a follow-up. (I know there's no blue check mark next to my name, you'll just have to trust it's me.)

Adam Ghahramani is head of digital product for a creative agency in New York City. Find him at adamagb.com or make friends on Twitter (@adamagb).

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Facebook Changes: Log In as Your Page and Like Other Pages

Facebook changes again.  This time it's the “Login as your Page” option – it's gone.  But never fear, we can still do everything we used to do, it's just different.

Facebook definitely likes to change things up and it's not always for the better.  I personally liked the Login as your Page option because then it was very clear how you were acting on Facebook.

Now you have to pay attention to the small icon next to each post to switch back and forth.

I made a handy video of the changes here.

 

Here are some of the changes and how you do the things you used to do while you were logged in as your Page.

View your Page Home Feed by Click the Pages Feed

Before when you logged in as your Page you would click Home at the top to see the Pages you have Liked as your Page.

Now, you get to your Pages Feed by clicking View Pages Feed under your profile picture on the left sidebar.

 

 

Now your Pages Feed is showing but your profile picture is still at the top.  But your Page is “set” to comment on any of the posts there.  You can change the attribution by switching the icon.

 

Like Other Pages as Your Page

This has changed too.  You used to be able to just navigate to the Page while you were logged in and click Like.  But now, there are a couple of ways to do this:

• Click the “Like Other Pages” button and type in the Page name from your Pages Home Feed (see the image above)


• Navigate to the Page and click the 3 dots button to the right of the Like button and select Like as your Page from the drop down menu.

 

Then you just have to navigate to that Page and click “Save”

 

Comment on Other Pages as your Page

You don't have to Like another Page as your Page to comment on their Timeline or Posts, you can just navigate to that Page and switch the icon to your Page.

 

This also is the case for just commenting on Posts on their Page.

 

So there you have it.  I know it's irritating.  I'm cranky about it, too.  And there are extra steps involved.  I don't like extra steps.  But it's Facebook and it changes weekly.

What do you think?  Are you cranky too?  Share your comments below!

 

 

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Facebook Changes: Log In as Your Page and Like Other Pages

Facebook Changes: Log In as Your Page and Like Other Pages

Facebook changes again.  This time it's the “Login as your Page” option – it's gone.  But never fear, we can still do everything we used to do, it's just different.

Facebook definitely likes to change things up and it's not always for the better.  I personally liked the Login as your Page option because then it was very clear how you were acting on Facebook.

Now you have to pay attention to the small icon next to each post to switch back and forth.

I made a handy video of the changes here.

 

Here are some of the changes and how you do the things you used to do while you were logged in as your Page.

View your Page Home Feed by Click the Pages Feed

Before when you logged in as your Page you would click Home at the top to see the Pages you have Liked as your Page.

Now, you get to your Pages Feed by clicking View Pages Feed under your profile picture on the left sidebar.

 

 

Now your Pages Feed is showing but your profile picture is still at the top.  But your Page is “set” to comment on any of the posts there.  You can change the attribution by switching the icon.

 

Like Other Pages as Your Page

This has changed too.  You used to be able to just navigate to the Page while you were logged in and click Like.  But now, there are a couple of ways to do this:

• Click the “Like Other Pages” button and type in the Page name from your Pages Home Feed (see the image above)


• Navigate to the Page and click the 3 dots button to the right of the Like button and select Like as your Page from the drop down menu.

 

Then you just have to navigate to that Page and click “Save”

 

Comment on Other Pages as your Page

You don't have to Like another Page as your Page to comment on their Timeline or Posts, you can just navigate to that Page and switch the icon to your Page.

 

This also is the case for just commenting on Posts on their Page.

 

So there you have it.  I know it's irritating.  I'm cranky about it, too.  And there are extra steps involved.  I don't like extra steps.  But it's Facebook and it changes weekly.

What do you think?  Are you cranky too?  Share your comments below!

 

 

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Watch a stop motion video made entirely in Snapchat

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MysteryGuitarMan decided to make a stop motion video. Sounds pretty standard. Oh. You want to know the catch? MysteryGuitarMan filmed his crazy clip entirely in Snapchat.

The video description explains that creating the video only required three components: “some fruits, Snapchat, and a LOT of free time.” Unfortunately, I only have the first one, and even if I were to get back on Snapchat, I seriously doubt I'll ever have enough of the third component.

But it's the catchy music that particularly draws me in, almost to the point that I wish this was a real game I could play on my phone:

The vertical video is really my only complaint, though I'm told that this is just the way Snapchat is. It turns out you can film and send horizontal videos in the app, but no one does this.

Also, Snapchat doesn't have any built-in games. If this doesn't inspire the team, I'm not sure what will.

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More: Breaking news from Microsoft's biggest event of the year.

 

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