11 April 2018

Looking to Listen: Audio-Visual Speech Separation




People are remarkably good at focusing their attention on a particular person in a noisy environment, mentally “muting” all other voices and sounds. Known as the cocktail party effect, this capability comes natural to us humans. However, automatic speech separation — separating an audio signal into its individual speech sources — while a well-studied problem, remains a significant challenge for computers.

In “Looking to Listen at the Cocktail Party”, we present a deep learning audio-visual model for isolating a single speech signal from a mixture of sounds such as other voices and background noise. In this work, we are able to computationally produce videos in which speech of specific people is enhanced while all other sounds are suppressed. Our method works on ordinary videos with a single audio track, and all that is required from the user is to select the face of the person in the video they want to hear, or to have such a person be selected algorithmically based on context. We believe this capability can have a wide range of applications, from speech enhancement and recognition in videos, through video conferencing, to improved hearing aids, especially in situations where there are multiple people speaking.
A unique aspect of our technique is in combining both the auditory and visual signals of an input video to separate the speech. Intuitively, movements of a person’s mouth, for example, should correlate with the sounds produced as that person is speaking, which in turn can help identify which parts of the audio correspond to that person. The visual signal not only improves the speech separation quality significantly in cases of mixed speech (compared to speech separation using audio alone, as we demonstrate in our paper), but, importantly, it also associates the separated, clean speech tracks with the visible speakers in the video.
The input to our method is a video with one or more people speaking, where the speech of interest is interfered by other speakers and/or background noise. The output is a decomposition of the input audio track into clean speech tracks, one for each person detected in the video.
An Audio-Visual Speech Separation Model
To generate training examples, we started by gathering a large collection of 100,000 high-quality videos of lectures and talks from YouTube. From these videos, we extracted segments with a clean speech (e.g. no mixed music, audience sounds or other speakers) and with a single speaker visible in the video frames. This resulted in roughly 2000 hours of video clips, each of a single person visible to the camera and talking with no background interference. We then used this clean data to generate “synthetic cocktail parties” -- mixtures of face videos and their corresponding speech from separate video sources, along with non-speech background noise we obtained from AudioSet.

Using this data, we were able to train a multi-stream convolutional neural network-based model to split the synthetic cocktail mixture into separate audio streams for each speaker in the video. The input to the network are visual features extracted from the face thumbnails of detected speakers in each frame, and a spectrogram representation of the video’s soundtrack. During training, the network learns (separate) encodings for the visual and auditory signals, then it fuses them together to form a joint audio-visual representation. With that joint representation, the network learns to output a time-frequency mask for each speaker. The output masks are multiplied by the noisy input spectrogram and converted back to a time-domain waveform to obtain an isolated, clean speech signal for each speaker. For full details, see our paper.
Our multi-stream, neural network-based model architecture.
Here are some more speech separation and enhancement results by our method. Sound by others than the selected speakers can be entirely suppressed or suppressed to the desired level.
To highlight the utilization of visual information by our model, we took two different parts from the same video of Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, and placed them side by side. It is very difficult to perform speech separation in this scenario using only characteristic speech frequencies contained in the audio, however our audio-visual model manages to properly separate the speech even in this challenging case.
Application to Speech Recognition
Our method can also potentially be used as a pre-process for speech recognition and automatic video captioning. Handling overlapping speakers is a known challenge for automatic captioning systems, and separating the audio to the different sources could help in presenting more accurate and easy-to-read captions.
You can similarly see and compare the captions before and after speech separation in all the other videos in this post and on our website, by turning on closed captions in the YouTube player when playing the videos (“cc” button at the lower right corner of the player).

On our project web page you can find more results, as well as comparisons with state-of-the-art audio-only speech separation and with other recent audio-visual speech separation work.
We envision a wide range of applications for this technology. We are currently exploring opportunities for incorporating it into various Google products. Stay tuned!

Acknowledgements
The research described in this post was done by Ariel Ephrat (as an intern), Inbar Mosseri, Oran Lang, Tali Dekel, Kevin Wilson, Avinatan Hassidim, Bill Freeman and Michael Rubinstein. We would like to thank Yossi Matias and Google Research Israel for their support for the project, and John Hershey for his valuable feedback. We also thank Arkady Ziefman for his help with animations and figures, and Rachel Soh for helping us procure permissions for video content in our results.

How to Manage the Clipboard on Android


Copy and paste functionality on Android is pretty basic, just as it is on most operating systems. Cutting and copying single items for pasting once is fine, but cut or copy anything else and it’s gone forever.

That’s sufficient for some, but many of us want more. Let’s review how to copy and paste on Android, and check out the best ways to improve the functionality.

The Basics of Copy and Paste on Android

Copying and pasting on Android is simple—but not always intuitive if you haven’t used an Android device before. Here’s how to do it if you’re new.

First, select some text. In most apps, like Chrome, you can do this by long-pressing on the text you want to copy.

copy and paste on android - Long Press Copy Text

Then, adjust the handles of the highlighted section to get just the words you want. You can also tap Select all if you want to copy all the text in an area.

Note that in some apps, like Twitter, those handles won’t appear. In that case, when long-pressing on a tweet, Twitter will automatically copy the whole tweet for you. This also works on addresses in Google Maps.

copy and paste on android - Google Maps and Twitter Copy Text

Finally, navigate to where you want to paste the text and long-press there, then select Paste. Alternatively, if you tap on the field where you want to paste the text, a small blue or black handle should appear. Tap on that to see the option to paste.

Android Paste

You’re now a copying and pasting pro! There are some special situations you should be wary of, however.

Intermediate Android Copy and Paste Tips

First off, anything you’ve copied will likely disappear if you turn off or restart your phone before pasting it. Thus, it’s best to paste the text quickly before you forget it’s there. Also, if you copy one item and then try to copy a second before pasting the first, the first copied text will be erased. Android’s clipboard can only hold one bit of text at a time.

If you’re reading an article and there’s a link to another article that you want to copy, you could tap the link, long-press in the URL bar, and then copy the URL. But it’s faster to use the power user method: just long-press on the original link itself and select Copy link address.

And, remember that you can only cut text if it’s in a text entry field. If the text is not editable—like in an article—you’ll only be able to copy it. But if you’re typing out a text message, you can cut the text that you’re typing and paste it elsewhere. This is essentially like copying and pasting, except it deletes the original text.

Since the built-in Android clipboard isn’t accessible (you can’t reference what you’re pasting without actually pasting it), and it can’t hold more than one bit of text, you might want to look to third-party Android clipboards.

How to Improve the Copy-Paste Function on Android

Android’s built-in copying and pasting functionality is super limited. Thankfully, there are a couple solid apps you can use to improve upon the clipboard, giving you access to a host of new ways to move text around.

Clipper: The Quick and Fast Option

copy and paste on android - Clipper Android Clipboard App

With Clipper, anything you copy will stay in the app. This allows you to have multiple bits of text copied at once, and you won’t lose anything if you accidentally copy something else.

And you can access your copied texts quickly by simply opening the app and tapping which text you want. Clipper will copy it to your built-in clipboard, and you can go paste it wherever you want. It’s dead simple and easy to use.

You can also just add quick phrases that you often need to type (like your email address) for easy access to them. You can even sort your notes by categories and use a persistent notification to reach the app in an instant.

Unfortunately, you also have to deal with a huge banner ad along the bottom. For full functionality you can buy Clipper Plus for $2. This allows you to save more than 20 clips, sync all your clips online, get rid of ads, and search your clips.

Download: Clipper (Free)
Download: Clipper Plus ($2)

AnyCopy: The Safe and Secure Option

AnyCopy has one specialty in mind: security. It has a premium version for $2, but only a few features are hidden behind that paywall. They include changing the size of notes, changing the default save folder, and auto-sorting notes based on the app they were copied from.

The free version doesn’t have ads and is teeming with features. You can search through your notes, start the app through a persistent notification (or turn that off), set a PIN to lock the app, and set a password to lock particular folders. On top of all of that, your local notes are all encrypted. It’s definitely the safest app of the bunch.

It works like a charm. Copy anything, and you’ll later find it in AnyCopy, waiting for you to copy and paste it somewhere. It’s not the quickest solution, especially if you PIN-lock the app, but the extra security might be worth it.

Download: AnyCopy (Free with in-app purchase)

Copy and Paste on Android Like a Pro

Android’s built-in clipboard gets the job done, but these apps should be able to help if you want more. If having a clipboard manager changed your life, check out other Android apps that make life easier.

Also, if you have a Windows device, you can easily share your clipboard between your Android phone and Windows computer.


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Zuckerberg denies knowledge of Facebook shadow profiles


The fact that Facebook probably has a profile of you whether you’re a Facebook user or not might come as a surprise to some users, though today even the company’s chief executive denied knowledge of the practice — or at least the term used to describe it.

In this morning’s hearing with the House Energy and Commerce Committee, New Mexico Representative Ben Lujan cornered Mark Zuckerberg with a question about so-called “shadow profiles” — the term often used to refer to the data that Facebook collects on non-users and other hidden data that Facebook holds but does not offer openly on the site for users to see.

In one of the handful of slightly candid moments of the past few days, Rep. Lujan pressed Zuckerberg on the practice today:

Lujan: Facebook has detailed profiles on people who have never signed up for Facebook, yes or no?

Zuckerberg: Congressman, in general we collect data on people who have not signed up for Facebook for security purposes to prevent the kind of scraping you were just referring to [reverse searches based on public info like phone numbers].

Lujan: So these are called shadow profiles, is that what they’ve been referred to by some?

Zuckerberg: Congressman, I’m not, I’m not familiar with that.

Lujan: I’ll refer to them as shadow profiles for today’s hearing. On average, how many data points does Facebook have on each Facebook user?

Zuckerberg: I do not know off the top of my head.

Lujan: Do you know how many points of data Facebook has on the average non-Facebook user?

Zuckerberg: Congressman, I do not know off the top of my head but I can have our team get back to you afterward.

Lujan: It’s been admitted by Facebook that you do collect data points on non-[Facebook users]. My question is, can someone who does not have a Facebook account opt out of Facebook’s involuntary data collection?

Zuckerberg: Anyone can turn off and opt out of any data collection for ads, whether they use our services or not, but in order to prevent people from scraping public information… we need to know when someone is repeatedly trying to access our services.

Lujan: It may surprise you that we’ve not talked about this a lot today. You’ve said everyone controls their data, but you’re collecting data on people who are not even Facebook users who have never signed a consent, a privacy agreement.

And it may surprise you that on Facebook’s page when you go to “I don’t have a Facebook account and would like to request all my personal data stored by Facebook” it takes you to a form that says “go to your Facebook page and then on your account settings you can download your data.”

So you’re directing people that don’t even have a Facebook page to sign up for a Facebook page to access their data… We’ve got to change that.

As TechCrunch’s Natasha Lomas explained during a 2013 Facebook privacy scandal:

Chances are someone you have corresponded with — by email or mobile phone — has let Facebook’s data spiders crawl through their correspondence, thereby allowing your contact data to be assimilated entirely without your knowledge or consent.

During that privacy breach, Facebook exposed the email addresses and phone numbers of six million users, though it later became apparent that a chunk of those accounts were never handed over to the platform directly by Facebook users. This information can be drawn into Facebook’s vast data aggregation machine through friends or friends of friends via all kinds of channels, including the “find friends” feature that allows the app to scan mobile contacts.

For all of Zuckerberg’s claims that Facebook users own their data, users — and non-users — have no way of determining the full trove of data that the company stores on an individual. As Rep. Lujan was suggesting, it’s likely that the Facebook data users are able to view on the platform is likely only the tip of the company’s immense data iceberg.


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Google Is Launching a New Version of Gmail


Gmail for the web hasn’t had an update in quite a while. However, as is its style, Google has been busy beavering away in the background, and the fruits of its labors are almost ready for public consumption. So, expect a Material Design overhaul soon.

Inviting G Suite Admins to the Gmail Party

Google has sent out an email to G Suite administrators pre-warning them a new version of Gmail is in the works. The redesign will be officially announced in the coming weeks, with G Suite customers invited to join an Early Adopter Program (EAP).

When the EAP arrives it will introduce “a new design for the Gmail web interface, as well as several new features”. Google is telling G Suite administrators about the changes first. However, the changes will also be made available to users with personal Gmail accounts.

Google lists the following features coming to Gmail:

  • A clean look for Gmail on the web.
  • Easy access to G Suite apps.
  • Smart Reply, just like on mobile.
  • The ability to “snooze” emails.
  • Native offline support.

According to TechCrunch, a reader has seen a Google employee testing the new design on public transport. He claims the new design looks like “a hybrid of Gmail and Inbox”. Whether that’s true or not it’s guaranteed to follow Google’s Material Design concept.

Google has promised to share more details on The Keyword and the G Suite Update blog when the EAP opens. We’ll be sure to keep our eyes firmly peeled to find out when the new web version of Gmail is going to be made available to ordinary Gmail users.

Making Gmail Look Like the Mobile Version

With most of us checking emails on our phones these days Google will want to make the web version look more like the mobile version. However, this redesign clearly goes beyond looks, with new features on the way for people who still check their Gmail on the web.

Image Credit: Chris Schrier/Flickr


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3 Popular Online Services to Avoid If You Value Free Speech


Free speech is under attack.

But in this case, it’s not under siege from a government. Instead, some of the most popular online services have made it clear that they don’t want certain types of speech on their platforms. If you’re someone who values the inalienable human right of freedom of speech, you may want to stay away from them out of principle, or to avoid having your accounts locked.

Let’s examine three of the most hostile companies towards free speech today, including examples of hypocrisy in applying their rules.

1. Microsoft

Microsoft is the most recent company to take worrying action against free speech. While the company has always had terms preventing use of its services for illegal content, recent updates to the Microsoft Services Agreement have left many feeling concerned.

Most of the changes are bland, except for one bullet that activist Jon Corbett pointed out:

“In the Code of Conduct section, we’ve clarified that use of offensive language and fraudulent activity is prohibited. We’ve also clarified that violation of the Code of Conduct through Xbox Services may result in suspensions or bans from participation in Xbox Services, including forfeiture of content licenses, Xbox Gold Membership time, and Microsoft account balances associated with the account.”

The relevant change reads as follows:

“Don’t publicly display or use the Services to share inappropriate content or material (involving, for example, nudity, bestiality, pornography, offensive language, graphic violence, or criminal activity).”

Don’t Be Offensive

The “offensive language” wording is what’s worrying here. With these changes, Microsoft has effectively said that if you use any of its dozens of services to say anything offensive, you could lose access to your entire account. And in 2018, nearly anything could offend someone.

If you’re a long-time Microsoft account user, losing access to your account could be catastrophic. You’d lose your Windows 10 account login, Outlook mail, OneDrive files, Office 365 subscription, and Skype account. Plus, if you didn’t notice, the Xbox “forfeiture of content licenses” means that you’d lose access to all digital games you own on Xbox Live.

All because you had a sexy call over Skype with your significant other, cursed at someone in anger in an online game, or used Office 365 to write an essay that offended a reader?

Further, it’s a bit hypocritical to include “graphic violence” as an offense, since Microsoft approves many video games with intense violence on Xbox. So playing Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty is OK, but uploading a violent video to OneDrive isn’t?

Thankfully, Microsoft doesn’t plan to search through your data looking for offenses. But it does proclaim:

“When investigating alleged violations of these Terms, Microsoft reserves the right to review Your Content in order to resolve the issue.”

Thanks to vague terminology like “offensive language”, “publicly”, and “investigating”, Microsoft is essentially allowing itself to remove your account if it feels like it. What constitutes an “investigation”? You’re probably fine swearing in Skype chats with friends, but you’d better not “offend” anyone “publicly” or your account is gone.

2. Google

Microsoft’s vague wording is concerning, but it’s nothing compared to Google’s actions. You could choose from lots of examples of this since Google has so many services and products, but we’ll highlight a few.

Perhaps the best-known recent example of Google’s inability to deal with differing opinions is the firing of James Damore. Damore was an engineer at Google who published an internal memo, later leaked, that provided well-reasoned arguments that men and women are different.

This idea proved too radical for the management at Google, with CEO Sundar Pichai claiming that Damore’s memo “advanc[ed] harmful gender stereotypes”. Pichai then stated that Damore’s memo caused problems with other employees because “[p]eople must feel free to express dissent.” Apparently this freedom didn’t apply to Damore.

Clearly, Google’s creed for diversity is only based on superficial characteristics like skin color and sexual orientation. Diversity of ideas is not a priority.

Google’s Hypocrisy

With Google being so holy as to crush any tidbit of diversity injustice, you’d think that it expands those protections to its service, right? That would explain why Google fought to protect a law that allows Backpage, a service notoriously used for the sex trafficking of children, to continue to serve as a place for enabling horrific crimes.

So stating that men and women have biological differences is unforgivably offensive, but Google is happy to spend money to make it easier for pimps to purchase teenage girls to sell for sex. Is this really the company you want deciding what shows up in search results?

On its Play Store, the marketplace for Android apps, Google banned alternative social network Gab’s app. Google explained the reasoning to Ars Technica:

“In order to be on the Play Store, social networking apps need to demonstrate a sufficient level of moderation, including for content that encourages violence and advocates hate against groups of people.”

Gab’s offense is that unlike most other offerings, it’s a social network “for creators who believe in free speech, individual liberty, and the free flow of information online.” Google doesn’t like this, so it simply removes the app. Thankfully, you can sideload it if you’re interested.

Again, Google’s hypocrisy is clear. The company allows a multitude of Reddit apps on the Play Store, all of which enable access to many of the service’s “hateful” subreddits, various explicit content, and depictions of brutal violence. But since Reddit’s politics align more with Google’s than Gab’s do, it’s not a problem.

YouTube Censorship

YouTube is rampant with censorship. After the recent advertiser scares, it’s understandable that Google would want to tighten its controls on what ads appear where. As it states:

“[W]e’re taking a tougher stance on hateful, offensive and derogatory content. This includes removing ads more effectively from content that is attacking or harassing people based on their race, religion, gender or similar categories.”

Given Google’s episode with James Damore, who can guess what it will say is “harassing”? PragerU, which provides instructional videos about history and politics, has seen many of its videos demonetized. Whether or not you agree with the channel’s videos, it’s hard to argue that their content is not suitable for advertisers. Many conservative channels simply discussing ideas have seen similar demonetization.

A video comparing Nazism and communism from PragerU is demonetized, while BuzzFeed’s “Porn Stars Teach Couples Sex Moves” still has an ad.

YouTube has announced that it plans to ban videos promoting guns or providing instructions on how to make legal modifications, yet videos on how to build bombs remain.

A creator who uploaded a video on how to help victims of a shooting was demonetized, with YouTube explaining on Twitter that it had a policy not to run ads on videos about tragedies. However, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s video on the shooting still featured ads.

What’s scary is that Google effectively serves as many people’s gateway to the internet. A staggering 75 percent of all web searches are made through Google. If Google removes something from its search index, it’s almost as if it doesn’t exist. And as we’ve seen, Google is both rampantly hypocritical and happy to remove content that it doesn’t agree with from its services whenever it feels like it.

3. Twitter

Twitter (our guide explains how to use it) doesn’t have nearly the authority of Google, but the social networking service has been happy to censor dissenting opinions nonetheless.

One of the biggest censorship concerns with Twitter is its verification system. Users who are deemed to be “of public interest” receive a blue check mark next to their names so others know they’re authentic. This lets you know that you’re really following Justin Bieber or another popular account, and not a parody or impostor. These users also receive prominence in searches and replies.

For a long time, Twitter only verified accounts on its own volition. A few years ago, Twitter started allowing anyone in certain spheres, such as entertainment, sports, or journalism, to apply for verification. This was never intended to show that Twitter endorsed the person’s views, but simply that they were actually who they claimed.

After this change, many users claimed that Twitter was endorsing racial supremacists and other “hateful” accounts via verification. Thus, Twitter announced in November 2017 that it was revamping verification. The company is still in the process of doing so, but the verified FAQ page states that reasons for removal may include:

“Promoting hate and/or violence against, or directly attacking or threatening other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease. Supporting organizations or individuals that promote the above.”

As a result of this, several controversial accounts lost their verification status. However, verified accounts from users like Kate Morgan receive no punishment for tweeting that all men should be murdered.

Note that these rules state you can lose verification for behaviors outside of Twitter. That means the company can watch what you do and cut you off if you do something it doesn’t like. So Twitter lamented that verification was seen as an endorsement by some, then proceeded to turn it into an endorsement.

Dropping the Twitter Ban Hammer

Aside from verification, Twitter regularly bans users for questionable offenses. Popular YouTuber Bunty King has been banned several times for “abusive behavior,” the most recent incident of which being a text-based meme intended as a joke.

Writer Milo Yiannopoulos was also banned by Twitter in 2016 for “targeted abuse” of actress Leslie Jones shortly after the release of the remade Ghostbusters film. The actual offense? Yiannopoulos commented on Jones’s tweet about receiving hate mail after the movie’s release.

Yiannopoulos-Jones-Tweet

While fans of Yiannopoulos may have taken more hostile actions, he didn’t do anything “abusive” other than ridicule Jones’s tweets. This might have been in poor taste, but it certainly wasn’t abusive.

Shortly after, Twitter permanently banned Yiannopoulos. If public figures are responsible for their fans’ actions, what about fans of Justin Bieber who cut themselves? Jones, on her own volition, decide to quit using Twitter because of the incident (though she returned a few days later).

After this, Twitter stepped up its rules to prevent these scenarios, with its updated enforcement philosophy stating:

“While we welcome everyone to express themselves on our service, we will not tolerate behavior that harasses, threatens, or uses fear to silence the voices of others.”

Leslie Jones’s voice was not “silenced”—she voluntarily stepped away from Twitter for two days. Ironically, permanently banning someone does silence their voice. Twitter also states the following:

“When determining whether to take enforcement action, we may consider a number of factors, including (but not limited to) whether the behavior is directed at an individual, group, or protected category of people”

What’s a “protected category of people”? Only Twitter knows the secret behind its identity politics. Protected groups certainly don’t include white people, as racist website The Root is allowed to continue on Twitter with tweets like this:

Online Free Speech Is Important

We should stress that private companies have the right to do as they please—if you don’t like a company’s policies, you can use another. And we’re not objecting to these services taking action against terrorism, child abuse, and similar crimes.

However, the blocking of ideas that these companies don’t agree with is worrying. Free speech is a vital component of our dialog today because it’s how we sharpen our ideas. The best way to shut down a bad idea is to present a better one, not to silence the ones voicing the bad idea.

This also isn’t meant as a political article. While we’ve mainly discussed censorship of conservative ideas here, it’s simply because companies like Google and Twitter don’t usually step in to censor ideas from the other side. The double standards are a problem.

While it’s easy enough to look the other way when the speech being silenced is something you don’t like, who’s to say that these giant corporations won’t come after your opinions next? Their demonstrable hypocrisies show that they’re not fair, so you should think twice about using these services if you value freedom of expression.

If you’re interested, we’ve covered more about why you should stop using Google.

Image Credit: londondeposit/Depositphotos


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Zuckerberg doesn’t want to talk about changing the business model


Google is testifying once again before the congress about the Cambridge Analytica debacle and Facebook’s privacy policy in general. One representative in particular nailed down Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s position on many subjects.

The U.S. Representative for California's 18th congressional district Anna Eshoo started by setting the tone. “First, I believe that our democratic institutions are undergoing a stress test in our country,” she said. “Putting our private information on offer without concern for possible misuses is simply irresponsible,” she added.

Eshoo asked her constituants to submit questions that they want to ask Zuckerberg. The result is an intense four-minute yes-or-no round of questions.

While Zuckerberg was pretty good at answering yes or no to Eshoo’s questions, it wasn’t so simple with the business model question. “Are you willing to change your business model in the interest of protecting individual privacy?” she asked.

“Congresswoman, we have made and are continuing to make changes to reduce the amount of data…” Zuckerberg said. Eshoo stopped him and repeated her question word for word.

“Congresswoman, I’m not sure what that means,” Zuckerberg said.

Earlier questions were also quite telling. “Do you think you have a moral responsibility to run a platform that protects our democracy? Yes or no?” she asked. After a short hesitation, Zuckerberg answered yes.

Later in the conversation, Eshoo asked if Facebook would offer a blanket opt-in option to share their personal data with third-party companies.

“Congresswoman, yes, that’s how our platform works. You have to opt in to sign in to any app before you use it,” Zuckerberg said.

“Let me just add that it is a minefield in order to do that and you have to make it transparent, clear, in pedestrian language: ‘this is what we will do with your data, do you want this to happen or not?’ So I think this is being blurred, I think you know what I mean,” Eshoo said.

Even more interesting, when Zuckerberg said that Facebook was investigating third-party developers who “had access to large amounts of data,” Eshoo couldn’t take it.

“What does that mean?” she said. Zuckerberg repeated his answer about the internal investigation, without clarifying what Zuckerberg means by large amounts of data and who qualifies for that.

No other representative thought about asking a basic question about Cambridge Analytica’s data. Eshoo asked if Zuckerberg’s data was included in the data sold to the malicious third parties. Zuckerberg simply answered “yes.”


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Zuckerberg makes case for privacy regs with teeth — by failing to remember non-existent FTC fine


Chalk up a sharp political point in support for privacy legislation with actual teeth: In today’s testimony in front of the House Energy & Commerce committee, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked about the outcomes of a string of legal actions against the company — most of which he claimed not be aware of.

One which he at last said he could remember was Facebook’s 2011 FTC consent decree — when the company settled over deceptive privacy practices by agreeing to make product changes opt-in and pledging to gain express consent from users to any changes going forward.

As part of that decree it also agreed to submit to privacy audits every two years for the next 20 years; bar access to content on deactivated accounts; and avoid misrepresenting the privacy or security of user data.

But congresswoman Diana DeGette pressed the Facebook CEO on whether the company paid a financial penalty as a result of the FTC action. A confused looking Zuckerberg finally replied: “I don’t remember if we had a financial penalty.”

“You’re the CEO of the company, you entered into a consent decree and you don’t remember if you had a financial penalty,” she responded, tone set to sarcastic incredulity.

“I remember the consent decree,” said Zuckerberg hastily. “The consent decree is extremely important to how we operate the company.”

“Yes I would think a financial penalty would be too,” interjected DeGette, leaving her point hanging in Zuckerberg’s silence.

“The reason you probably don’t remember it is because the FTC doesn’t have the authority to issue financial penalties for first time violations,” she picked up. “The reason I’m asking these questions, sir, is because we continue to have these abuses and these data breaches but at the same time it doesn’t seem like future activities are prevented. So I think one of the things that we need to look at in the future… is putting really robust penalties in place — in case of improper actions.”

A little later in the session, congressman Mike Doyle also raised the 20-year FTC consent decree, listing several of the practices it had deemed “unfair and deceptive” — namely: Facebook making users private information public “without sufficient notice or consent”; claiming to certify the security and integrity of certain apps “when in fact it did not”; and enabling developers to access “excessive information about a user and their friends”.

When he asked Zuckerberg whether the list was correct, the Facebook CEO again claimed not to know — saying: “I’m not familiar with all of the things that the FTC said,” before adding hastily: “Although I am very familiar with the FTC consent order itself.”

“But these were part of the consent decree,” interjected Doyle, adding: “I’m just concerned that despite this consent decree Facebook allowed developers access to an unknown number of user profiles on Facebook for years — potentially hundreds of millions, potentially more! And not only allowed but partnered with individuals and app developers such as Aleksandr Kogan who turned around and sold that data on the open market into companies like Cambridge Analytica.”

The congressman went on to ask Zuckerberg why Facebook users should trust the company to follow through on its “promises” to safeguard their information when — as he put it — “you have demonstrated repeatedly that you’re willing to flout both your own internal policies and government oversight when the need suits you”.

Zuckerberg said he “respectfully disagreed” with Doyle’s characterization, saying Facebook has had an app review process for “a number of years”, reviewing “tens of thousands” of apps per year and taking action “against a number of them”.

“Our process was not enough to catch a developer who sold data and had the data on their systems outside our systems,” he finished.

“To my mind the only way we’re going to close this trust gap is through legislation that creates and empowers a sufficiently resourced expert oversight agency with rule-making authority to protect the digital privacy and ensure that companies protect their users’ data,” replied Doyle, capping out his four minutes.

Since fresh revelations about the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke last month the FTC has opened a new investigation into Facebook’s practices.  And now at least the company could face a financial penalty if it’s deemed to have violated the earlier consent decree.

The FTC can apply a fine of $40,000 per privacy violation — so with up to 87 million Facebook users’ data leaked to Cambridge Analytica there is at least a chance Facebook will end up with a sanction that Zuckerberg is able to remember in future.


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GIF search is coming to LinkedIn messaging through Google’s GIF engine Tenor


Tenor is now going to exclusively power GIF searches in LinkedIn messaging after Google a few weeks ago, adding yet another service to its already pretty large portfolio of messaging platforms.

Tenor has long positioned itself as a GIF search tool working across a number of different platforms, ranging from its own keyboard to Facebook Messenger. As such, it wasn’t a huge surprise that Google — a search platform — decided to acquire the company toward the end of march. Tenor at the time said it powered more than 12 billion GIF searches every month, and that kind of search volume fits pretty neatly with Google’s quest to index the world’s information in a way that’s easily searchable. LinkedIn adds another component to that Swiss army knife, and it also gives Google another entry point to a different platform when it comes to some variation of GIF search.

The new engine is available for 50% of users today, and will be rolling out to more users over time. This gives LinkedIn messenger a robust GIF search platform, as well as ways to find trending GIFs, as well as a custom trending stream based on GIFs most often found in their network.

GIFs are increasingly popular in messaging apps, and Tenor is one example of how it’s become almost table stakes for any messenger platform. While LinkedIn is mostly a place where you’d expect to be closing deals and acquiring customers — or searching for a job — it doesn’t really change the core value proposition of what a GIF provides. Companies like Tenor seek to position GIFs as a way to compress more information (or some kind of emotion) into a compact form factor that has very little friction inside a messenger platform.

Tenor is going to exclusively power the GIF search engine, which is going to be another pretty substantial win for Google as it looks to expand its search capabilities into other areas of the Internet — even if it’s just a consumer-oriented GIF format. Tenor can places sponsored GIFs inside its quick search interface, offering brands a unique opportunity to capture the attention of users as well as creating a new advertising category that could be very appealing for larger marketers. Google, at its heart, is an advertising business and finding these new use cases (even if it doesn’t plan to get started on them right away) is something that would fit neatly inside its model.

This also gives Google a unique entry point into different platforms, including even Facebook Messenger, which may seek to find GIF search platforms and use them indiscriminately. Google already has its own keyboard with GBoard. As Google looks to further integrate with a typical user’s lifestyle, tapping the popularity (and potential) of GIFs is something that will be important down the line.

Messages on LinkedIn have grown 60% year-over-year, the company said as part of the announcement, as messaging increasingly becomes a core component of any platform that has any kind of sticky human communication component. That’s especially important for trying to explain the nuance behind a connection while building that relationship through a faux-warm intro as well as finding ways to appeal to customer acquisition. Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in mid 2016 for $26.2 billion, essentially picking up one of the largest customer acquisition channels in the world.


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GIF search is coming to LinkedIn messaging through Google’s GIF engine Tenor


Tenor is now going to exclusively power GIF searches in LinkedIn messaging after Google a few weeks ago, adding yet another service to its already pretty large portfolio of messaging platforms.

Tenor has long positioned itself as a GIF search tool working across a number of different platforms, ranging from its own keyboard to Facebook Messenger. As such, it wasn’t a huge surprise that Google — a search platform — decided to acquire the company toward the end of march. Tenor at the time said it powered more than 12 billion GIF searches every month, and that kind of search volume fits pretty neatly with Google’s quest to index the world’s information in a way that’s easily searchable. LinkedIn adds another component to that Swiss army knife, and it also gives Google another entry point to a different platform when it comes to some variation of GIF search.

The new engine is available for 50% of users today, and will be rolling out to more users over time. This gives LinkedIn messenger a robust GIF search platform, as well as ways to find trending GIFs, as well as a custom trending stream based on GIFs most often found in their network.

GIFs are increasingly popular in messaging apps, and Tenor is one example of how it’s become almost table stakes for any messenger platform. While LinkedIn is mostly a place where you’d expect to be closing deals and acquiring customers — or searching for a job — it doesn’t really change the core value proposition of what a GIF provides. Companies like Tenor seek to position GIFs as a way to compress more information (or some kind of emotion) into a compact form factor that has very little friction inside a messenger platform.

Tenor is going to exclusively power the GIF search engine, which is going to be another pretty substantial win for Google as it looks to expand its search capabilities into other areas of the Internet — even if it’s just a consumer-oriented GIF format. Tenor can places sponsored GIFs inside its quick search interface, offering brands a unique opportunity to capture the attention of users as well as creating a new advertising category that could be very appealing for larger marketers. Google, at its heart, is an advertising business and finding these new use cases (even if it doesn’t plan to get started on them right away) is something that would fit neatly inside its model.

This also gives Google a unique entry point into different platforms, including even Facebook Messenger, which may seek to find GIF search platforms and use them indiscriminately. Google already has its own keyboard with GBoard. As Google looks to further integrate with a typical user’s lifestyle, tapping the popularity (and potential) of GIFs is something that will be important down the line.

Messages on LinkedIn have grown 60% year-over-year, the company said as part of the announcement, as messaging increasingly becomes a core component of any platform that has any kind of sticky human communication component. That’s especially important for trying to explain the nuance behind a connection while building that relationship through a faux-warm intro as well as finding ways to appeal to customer acquisition. Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in mid 2016 for $26.2 billion, essentially picking up one of the largest customer acquisition channels in the world.


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Google Sheets gets macros


Google is launching a major update to Google Sheets today that’ll make the life of spreadsheet jockeys just a little bit easier — and may just make the switch from Microsoft Excel a bit more tempting for some. That’s because with this update, Sheets users can now finally record macros. That’s a feature that has long been part of virtually every other productivity suite but that was sorely missing in Google’s G Suite.

The new ‘record macros’ feature, which sits in the tools menu, does exactly what you think it should do. You simply start your recording, go through your usual steps and when you’re done, all it takes to repeat all those steps is to run the macro again. Never again will you have to spent minutes on reformatting that same spreadsheet over and over again. Instead, you’ll have more time to play with your puppy (or get more work done, if you’re so inclined).

In the backend, Sheets actually converts your macro into Apps Script code, which also means that if you want to dive a bit deeper or make a small change, you can edit that script.

In addition to macro support, this Sheets update also brings a couple of other features, including the ability to add page breaks (for when you print a spreadsheet), custom paper sizes, new options for row and column grouping and the option to turn a cell into a checkbox. You can now also group data in pivot tables by time frame (think week, month, year).


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8 Starter Tips for Managing Your Photos Library on Mac


In these snap-happy times, you need all the help you can get to manage your photos.

We have shown you how to import, organize, and edit photos in Photos on macOS. Now let’s see what else you can do with the Photos app to keep your photo/video collection sparkling and up to date.

1. Set Up Folders

Photo Library Mac - set up folders

Photo collections can get out of control in a flash (no pun intended). But you can keep them sorted in Apple Photos by setting up folders. Click on File > New Folder to get started.

Albums and folders sound interchangeable. Are they? Not at all. Albums allow you to organize your photos and videos, while folders allow you to organize your albums.

Folders can have folders within them, and can have nested albums too. But albums cannot have child elements.

The folder structure comes in handy for managing collections of collections around a certain theme. Let’s say you have a separate album for every trip you have ever been on with your family. Then it makes sense to bring all those albums under a single umbrella, which can be your Family Vacations folder.

2. Tag People

Photo Library Mac - tag people

It’s convenient if you can isolate photos of specific friends or family members. Photos knows this and eases the way for you by allowing you to tag people in photos.

The app automatically scans faces that show up in your photos and collects them in the People section of the sidebar. Double-clicking on a face displays photos in which that face appears, across all albums.

You can match names to faces by clicking on the Name option that appears when you hover over a face. Once you have tagged people this way, you can search for their photos by typing in their name in the search box.

We’ll interrupt with a word of warning here: while it’s great that you can tag people in photos, you must consider the impact of facial recognition on your privacy.

3. Add Location Information

Photo Library Mac - add location details

All photos that have a location assigned to them show up on an interactive map in the Places section of the sidebar. Click on the thumbnail that appears for a particular location and you get a grid view of all the photos assigned to it.

Not all photos pick up the location information automatically. For some you’ll have to add it yourself. To do so, start by opening a photo and clicking on the i icon, which you’ll find in the primary toolbar at the top.

You should now see the photo’s Info section in a popup window. Click on the Assign a Location placeholder at the bottom of this window.

Photo Library Mac - assign location

Once you type in a location of your choice and hit Enter, a tiny interactive map with the correct pin shows up right there. Note that you can also add a title, keyword, and a description for the photo from this window.

You can assign a location to photos one at a time or in bulk; the process for both is the same.

4. Turn Albums Into Memories

Photo Library Mac - create memories

If you click on Memories in the Photos sidebar, you’ll see that Photos has taken your best shots and turned them into slideshows. With these special compilations you’re sure to rediscover some amazing photos that you’d all but forgotten about.

Apple doesn’t always get the photo selection right though. Hence, you might want to delete a few of the Apple-created memories and turn albums into memories yourself.

Open any album and click on the Show as Memory link for it to have the album appear under Memories. If you want to view the album as a slideshow without turning it into a memory, click on the Slideshow link instead.

You can also view a bunch of photos as a slideshow. To do so, click on the Play Slideshow option in the context menu for the group of selected photos.

To play a selected memory, click on its Play button in the top toolbar and then on the Play Slideshow button in the menu that appears. Notice that you can also change the theme and background music for the memory from this menu.

5. Enable Cloud Sync

Photo Library Mac - enable icloud sync

Backing up your photos to iCloud makes them accessible from any device with an internet connection. You’ll be glad to know that even the edits you make to photos get synced to iCloud.

Ensuring that you have photo backups in multiple locations will help you recover from potential data mishaps without breaking a sweat.

If you would like to use the cloud sync feature for your photo library, head to System Preferences > iCloud. There, click on the Options button next to Photos. Now, in the box that shows up, select the checkbox for iCloud Photo Library and hit the Done button.

(Want to keep your photos off the cloud, but sync them across your Apple devices? In the above step, select the My Photo Stream checkbox instead of the iCloud Photo Library checkbox. This two-way sync works only for 1,000 of your most recent photos.)

Keep in mind that Apple allocates only 5GB of free storage space to each iCloud user. If you have a sizeable photo collection to back up, you’re likely to run out of space fast. And sooner or later you’ll need to think about buying more iCloud storage.

To access your iCloud-synced photos online, you’ll have to visit iCloud.com and log in with your Apple ID.

6. Set Up Smart Albums

Photo Library Mac - set up smart albums

A handful of Mac apps allow you to create smart groups to filter items based on one or more criteria. Photos is one of those apps, and it calls these special groups smart albums.

Smart albums come in handy when you want to, say, filter photos that match a certain keyword or feature a specific set of people. You can also use smart albums to isolate pictures that Photos hasn’t been able to sync with iCloud.

To start setting up a smart album, click on File > New Smart Album. You’ll then get a popup box where you can select conditions for filtering photos from a set of dropdown menus. Once you have these conditions in place, hit the OK button. The album will then show up under My Albums in the sidebar.

7. Repair the Photo Library

Photo Library Mac - repair photo library

If the Photos app won’t open or if it crashes too often, you can tell macOS to repair it. To do so, hold down the Option and Cmd keys when you’re opening the application.

Once you hit the Repair button in the dialog box that shows up, the built-in repair tool does the rest. It fixes any database problems and inconsistencies to get the Photos app working again.

You might have a bit of waiting to do depending on the size of your photo library. After the repair process is complete, Photos relaunches by itself.

8. Create Photo Books and Calendars

Photo Library Mac - create calendars

If you want to turn some of your memories into, say, a photo book or a calendar, you can do it right from the Photos app. What’s more, you can have the product delivered to your doorstep. To get started, hover over My Projects in the sidebar and click on the Plus (+) button that appears next to it.

You’ll get a dropdown menu to select the product type you want to see in print. Once you select that, the app takes over. It walks you through the process of picking a theme, adding pictures, editing the layout, and placing the order for the product.

Photo Library Mac - select photo product

Mac Photo Management Made Simpler

Now that you have a grasp of the basics of Apple Photos on Mac, you’re better prepared to keep your digital memories well organized. Ensure that you aren’t making the usual photo management mistakes, and you’ll be ready to make your photo albums a delight to flip through!


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Zuckerberg claims competition from “8 social apps”, but Facebook owns 3


Mark Zuckerberg’s flimsy defense when congress asked about a lack of competition to Facebook has been to cite that the average American uses eight social apps. But that conveniently glosses over the fact that Facebook owns three of the top 10 U.S. iOS apps: #4 Instagram, #6 Messenger, and #8 Facebook according to App Annie. The top 3 apps are games. Facebook is building its Watch video hub to challenge #5 YouTube, and has relentlessly cloned Stories to beat #7 Snapchat. And Facebook also owns #19 WhatsApp. Zoom in to just “social networking apps”, and Facebook owns the entire top 3.

“The average American I think uses eight different communication and social apps. So there’s a lot of different choice and a lot of innovation and activity going on in this space” Zuckerberg said when asked about whether Facebook is a monopoly by Senator Graham during yesterday’s Senate hearing, and he’s trotted out that same talking point that was on his note sheet during today’s House testimony.

But Facebook has relentlessly sought to acquire or co-opt the features of its competitors. That’s why any valuable regulation will require congress to prioritize competition. That means either breaking up Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp; avoiding rules that are easy for Facebook to comply with but prohibitively expensive for potential rivals to manage; or ensuring data portability that allows users to choose where to take their content and personal information.

Breaking up Facebook, or at least preventing it from acquiring established social networks in the future, would be the most powerful way to promote competition in the space. Facebook’s multi-app structure creates economies of scale in data that allow it to share ad targeting and sales teams, backend engineering, and relevancy-sorting algorithms. That makes it tough for smaller competitors without as much money or data to provide the public with more choice.

Regulation done wrong could create a moat for Facebook, locking in its lead. Complex transparency laws might be just a paperwork speed bump for Facebook and its army of lawyers, but could be too onerous for upstart companies to follow. Meanwhile, data collection regulation could prevent competitors from ever building as large of a data war chest as Facebook has already generated.

Data portability gives users the option to choose the best social network for them, rather than being stuck where they already are. Facebook provides a Download Your Information tool for exporting your content. But photos come back compressed, and you don’t get the contact info of friends unless they opt in. The list of friends’ names you receive doesn’t allow you to find them on other apps the way contact info would. Facebook should at least offer a method for your exporting hashed version of that contact info that other apps could use to help you find your friends there without violating the privacy of those friends. Meanwhile, Instagram entirely lacks a Download Your Information tool.

Congress should push Zuckerberg to explain what apps compete with Facebook as a core identity provider, an omni-purpose social graph, or cross-platform messaging app. Without choice, users are at the mercy of Facebook’s policy and product examples. All of the congressional questions about data privacy and security don’t mean much to the public if they have no viable alternative to Facebook. The fact that Facebook owns or clones the majority of the 8 social apps used by the average American is nothing for Zuckerberg to boast about.

 


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Zuckerberg claims competition from “8 social apps”, but Facebook owns 3


Mark Zuckerberg’s flimsy defense when congress asked about a lack of competition to Facebook has been to cite that the average American uses eight social apps. But that conveniently glosses over the fact that Facebook owns three of the top 10 U.S. iOS apps: #4 Instagram, #6 Messenger, and #8 Facebook according to App Annie. The top 3 apps are games. Facebook is building its Watch video hub to challenge #5 YouTube, and has relentlessly cloned Stories to beat #7 Snapchat. And Facebook also owns #19 WhatsApp. Zoom in to just “social networking apps”, and Facebook owns the entire top 3.

“The average American I think uses eight different communication and social apps. So there’s a lot of different choice and a lot of innovation and activity going on in this space” Zuckerberg said when asked about whether Facebook is a monopoly by Senator Graham during yesterday’s Senate hearing, and he’s trotted out that same talking point that was on his note sheet during today’s House testimony.

But Facebook has relentlessly sought to acquire or co-opt the features of its competitors. That’s why any valuable regulation will require congress to prioritize competition. That means either breaking up Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp; avoiding rules that are easy for Facebook to comply with but prohibitively expensive for potential rivals to manage; or ensuring data portability that allows users to choose where to take their content and personal information.

Breaking up Facebook, or at least preventing it from acquiring established social networks in the future, would be the most powerful way to promote competition in the space. Facebook’s multi-app structure create economies of scale in data that allow it to share ad targeting and sales teams, backend engineering, and relevancy-sorting algorithms. That makes it tough for smaller competitors without as much money or data to provide the public with more choice.

Regulation done wrong could create a moat for Facebook, locking in its lead. Complex transparency laws might be just a paperwork speed bump for Facebook and its army of lawyers, but could be too onerous for upstart companies to follow. Meanwhile, data collection regulation could prevent competitors from ever building as large of a data war chest as Facebook has already generated.

Data portability gives users the option to choose the best social network for them, rather than being stuck where they already are. Facebook provides a Download Your Information tool for exporting your content. But photos come back compressed, and you don’t get the contact info of friends unless they opt in. The list of friends’ names you receive doesn’t allow you to find them on other apps the way contact info would. Facebook should at least offer a method for your exporting hashed version of that contact info that other apps could use to help you find your friends there without violating the privacy of those friends. Meanwhile, Instagram entirely lacks a Download Your Information too.

Congress should push Zuckerberg to explain what apps compete with Facebook as a core identity provider, an omni-purpose social graph, or cross-platform messaging app. Without choice, users are at the mercy of Facebook’s policy and product examples. All of the congressional questions about data privacy and security don’t mean much to the public if they have no viable alternative to Facebook. The fact that Facebook owns or clones the majority of the 8 social apps used by the average American is nothing for Zuckerberg to boast about.

 


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How to Write a LinkedIn Summary That’ll Help Land You a Job


Your LinkedIn summary is one of the most important parts of your LinkedIn profile. It needs to convince a potential connection to continue onto your experience, education, and other qualifications.

And if it doesn’t catch their interest right away, they’re going to leave. So your summary needs to be really effective in selling you to potential employers of clients.

But don’t panic, as we’re here to help. What follows is some simple advice to help you write a LinkedIn summary to sell yourself to potential employers and clients.

1. Remember That It’s Not About You

It’s a bit counterintuitive, but your LinkedIn summary isn’t about you. It’s about the person reading it. Many people treat this part of their profile as a biography, but this is one of the most important tips for an effective summary: write it as a sales pitch.

What problems will you solve for a potential employer or connection? What pain points will you address? How will their life (and company) be better after hiring you?

These are the kinds of questions you’ll need to answer in your summary for it to be effective. And you’ll want to answer them quickly, because your summary will be collapsed so that only the first sentence or two is visible:

collapsed linkedin summary view

Keep this in mind while you’re writing your summary. It should be immediately clear to any reader what value you’re offering. They’re not thinking about you—they’re thinking about themselves. So keep your focus entirely on their needs.

2. Identify Your Audience

Who will be reading your LinkedIn summary? Who do you want to reach out to you? What kind of job are you searching for? And what kind of person do you want to connect with?

Knowing the answers to these questions will help you figure out what to write. There are a lot of people on LinkedIn, and they’re all looking for different things.

A recruiter, for example, might be interested in experience that you’ve had at big-name companies. A startup founder might be more interested to know that you’re looking to help build a company from the ground up.

The narrower your focus, the easier the process (and the more effective your summary) will be.

3. Start With a List

There are elements that you should definitely include in your summary, and collecting these things beforehand will make writing it much easier. Here are a few things that you’ll want to mention:

  • Your most significant professional accomplishments
  • What makes you stand out from others in your field
  • A quote or testimonial from a past employer
  • Something authentic about your personality
  • Keywords based on the position you want

If you can get all of that into your LinkedIn summary in three or four short paragraphs, and include a few more things to make yourself stand out, you’ll have hooked your readers right away.

4. Craft a Few Paragraphs

I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, and one thing that I’ve seen a lot of lately is very long summaries. Your LinkedIn summary should be just that: a summary.

You don’t need to go on at length about all of your qualifications and accomplishments. That’s what the Experience section of your profile is for.

The point of your summary is to get someone interested enough that they’ll check out the rest of your profile and—if they want to work with you—connect or get in touch. Keep it short. Some people even turn their summaries into a list to make it easy to read:

linkedin profile summary example

5. Check Your Keywords

This is an important step, but it’s also easy to get wrong. A secondary purpose of your LinkedIn summary is to help people find you when they’re searching for specific keywords.

For example, if you’re a sales manager, you might try to include the following keywords:

  • Sales management
  • Demand generation
  • Account management
  • Cross-selling
  • Relationship management
  • Sales forecasting
  • Business development

Of course, this will vary depending on your audience and goals. Think of the searches you want to appear in, then make sure you have those keywords in your profile.

Just don’t overdo it!

Many people put tons of keywords in their summaries and it ends up being a jargon-filled mess. It’s actually more important from a search-engine perspective to have the terms listed in your experience. You can put them in your summary, but make sure not to over-stuff it. You aren’t fooling anyone, and keyword-heavy summaries are obvious from a mile away.

You should include some of your keywords in your summary, but put a stronger emphasis on putting them in your experience entries.

6. Get Feedback

Once you think you’ve created an awesome LinkedIn summary, you’ll be tempted to post it right away. But don’t forget this last step. It’s important to get feedback from two people: one in your field and one outside of it.

The person in your field can tell you if your summary is appealing enough to catch the eye of someone who’s heard a lot of that same information before. The person who doesn’t have experience in your area can tell you if it flows well and piques their interest. If both people give you positive feedback, your new summary is probably ready to post!

What About LinkedIn Summary Templates?

In general, it’s best to avoid using templates for your LinkedIn summary. It might save you some time, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a summary template that fits your personality and doesn’t sound canned. It’s just not likely to happen.

There’s no harm in looking at other people’s LinkedIn summaries for inspiration. Just remember that your summary exists to tell people what’s unique about you. So drawing too heavily from someone else’s template might backfire.

Keep Updating Your LinkedIn Summary

As your professional situation changes, so should your LinkedIn summary. If you’re looking for a job, your summary will be different than if you’re just looking to grow your network.

Make sure to check on your profile often to make sure that your summary is still applicable.

And don’t neglect the rest of your profile! Your LinkedIn background photo, personal photo, experience, and media samples are all important, too. And be sure to check out these lesser-known LinkedIn features.


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Google is about to launch a Gmail web redesign


Google sent an email to G Suite customers to tell them that the company has been working on a brand new version of Gmail for the web. In addition to a fresh design, the company also listed some of the new features.

You can expect to be able to access Google Calendar from the Gmail interface directly. Outlook customers are probably going to love this.

You’ll be able to snooze emails so that they reappear in your inbox hours or days later. This is a good way to clean your inbox if you can’t reply to a specific email just yet.

If you use Gmail on your iPhone or Android phone, you may already be using smart replies. These algorithmically-generated replies will also be available on Gmail.com.

Finally, Google is working on a new way to store your emails on your computer for offline access. As the company is slowly phasing out Chrome Apps, Google will now be using standard web technologies to let your browser store your data.

Google has yet to share screenshots of the new design. Gmail’s web interface hasn’t changed in years — you can probably expect a new interface that follows Google’s Material design language.

Google also notes that the update might break some popular browser add-ons for Gmail, such as Clearbit, Streak, etc.

According to the G Suite email, G Suite customers and regular Gmail users will have to opt in into a new Early Adopter Program to access the new Gmail. It’ll be available in the coming weeks.


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Bloglovin’ becomes Activate and names Kamiu Lee as its new CEO


Bloglovin’ has a new name, new funding and a new CEO: Kamiu Lee, who previously served as the company’s vice president of strategy and business development.

It sounds the rebrand and Lee’s promotion are both part of a growing emphasis on the company’s influencer marketing business, where it helps advertisers find influencers who can promote their brands and products. In fact, the new name Activate comes from the company’s existing influencer marketing platform Activate by Bloglovin’, which was built around its acquisition of Sverve two years ago.

“Activate, from a commercial standpoint, is what represents who we are today,” Lee told me.

At the same time, she said the company will continue to support the Bloglovin’ product, which allows readers to find and follow fashion bloggers. The two sides of the business are tied together because it’s “a way for these creators to get discovered, and so it continues to be an audience development tool … for them.”

Lee told me she’s actually worn a number of different hats at Bloglovin’ since joining four years ago as the company’s first monetization-focused hire. With her experience across the company and her current focus on business and strategy, she said it seemed like a “natural step” to take the lead for “the next stage of the company.”

Meanwhile, Bloglovin’s outgoing CEO Giordano Contestabile will remain involved as a board member and advisor.

Activate

Lee acknowledged that Activate faces plenty of competition from other influencer marketing companies, but she said its approach is distinguished by the richness of its data (Activate isn’t just scraping public data but also getting direct access to the influencers’ own analytics), as well as its “real care for the content and the influencers.”

“It’s really easy to completely cater to the brands, and to a certain extent, if the dollars are there, the influencers will follow,” Lee said. “But in order to be really sustainable, you need great content, and you need to really understand the influencers.”

She also pointed to the size and breadth of Activate’s influencer network — it’s worked with 75,000 influencers to create 6,500 pieces of content in the past 12 months. This allows brands to create campaigns that combine content from, say, a single top tier influencer, 15 mid-tier influencers and 100 micro-influencers.

Activate is also launching a new service called Activate Studio, which will support brands that don’t have large social media teams of their own, allowing them to develop and manage their influencer marketing strategy.

On top of its other news, the company has also raised an undisclosed amount of new funding from Northzone.

“Within the marketing and advertising industries, we see the incredible value to be captured by influencer marketing,” said Northzone’s Par Jorgen Parson in a statement. “Activate’s unique relationship and dedication to their influencers and industry-leading expertise make them an obvious front-runner among companies competing in the space.”


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