Google is Shutting Down Google+ in April 2019 Following Massive Data Exposure

Google will soon shut down its Google+ social network after searching for other bugs that detect the personal information of millions of customers for software developers.

In a blog post, Google said that 52.5 million people were affected by a bug in a November software update. The latest bug allowed app developers to access profile information not publicly marked.

In October, Google announced that we’d be sunsetting the consumer version of Google+ and its APIs because of the significant challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations, as well as the reduced usage of the platform.

According to Google’s VP of engineering Ben Smith, the company undertook a security and privacy audit earlier this year called Project Strobe. Specifically, Google started looking at its API endpoints over concern developers could abuse them.

Google discovered a problem with the Google+ People API that could allow third-party developers to scrape optional profile information made available to your friends like name, email, occupation, and gender. Google says it does not see any indication that developers made usage of the bug before it was patched back in March, but it can’t be 100 percent certain.

However, Google+ will continue as a product for Enterprise users. This is the most popular use of the social network so far. Therefore, the company has decided that Google+ is better suited as an internal social network for companies, rather than a consumer product. Google will announce new Enterprise-focused products for Google+ in the near future.

With is second embarrassing privacy issue in two months, Google+ will shut down in April 2019. Two months ago, Google said it planned to shutter Google+ in August. Meanwhile, API access for developers will be shut down within the next 90 days.

Since buffer and other apps are keen to avoid a situation whereby posts start failing intermittently, they have made the decision to officially cease support for Google+ on January 25, 2019. They have now disabled new Google+ account connections as a preparation.

I like the journey of Google+ and I hope Google will launch something new in replacement of Google+ soon.

Image and article source: http://seobrain.blogspot.com/2019/01/google-is-shutting-down-google-in-april.html

Google Engineer Cites Complexities Around AI Algorithms Explaining Themselves

Google has been saying for a year or so that they are moving from a mobile first world to an artificial intelligence first world but we’ve been told, at least in search, machine learning won’t take over the algorithm – at least not yet.

So I saw this interesting tweet from Paul Haahr, a top search ranking engineer at Google for over 15 years. He cited a NY Times article named Can A.I. Be Taught to Explain Itself? and wrote “This article by @cliffkuang on Explainable AI is an excellent introduction to hard, important problems. These issues are coming up at work every day; the article describes them well and gives some reasons for optimism.”

It reminded me of when he spoke at SMX some time ago where he said Google doesn’t fully understand RankBrain. I believe this article references what he means by that, because RankBrain is a machine learning, AI based search feature.

If Google cannot debug or understand how the algorithm itself gets better and makes certain decisions then how can Google debug it fully when it goes bad.

“As machine learning becomes more powerful, the field’s researchers increasingly find themselves unable to account for what their algorithms know — or how they know it.” That is not just a science fiction Terminator movie like fear concept but in reality, it is a topic that engineers need to battle with to understand how to improve their AI.

Anyway, reading the article might shed some light into those challenges and show you maybe how far off we are from robots killing us.

Source: seroundtable.com

Facebook Brings Food Ordering to Its Mobile App

Facebook is introducing the ability to order food with its mobile app for users in the US.

Food can be ordered for either takeout or delivery from local establishments without having to leave the Facebook app.

”People already go to Facebook to figure out what to eat by reading about nearby restaurants, and seeing what their friends say about them. So, we’re making it even easier.”

In order to facilitate food orders through its mobile app, Facebook is utilizing the services of third parties such as EatStreet, Delivery.com, DoorDash, ChowNow, Zuppler, Slice and Olo.

Facebook is also using the food ordering services offered by popular chains such as Jack in the Box, Five Guys, Papa John’s, Wingstop, TGI Friday’s, Denny’s, El Pollo Loco, Chipotle, Jimmy John’s, and Panera.

With the ability to both discover new restaurants, and read what people have to say about them, Facebook is an ideal platform for placing food orders.

Not sure where to start? Navigate to the ‘Explore’ menu and visit the ‘Order Food’ section. Here you will be able to browse nearby restaurants and easily place an order by tapping on the ‘Start Order’ button.

Article and image Source: searchenginejournal.com

Facebook’s ‘Explore’ Feed May Improve Pages’ Organic Reach on Desktop

Facebook has rolled out a possible solution for improving the organic reach of posts published by pages on the desktop site.

Over the past several years, Facebook has become notorious for stifling the organic reach of content published by pages.

From prioritizing paid posts, to giving more weight to posts from friends and family, Facebook has made it difficult for pages to extend their reach without coughing up advertising dollars.

Facebook’s Explore feed is designed to change that. Within the Explore feed you will find posts from pages you don’t follow, which would be unlikely to show up in your news feed otherwise.

Posts that are curated in the Explore feed have been selected based on your interests, so it’s not as though you’ll find something in there that is completely out of left field.

Facebook describes it as:

”… a complimentary feed of popular articles, videos, and photos, automatically customized for each person based on content that might be interesting to them.”

Another thing users may appreciate about the Explore feed is that it doesn’t contain any ads (for now). Of course, pages may appreciate this as well since there is no pay-to-play element of the Explore feed.

Facebook’s Explore feed has been available within its mobile app since this summer. So if you have used it before you know what to expect from the desktop version.

Source: searchenginejournal.com

Google Search Algorithm & Ranking Update Brewing?

Over the past 24-48 hours there has been an uptick in chatter across social media, the SEO communities and the forum threads around Google ranking and search results shifts. In fact, it has been pretty volatile over the past couple of months based on our reporting. But there seems to have been something going on, maybe a test, maybe the beginnings of a roll out in the past day or so.

Read more here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-algorithm-ranking-update-brewing-24685.html

Source: seroundtable.com