Last week while looking up drawing reference, I instinctively clicked the button next to the visit button, which used to be view image or something along those lines. I instead was given a little orange square in the button notifying me I had saved the picture. I think the change happened relatively recently, but now instead of just opening an image to view it bigger through google images you have to save the image.

When exploring this new feature I decided to look at where saved images are placed, which doesn’t provide much explanation other than to try it out by saving your favorite images.

At first I was upset by the change but I actually think it will be useful for me because I was looking up reference for art, so now I can have that reference in a convenient space. I originally thought that this was changed so that google could keep better tabs on the things you are interested in, especially because it is directing you to save your favorite things. I looked into it more, however, and the change was supposedly added to make it harder for users to steal images. So, this new button constructs the user by being an inconvenience so you don’t steal.

For Star Course we make Facebook events and run online promotions for our upcoming concerts, which means I have to start spending more time on this nightmare website than I ever want to. The only thing that’ll make you hate Facebook more than scrolling through the feed is trying to use it as a marketing platform. Facebook thinks it is so smart by using algorithms to save users from spam but these actually make it harder to do the marketing that I want to do. For example Facebook doesn’t like that I’ve put STRFKR in the event title in all caps, even though it let me a create it like that in the first place?? Now I can’t edit the event details without also changing the title. After some tinkering I guess 5 or less consecutive capital letters are fine, but 6 letters crosses the line. I know that the band chose the name “STRFKR” to make marketing a pain in the ass and you know what, it actually works in ways that I don’t think they originally anticipated for it to work.

I also can’t pay to boost my own post because my cover photo has too many words, even though this hasn’t been a problem with previous posters that have the same amount of words. Whatever image processing algorithm they’re using must be able to read certain formats over others. I strongly dislike the wording of “Images with a high proportion of text don’t use their budget as efficiently and may not even run” because it implies that this is my own fault!! Why can’t you just tell me straight up what the image requirements are, and is the “high proportion of text” decided by the number of words or by a picture-to-text ratio? Why am I punished for using a poster for a concert as a cover photo for a concert event? Why is this so hard??

This week I was looking at facebook and noticed that, above one of the typical banner ads you see, they have a button you can press to “create your own ad”. I was curious, and clicked on it and was presented with this page:

Apparently Facebook will let you create your own ads to present to people through facebook itself. That means I don’t necessarily have to be a verified business in order to have an advertisement on facebook, I can just go through the proper channels on this page and have my ads appear on other people’s facebook pages. I was truly surprised by this, because I always thought that the ads that appear on websites are semi-legit, but according to this anyone can make an advertisement and have it be shown to hundreds of people on facebook!

Option 2: Unlike most of my generation, I still hang on to Facebook, mainly for the million Facebook groups I’m in and for the messaging capabilities. I’m not sure how they have gotten me hooked on their messaging app but that’s another project 0 for another time. Sometimes the app doesn’t work right and I get an error message like this, as if I’m starting over again or their is no internet at all. It’s times like these I question what I’m doing with my life and why I depend on Facebook for so much entertainment. The screen is so simple, just gray and a little retry button. No “stories”. Stories? What a weird word to use. What about statuses? Articles? Posts? Why stories? There’s also something weird about retry, like I know this Facebook void has millions of these “stories” to show, I don’t need you to “retry”, I need you to do your damn job.

This week for my observe I thought I would focus on a sponsored advertisement that popped up on my facebook newsfeed this week. The advertisement was promoted by “Sandy Hook Promise”, and featured a video of a boy who was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. The caption discussed how the shooter carried 300 rounds and killed 20 children within 4 minutes. The link it provided along with the video was a petition to make large-capacity gun magazines illegal. Firstly, this ad really threw me off because I had never seen something like this promoted on facebook before; however, I think that it’s shock value helps the cause and pushes people to stop and look at the advertisement, and maybe even sign the petition. Especially given the recent tragedy in Florida, this ad couldn’t be more fitting. I think it’s great that facebook is promoting posts like this, especially with all that’s’ going on post-shooting, like the school walkouts and protests and the capitol. Anything that can help prevent these events from happening helps, and for once facebook is showing sponsored ads that not only pertain to actual issues, but bring up social issues at conversations as well.

For this Observe, I focused on a certain feature of Tumblr. Sometimes when I open the mobile app, there’s a message at the top of the screen telling me that some person or organization is now taking questions. I always assumed that this notification meant that the Q&A was going on right then. However, at least in this scenario, that was not the case. When I clicked on the banner, it took me to the page in the second screenshot, and only there, did it tell you that the event was actually happening on February 26th. So why did I assume that it was happening as I was seeing the notification? In the past, I’ve seen similar banners that I think might have specified that questions were currently being answered (something like, “[person] is taking questions now“). If I did see banners like that, then my assumption makes sense, but there’s a chance that there was no such specification, and I was just making assumptions about the events’ timing in the same way that I am now. If that’s the case, why did I make that assumption? It could have been based around the idea that, originally, tumblr organized content based on the time it was posted/reblogged, so whatever I was saw first (at the top of the screen) on my dash was the most recent post. The fact that the banner was located above that first post may have made it seem even more current than what was on my dash.

There’s a decent chance I’m the only one who made all those assumptions. But if I’m not, did tumblr deliberately place the banner to be misleading about the event’s timing? Or is it just at the top because it’s been promoted?

The banner on my dash

The page I got when I clicked on the banner

Trump’s website/wiki – deleting key words like “president”

Facebook’s terms of agreement – change wording

Websites advice column – change or delete key words/change advice

Celebrity net worth site – changing celebrities’ net worths

Youtube – change titles of videos with weird thumbnails

Aol – change words to make it a parody site

Gerry’s website – remove all homework and any sign of achievements he has written about himself

Deke’s website – remove all project descriptions

Google removed the view image button over the weekend and I didn’t notice until I was searching for fine art by professional photographers for my drawing class. The removal of the button is related to a potential lawsuit that was being discussed by Getty images over the view image button. The button removed the viewer from the internet source and allowed the viewer to download the image with no labor or information. Many are complaining and a chrome extension puts the button back for mobile users.

Below is my excavation of a photo from google search down through Pinterest to its source at which I still could not find an artists name.

1. Remove the names of the person who makes a post on twitter or facebook
2. Remove the number of views a youtube videos has gotten
3. Remove the prices from a clothing store
4. Remove all the “homework” portions of the class website
5. Remove naviagtion tabs located at the top of websites
6. Remove like and comment from Facebook

After i deleted snapchat, i was of course having conversations with people and they say “didn’t you see my snap?” and i had to explain that i deleted it and we agreed that the update sucked but nevertheless i had to re-download the app to see what my friend had sent so that i could understand the context for the conversation. I was hoping that I’d be able to be a passive consumer of snapchat — receiving messages but not granting any access to the app at all — and found that this wasn’t possible. Once I was logged in again, I couldn’t move past the “oops” message (insinuating i made a mistake when i didn’t) without changing my settings (i tried turning on and off), and then I was constantly receiving other pushes. Also, it seems Snapchat is losing rank already. I like the allcaps IGNORE though.

This week I learned that you can advertise for prescription medication on Facebook. I suppose this shouldn’t be entirely surprising since pharmaceutical companies advertise on television all the time, but this was the first time I noticed that these kinds of ads (including a video stream of risk information and side effects, as you can see above) were showing up on my social media feed. This made me think about the possible ethical ramifications of algorithmic-driven targeted advertising for medication. What about my internet activity makes me a viable consumer target for a certain medication? Are there certain behaviors that flag specific medical conditions and therefore a possible need for a drug? What happens when people can start making assumptions about my health conditions, accurate or otherwise? Will pushing a pharmaceutical agenda over social media put more people at risk for taking drugs that aren’t right for them or that they don’t need? Is there even a limit on what you can advertise on Facebook?

Option 1 (ish): Wish is a wonderful, addicting shopping app that sells millions of products at ridiculously low prices. However, you don’t always get what you order. The pictures tend to be ripped from other other sites. You get what you pay for most of the time. While exploring the app, I’ve notices small things that I may have fallen for without noticing. Most items are “on sale” and show some percentage off. This seems amazing, especially when you can see the original prices. Although regular stores and sites use this method, Wish does something else. They have this “Almost Gone!” banner on some items. I see this banner come and go. You can also see the amount of people who have bought the item, which makes me believe that this is more of a tactic than a fact that it’s almost out. I “fell” for it, wanting to buy the item now rather than later, but noticed when I waited, the banner went away. That could be the app not functioning correctly. If it is a marketing tactic, then I’m not sure if it is the seller or the app Wish doing it. Some could be sold out or it could just be sellers abusing the system. Either way, I think it’s a great tactic for sellers. Seeing the number of sold items makes me think it’s a tactic but it could also be there is a limited amount of the item. The top item here is a hat that has sold quite well while the bottom image is of a drill bit that hasn’t sold many.