Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Blizzard snuck a hilarious gag into the patch that hit the Overwatch public test realm today. The change automatically edits the text chat of anyone who types a certain phase into the match channel—don’t worry, you’ll only be affected if you’re a jerk. As Eurogamer noticed, if you type “gg ez” (as in, “good game,…
Donald Trump said on Twitter that people would soon call him “Mr. Brexit,” without further explanation | Joe Raedle/Getty Images Donald Trump is Mr. Brexit? Trump takes to Twitter. World confused. By Paul Dallison 8/18/16, 3:06 PM CET Updated 8/18/16, 3:33 PM CET /.meta /.summary /.story-intro Donald Trump, no stranger to sending out odd tweets,…
Using Facebook is a trade. You get a way to socialize over the Internet, and the company gets to rent out your eyeballs to advertisers. But today Facebook signaled that it thinks millions of people are cheating on that deal by using ad-blocking browser extensions. The social network says that it will start tweaking…
Facebook can’t win the war it started on ad blockers last week. So say Princeton assistant professor Arvind Narayanan and undergraduate Grant Storey, who have created an experimental ad “highlighter” for the Chrome browser to prove it. When you have Facebook Ad Highlighter installed, ads in the News Feed are grayed out and written…
June 13, 2016 4:04 a.m. ET As consumer adoption of online ad-blocking tools continues to grow, publishers and media companies are experimenting with various ways to limit the impact of ad-blocking on their businesses. That’s given rise to a new breed of “anti-ad-blockers”, or technology companies hoping to cash in on the situation by selling…
New York Times President and CEO, Mark Thompson addressed the IAB Ad Blocking Summit, held June 6, 2016 in New York City. In his talk, An Update from The New York Times on Its Approach to Ad Blocking, Thompson took a hard look at the factors contributing to the rise of ad blocking and urged…
Today ad-blocking is mostly restricted to desktop web browsers. But iOS 9, Apple’s latest mobile operating system, will include support for ad blockers when it becomes available in the fall. Several ad-blocking firms are already creating apps for the new OS; when it’s out, you’ll simply download an ad blocker and no longer have to…
By Andrew Bosworth, VP, Ads & Business Platform As more and more content has shifted to the internet, online experiences have improved dramatically, becoming more immersive and intuitive. But many digital ads haven’t kept up. We’ve all experienced a lot of bad ads: ads that obscure the content we’re trying to read, ads that slow down…
Photo As it blocks ad blockers, Facebook is asking its users to help control the ads they see on the site. SAN FRANCISCO — Digital ads pop up online so frequently and ubiquitously that many people are using software to block them. But if you try to stop ads from showing up on Facebook’s desktop…
John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1930 that “if economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.” Almost a century later, he’s getting his wish. Economists tend to be a grandiose bunch. They advise presidents and billionaires. They are generally unashamed about offering…