Wattpad, the online storytelling community that’s home to some 80 million monthly users, has successfully tapped into the power of crowdsourcing to help uncover the next potential hits for media companies, including Netflix, Hulu, NBCU, Sony Pictures Television and others worldwide. It even launched its own YA book line to …

Paleontologists in Brazil have found thin bands of fossil gum — the first occurrence in the fossil record — inside 110-million-year-old (Cretaceous period) fossilized leaves of the extinct plant Welwitschiophyllum brasiliense. The discovery of fossilized plant gum is unusual because of its solubility in water. Orange-colored gum ducts (arrows) in …

A nocturnal primate called the Taita Mountain dwarf galago (Paragalago sp.) has been rediscovered by a team of researchers from the University of Helsinki, Oxford Brookes University and Kenya Forest Service. The Taita Mountain dwarf galago photographed in Ngangao Forest in 2019. Image credit: Hanna Rosti. The Taita Mountain dwarf …

An international team of biologists has discovered that a tiny parasite of salmon called Henneguya salminicola has no mitochondrial genome and thus has lost the ability to perform aerobic respiration. Henneguya salminicola, also known as Henneguya zschokkei, has large nuclei but surprisingly no mitochondrial nucleosomes. Image credit: Yahalomi et al, …

SAN JOSE — “Google’s looking at you and wondering, who are you, what are you doing, what is your purpose?” That’s the viewpoint of Mordy Oberstein, CMO of RankRanger, who discussed during his session at SMX West in San Jose how establishing and staying true to your site’s identity can …

Salesforce today announced that Keith Block, the company’s co-CEO, is stepping down. This leaves company founder Marc Benioff as the sole CEO and chair of the CRM juggernaut. Block’s bio has already been wiped from Salesforce’s leadership page. Block stepped into the co-CEO role in 2018, after a long career …

Google Images will soon replace the dimensions information you see in the image search results, as you overlay your mouse cursor over a specific image thumbnail. Google will replace the dimensions information with product, recipe, video, and soon, licensable labels based on the query. What is changing? Here is a …

Google has posted an explainer for its AMP (accelerated mobile pages) status report on the AMP blog. The report can be accessed within Google Search Console and allows users to identify issues and validate fixes. Why we care Although AMP isn’t a ranking factor, page speed is; and AMP can …

Kirk Williams of ZATO Marketing spoke on Google Smart Shopping campaigns at SMX West 2020. Have you gotten the hard sell? Google reps have been pushing Shopping advertisers to adopt Smart Shopping campaigns — and to even switch away from standard Shopping campaigns entirely. You shouldn’t abandon standard Shopping just …

  Sony has never been a major player in smartphones, but it makes enough money from other ventures to keep at it. In fact, it has a habit of releasing multiple flagship phones every year. Its latest is the Xperia 1 II, and it’s accompanied by a new mid-range device …