The team at FiveThirtyEight appropriately reposted this helpful article from its archives by senior writer Perry Bacon Jr. regarding how to read an article that includes unnamed sources.
His tips:
That whole thing about “Lady Doritos”? Yeah, it’s not entirely true …
According to this article in Ad Age, the rumor started because of a reference made in a recent episode of the Freakonomics podcast regarding “snacks specially designed for women.” But PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi never specifically said anything about “Lady Doritos.”
“Nowadays, the content has to be exceptional and helpful, but also you need to get people to read your content and that’s where the headline comes in,” says BuzzSumo Director Steve Rayson in a Newscred post.
Earlier today, Instagram announced the launch of @music, an account devoted to creating and distributing content to the music industry. According to TechCrunch, the account’s first post today was a feature on Questlove, which showcased a photo that Questlove had taken and an extended comment describing the photo.
Verizon has introduced a plan to cable subscribers that allows for subscribers to have more flexibility in choosing which channels they receive, including channel packages that don’t include sports networks.
But ESPN is having none of it, suing the cable provider for breach of contract.
“Starting at $55 per month, Custom TV allows customers to pay for a basic channel package of more than 35 networks, including CNN, AMC, HGTV and QVC,” writes Jason Lynch in AdWeek. “Bundles of other channels, comprised of at least 10 channels each, are offered in seven themed tiers.”
Those tiers include lifestyle, pop culture, sports, and kids. Subscribers can choose two tiers at no additional cost. Any additional tiers/packages each cost $10 per month.
ESPN claims that giving cable subscribers the option to not receive its networks is a violation of its contract.
As we discussed during our Global Issues conversation, the promised integration with voice calling on WhatsApp has happened.
According to Forbes, the iOS app was updated last week to allow users to make voice calls directly from the app. It’s been a slow rollout, but all users should have access to the new features within the next several weeks.
Android users gained access to voice calling last month.
“If someone calls you through WhatsApp, you will see a push notification from the messaging service showing who the call is from,” writes Forbes contributor Amit Chowdhry. “Once you answer the call, you will notice that there are options to mute the call or put it on speakerphone. You can also send a message to the person calling you.”
Thanks to Minh Tri Phan for the post suggestion!
Last week, Facebook announced the launch of “Hello,” an app that shows you who’s calling you based on information the caller has shared with you on Facebook.
“Hello connects with Facebook so you can see who’s calling, block unwanted calls, and search for people and places,” writes Debbie Miller on Search Engine Journal. “When you get a call, Hello will show you info about who’s calling you, even if you don’t have that number saved in your phone.”
According to Re/code, the app is currently only available for Android devices and only to users in the United States, Brazil and Nigeria.
In addition, Facebook introduced video calling within the Messenger app, immediately making it a competitor to Skype and other video messaging platforms.
Is this Snapchat’s first big move toward relevance in the digital content space?
On Monday, the messaging and content discovery app announced the hiring of Peter Hamby, a CNN political correspondent. Hamby, according to TVNewser, will serve in a “leadership position” at Snapchat. He also will contribute to CNN coverage through the 2016 election.
Hubspot, the content marketing platform, has begun an experiment to get the photo of Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman to rank for images of CEOs on Google, after learning there were no images of women (other than Barbie) in the first 100 search results.
The company will publish the results of the experiment “in the next few months,” the post reads.
Watson, the supercomputer created by IBM that famously beat Ken Jennings on Jeopardy!, is now an author. Of a cookbook. Sort of.
According to Engadget – which has assembled a team to attempt to make and taste all of the recipes in the cookbook – the recipes in the cookbook were created by Watson after IBM uploaded a bunch of data to the computer, specifically “a giant database of recipes, studies on what flavors and smells people find pleasant and information on chemical compounds found inside ingredients.”
After analyzing that data, Watson suggested combinations of foods and flavors, which two chefs then took as inspiration for “new dishes.”
The first recipe in the Engadget experiment? Turkish Bruschetta with carrot pearls.
“The final product was tasty, if a little odd. The vegetal sweetness of the carrot and eggplant, the earthiness of the cumin and the slightly sour punch of the sumac combine into something fairly unique,” writes Engadget’s Terrence O’Brien. “And for that, Watson deserves credit. The most surprising element of the recipe may come from the mind of a human being, but the pleasant and uncommon mix of flavors was generated completely by a computer.”
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