Mediaboss Marketing

That is where projects like Lingua Libre, a Wikimedia Foundation-funded platform to record oral languages, come in. The archive, run by Wikimedia France, opened in August 2018 and already contains more than 100,000 recordings in 43 languages that, otherwise, could have been lost forever.

Back in Guatemala, Miguel ngel Oxlaj Kumez is aware that the challenges ahead remain difficult and complex, but he is not discouraged. We see the challenges as opportunities, he says. In the workshops, I raised the question Why is it necessary to have my language on the internet? And an activist turns it over and tells me Why shouldnt I have my indigenous language on the internet?."

He is currently working with other online indigenous activists to create Kaqchikel Mayan versions of Wikipedia, WhatsApp and Duolingo. Five years ago, I did not imagine my language on the internet, and there are people who still dont think of that possibility.

In the meantime, hes glad that theres a growing network of indigenous speakers fighting to get their languages online.

"Now it is in the hands of this network of activists," he adds. "And we all have the dream of making it happen.

--

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The many languages missing from the internet - BBC News

from the not-a-good-idea dept

WordLogic is a patent troll. The company has been around for a while and holds a bunch of patents (such as US Patent 7,681,124) which it claims covers the concept of predictive text writing. While WordLogic is (was?) a publicly listed company, the stock is currently worth $0.0001 per share. About the only news about the company has to do with hiring patent lawyers and failing to live up to bragging press releases.

The company has spent the last few years filing a whole bunch of patent shakedown lawsuits. A quick glance shows 12 federal cases involving the '124 patent, and they don't appear to have gone all that well for WordLogic. I didn't check all of the cases to see how they ended up, but I haven't come across one that they've won yet. Two cases are notable. Unified Patents asked the patent office to review the patent, saying it should never have been granted in the first place. The PTAB (the review board) came out with an initial ruling that the patent was likely invalid, at which point, WordLogic suddenly found religion and "settled" the case before the PTAB could issue a final ruling on the validity of the patent.

But that meant that WordLogic could continue to shake down companies with that patent. Indeed, it looks like 9 of the cases over the '124 patent were filed after the review was "settled." In one case, against Fleksy, WordLogic's lawyers were facing Rule 11 sanctions in which Fleksy highlights that nothing it does comes anywhere near what the patent asserts and that WordLogic knew this. Just a snippet:

Fleksy invites the Courts attention to the brief filed in opposition to this motion. It is aguarantee that there will be nothing in the realm of evidence that Fleksy does this. But, moreimportantly, counsel for Plaintiffs will be unable to cite anything non-evidentiary to convince thisCourt that he had a good faith basis to believe that the app he accused of infringing this patentclaim actually satisfies the recited element. A thirty-second review of the app would haveconfirmed that multi-level search or anything close to it simply does not occur and has neveroccurred on Fleksys app. There isnt an iota of evidence in the public domain that couldplausibly support a reasonable belief that discovery would uncover such evidence. Any barebones pre-filing investigation would have revealed to counsel that on Fleksys app, when a useraccepts a completion candidate, the app inserts the word, then inserts a space bar after the word,and then awaits the users entry of a brand new word. It does not obtain and display a list offurther completion candidates. That is, the Fleksy app does not process a user selection of acompletion candidate as a request by the user to continue searching for further completioncandidates, i.e., multi-level search of the sort explained in the 152 patent specification andclaimed in claim element (h) of Claim 19.

And then this:

Here, the accused product is a mobile app that was freely and easily available fordownload and inspection at the time Wordlogics counsel filed this patent lawsuit. For zerodollars and ten minutes of his time, counsel could have confronted the factual realities aboutFleksys app that Fleksy has detailed in this brief. These factual realities collide head first withentire claim elements recited in the two patents-in-suit.

After a weak response from WordLogic's lawyers, WordLogic agreed to drop the case a few days later.

This is all pretty typical of an out-and-out patent troll. Focus on shaking lots of companies down for a license fee, and sue a few hoping for a big win or to convince someone to pay up to settle the suit... but it turns tail and runs the second things start to look bad.

Its latest target... was not wise. WordLogic sent a shakedown threat letter over the same patent to Wikimedia Foundation. The letter itself is fascinating as a perfect example of how patent troll shakedown normally works. It starts out with grand claims about WordLogic's patents, and insists that Wikipedia infringes on one specific claim (#19 in the '124 patent), but then says "likely other claims in the WordLogic patents." That sort of vagueness is pretty typical of trollish thuggery. The threat letter blusters about how the company is a "global leader" in the field -- which is laughable given that the company appears to have made literally zero revenue for the last two years that it disclosed its income statements publicly.

The letter references the Fleksy case, calling it "ongoing litigation" which is odd, considering that that the case was dismissed with prejudice nearly two years before this shakedown letter was sent. I'm not up on legal ethics rules, but I'm curious if it's at all appropriate for a legal threat letter to claim that there's ongoing litigation two years after the case was dismissed.

In the end, the letter demands... $30,000. This kind of fee is typical of patent trolls, because they know damn well that litigating this (even to an easy victory) will cost Wikipedia significantly more than $30,000. Thus, the economical choice is to just pay up and move on. That's what's so scammy about WordLogic and this legal threat from lawyer Artoush Ohanian:

We recognize that WIKIPEDIA has several options for addressing WordLogic's infringement concerns, including litigation and/or WIKIPEDIA attempting to invalidate the patents by filing an Inter Partes Review (IPR) with the Patent Office. Although we are confident in the validity and infringement of the WordLogic patents, we appreciate the inherent risks and costs to a patent owner in pursuing litigation and/or facing the uncertainties of IPR proceedings. To that end, and to encourage the continued use of WordLogic patented technology, WordLogic is offering a discounted, lump sum fee of $30,000 in exchange for a paid-up one-time license.

That, right there, is a quintessential patent troll shakedown paragraph. Gee, we know that challenging this patent and going to court is expensive and uncertain -- so why not just pay us to leave you alone. Disgusting. And I'll note that while it misleadingly mentions the Fleksy litigation, it leaves out the settled IPR process in which the PTAB said that patent was likely invalid. I wonder why...

Wikipedia, correctly, is not one to give in to such trollish bullying. It turned around and went to court asking for declaratory judgment that it does not infringe on the patents that WordLogic was waving around. Wikimedia notes that (1) WordLogic's patents are invalid due to prior art, (2) that they are invalid for not covering patentable subject matter, and (3) that anyway, it doesn't even infringe on the patents if they were valid.

The claims of the Asserted Patents are invalid under 35 U.S.C. 102 and/or 103(a).For example, the Patent Office determined to institute IPR2017-01856. In reaching that decision,the Patent Office considered prior art references to the Asserted Patents, including U.S. Patent No.5,724,457 (Fukishima), U.S. Patent No. 5,367,453 (Capps), U.S. Patent No. 6,307,548(Flinchem), U.S. Patent No. 5,797,098 (Schroeder), and John J. Darragh & Ian H. Witten,Cambridge Series On Human- Computer Interaction, The Reactive Keyboard 3 (J. Long ed. 1992)(Witten). The Patent Office determined that it would review the claims of the 124 patentbecause it found that these prior art references established a reasonable likelihood that the claimsof the 124 patent were unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. 103(a). These same prior art referencesalso establish that the claims of the other Asserted Patents are invalid.

The claims of the Asserted Patents are also invalid under 35 U.S.C. 101. Forexample, Fleksy Inc. filed a motion to dismiss on February 3, 2017 in WordLogic Corporation etal v. Fleksy, Inc., Case No. 4:17-cv-07169-JSW, in which it set forth reasons why the claims ofthe 124 patent are invalid under 35 U.S.C. 101.

The allegations of infringement made by the WordLogic Entities fail to show thatWikimedia infringes any claim of any Asserted Patent. For example, for claim 19 of the 124patent, the Wikipedia search box that WordLogic identifies as infringing does not perform therequired step of obtaining and displaying in the search list a further modified plurality ofcompletion candidates from among the group of completion candidates, if a completion candidateis accepted via the search list from the modified plurality of completion candidates.

If WordLogic is smart (big if), it should probably come grovelling to Wikimedia promising to leave it alone. If it's not smart and pushes forward, I can't imagine this ending well for the "company" or its patents. Considering that the patents expire in a couple years anyway, it may try to turn tail and run again and look for someone else to shake down who it hopes will be easier prey.

In the meantime, it's still ridiculous that Wikimedia (and anyone else) continues to have to deal with this kind of bullshit trolling activity.

Filed Under: artoush ohanian, patent troll, patents, predictive text, shakedownCompanies: wikimedia, wordlogic

Originally posted here:
Predictive Text Patent Troll Tries To Shake Down Wikipedia - Techdirt

The X-Files: Unrestricted Access is a 1998 game that almost acted as a fan Wikipedia years before they became a thing. David Lynch's Twin Peaks is considered one of the most groundbreaking TV shows of all time, with its cinematic look and mix of genres being almost unprecedented for television back in 1990. While the series itself was short-lived, it paved the way for other cinematic shows like The X-Files, which debuted in 1993. It followed the misadventures of FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson, Hannibal) as they investigate the titular files, which are typically paranormal or extraterrestrial in nature.

The X-Files worked because of the chemistry between total believer Mulder and total skeptic Scully. The series also featured some genuinely terrifying monsters and episodes, in addition to sucking in fans with its dense story and mythology. The show was everywhere during the 1990s, including movies, comics, novels, and video game spinoffs, but it lost steam once Duchovny left to pursue other projects following season 7. The X-Files came to an end with season 9 in 2002, before being briefly revived for two more series between 2016 to 2018 with the original cast.

Related: Why The X-Files Season 12 Never Happened

The X-Files would receive a few different video games, including 1998's The X-Files Game, a point and click, full motion video adventure featuring most of the cast, which received mixed reviews. There was also 2004's The X-Files: Resist Or Serve for the PlayStation 2, a Resident Evil-style survival horror game set during the show's seventh season. The final title, The X-Files: Unrestricted Access for PC, can't really be called a game at all and is instead an interactive database covering everything fans could possibly want to know.

The X-Files: Unrestricted Access is made up of video clips, photos, wallpapers and reams of text that exhaustively cover the first four seasons of the show. It contains episode and character breakdowns, glossaries of terms, and there's even 360-degree view of Mulder's famous office. In short, this database was everything followers of The X-Filescould have possibly wanted back in the late 1990s.

Nowadays fan Wikipedia's would cover everything The X-Files: Unrestricted Access had to offer back in 1998 - and probably a lot more - but its an interesting relic of its era. While certain fans were unhappy with how The X-Files season 11 ended the series, especially in regards to an announcement made by Scully in the finale, it seems unlikely the show will return. Gillian Anderson has ruled out another season and without Scully involved, it just wouldn't feel the same.

Next: Is The X-Files On Netflix, Hulu Or Prime? Where To Watch Online

Furious 7: Which Brian O'Conner Scenes Weren't Paul Walker

Its pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now thats out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if hed like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU - where Hawkeye is clearly the best character - to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.He's super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

Visit link:
The X-Files: Unrestricted Access - A Fan Wikipedia Before They Existed - Screen Rant

The coronavirus outbreak has created fear and panic among the populace as it has already infected over 2,000 people and taken the lives of at least 56 in India while its global tally has crossed the mark of over one million cases, with at least 53,000 fatalities. But what's spreading even faster than the deadly virus over the Internet is fake news and misinformation related to COVID-19, the disease that caused by the Novel Coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2).

For many people, Wikipedia is the first port of call to learn about these kinds of subjects, and misinformation on the Wiki can have grave consequences. That's why the organisation is putting extra resources towards limiting fake news circulation by offering information related to the virus and its disease in Indic languages through Project SWASTHA (an abbreviation of Special Wikipedia Awareness Scheme for The Healthcare Affiliates).

Abhishek Suryawanshi, Founder and Director of Wikipedia's Project SWASTHA, spoke to Gadgets 360 over a video conference in order to detail how the initiative can help fight fake news spreading online, and provide trustworthy information to the masses in India. The project was started last year with an aim to provide health information on Wikipedia on 10 different topics in 10 different languages of India. However, while the team was yet to kick off its operations in late November and early December, the coronavirus outbreak started emerging. This shifted the team's interest towards the pandemic entirely.

Coronavirus Apps: Every App the Central Government And States Have Deployed to Track COVID-19

During the conversation, Suryawanshi highlighted that Wikipedia has the reach that is 10 times more than the traffic received by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) websites and 300 times more traffic than Indian government's official website. This opens an avenue to share what's useful for the people.

He also emphasised that Wikipedia is complementary to the government sources since it provides the reach, while the official authorities give reliable information for the masses.

Lane Rasberry, a Data Scientist at the University of Virginia, who's been editing articles on Wikipedia for over 10 years and is one of the key faces behind the team that is editing information around the coronavirus outbreak, also joined the conversation. He underlined that Wikipedia editors rely on experts such as different agencies and the Indian government to identify the most important health information that can be shared through the platform.

Edited excerpts from the conversation below.

Gadgets 360: What is the role of Wikipedia in the public health crisis like what we are facing right now?

Rasberry: Wikipedia as a media channel is highly accessible. And if experts and organisations share their information in Wikipedia, then it reaches the largest available audience that the internet has to offer.

Suryawanshi: People in India highly rely on Wikipedia starting from their early education days. And especially even recently, the Ministry of Commerce also referred to Wikipedia in the official Economic Survey. And it's not just India, it's a similar trend throughout the globe, you can see the trend. Wikipedia does not spend any money in advertising itself. People organically come to Wikipedia. This is unlike YouTube or any other platform. In terms of numbers, Wikipedia is receiving 10 times more traffic even than the sites of CDC and WHO combined. We have 300 times more traffic than Indian government's official website. It's because people feel like they belong on Wikipedia.

What are the problems in your views that misinformation can cause in case of an outbreak like the coronavirus pandemic?

Suryawanshi: Misinformation means a lot especially in India where every morning people send WhatsApp forwards to their contacts. Therefore, I don't think getting information is a challenge, at least in India. Everyone even has Information about COVID-19. But it's more about whether they have the right kind of information. That's the question right now. And that's where Wikipedia gives information in simple words.

How do you think that Wikipedia can be a helpful source for fighting misinformation right now?

Rasberry: Fake news is a problem in every Internet channel. Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, all of them have this problem in place. Wikipedia has it as well. But one way Wikipedia is different and it is that all the data in Wikipedia is free and open. So anyone can look at who has added every single sentence or comment anywhere in Wikipedia, find out who did that and do research and analysis on it. So while in Facebook, for example, most of the research is done by Facebook staff, Wikipedia lets anyone can edit also and anyone can do the research on the data to say who said what, and where misconduct or misinformation might be coming from.

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Suryawanshi: And also for all the languages on Wikipedia, there is a feature called locking the article. It simply means the article can be edited by the editors who have crossed a certain threshold, like 10 or 20 edits. There are like different categories of protecting a page. So that's not what people think like, oh, anyone can wake up in the morning and edit it. It's not as simple as that.

What's the scope of Project SWASTHA? How would it help eradicate the circulation of fake news and invalid health information that we currently have through various social media sources?

Suryawanshi: Over 10 lakh people are reading one article every day on Wikipedia, and they have the option to correct something if something is wrong. When it comes to the government agencies, we have officially listed the Ministry of Health's website which is seeing on all the language Wikipedias and most of the traffic, if you do the traffic analysis of the Ministry of Health's website, it is getting redirected from Wikipedia itself. So I feel like it's a both complimentary situation. The Government of India has authentic sources. They have a lot of information. Whereas on Wikipedia, we have the exact opposite problem. We have a wider reach, but content is an issue for us.

What were your plans with the Project SWASTHA before the COVID-19 outbreak?

Suryawanshi: We conducted workshops one in December in Mumbai, where we had Wikipedia editors from top 10 Indian languages as well as healthcare experts who talked to each other to discuss various health and wellness related topics. We were planning to conduct those in 10 different cities, and educate and empower existing Wikipedia volunteer community, government authorities, and create a new generation of volunteers who can keep writing healthcare content from Wikipedia. Moving forward, we do have the plan to conduct a lot of such workshops and give tools to people so they can contribute healthcare information.

How can the Project SWASTHA be helpful for citizens as well as for the authorities in the present scenario?

Suryawanshi: For authorities as well as citizens Wikipedia's language is very easy to use. WHO will have information about COVID-19, but Wikipedia has dedicated articles such as the COVID-19 outbreak in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh. So we have timelines for pretty much all these states. There are three aspects, namely the virus, disease, and outbreak, We are focusing on all these three aspects and within those also we have subsections in local languages. So more emphasis is given on the local state and local languages, and local culture. We are also partnering with local universities and are in touch with different government agencies. If they see something is wrong, or if they want to push it to a larger audience, they reach out to us because many physicians as well as officials, they have a lot of knowledge.

What are the key challenges in making health-related information available to the masses in the country?

Rasberry: There's a disbalance. Wikipedia does the distribution and we don't have to concern ourselves so much with identifying the content. There are subject matter experts whose job it is to identify the most important health information. These experts could be from different agencies, the Indian government, different universities within India, and organisations like the World Health Organization. So all our job is to find out who's the leading authority in the field, then find out what information it is that they're sharing, and then we integrate it in Wikipedia.

Is there any criteria for selecting contributors for the Project?

Rasberry: Anybody can add.

Suryawanshi: Anybody can add and that's how the system works. We welcome everyone on our platform and then we connect them together in a systematic way. There are doctors as well who have busy schedules. After getting passed from the doctors, the volunteers make necessary corrections in the content. It then goes back to the healthcare professional. And after that, we also work with professional translators as well as volunteer translators. They go through the draft and then, it goes to the local healthcare professional because local sensitivity language is also there. For something which is called in a textbook say Marathi or Hindi, might not be the actual term which people will relate when they go and read it on Wikipedia. So that's where we have these different people who can come and be part of it. So depending on the interest, we are welcoming everyone, and we just work with everyone to make sure we fight this battle against misinformation on the Web.

Abhishek Suryawanshi says Wikipedia welcomes everyone for contributing information on its platformPhoto Credit: Wikipedia

How does a team of contributors decide which content they should pick for translation and which content they should avoid?

Rasberry: We try to match the Wikipedia article with whatever the authority recommends that we should share. One way to check the quality of the Wikipedia article is to look at the references at the bottom and see that this is what one would expect and often after we're finished editing Wikipedia article and ask the subject matter expert that do you think that this article is representing the sources that you would expect to see from your field as an expert. Wikipedia has a Manual of Style. And I would say that this is something that perhaps is a bit unusual for Wikipedia as compared to other outlets in that we have information from different sources. So something that you'll see in Wikipedia, and this diverges a bit from medical articles. This is also true in case of our COVID-19 content because we're not getting any traditional journals just don't have stories about how the disease is manifesting in India, we have to rely a bit on local journalism to get these kinds of stories.

Suryawanshi: In other simple words, say in order to record the number of deaths, we won't cite anyone's Facebook account or Twitter account. We always cite the Government of India's official account or official statistics.

How does the content team examine all the content that they received before making live to the public?

Suryawanshi: In terms of references, we have like these COVID-19 articles, there are only the editors who have a certain kind of expertise and trust within the system, they can edit them. But that doesn't mean like we are not welcoming anyone. People can join us in editing other articles. And then anyone can be a part of it. We have a certain criteria, which everyone needs to follow, though. Also, Wikipedia goes by references. If anyone comes up with excellent information, but there is no reference for it, then that information won't be used.

Rasberry: Anyone can edit Wikipedia and we don't check people's credentials. What we check is the reliability of the source which they cite.

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Are the contributors and their articles being vetted as well?

Rasberry: We never screen the contributors, anyone can create and edit content on Wikipedia. So they might be anyone in the world.

Suryawanshi: A fifth grader can write a great one sentence about COVID-19 with a reference, whereas a PhD expert can write the same sentence without the reference. The Wikipedia community will go with someone who is giving a sentence with a reference because that's the basic DNA of Wikipedia reference and citation. So we will never ask, who are you? We will, instead, ask what kind of information you have and who gave you that information? As long as these two things match the content goes live

What are the plans towards expanding language support?

Suryawanshi: We would love to expand, but we are just two months old project. When we started, the COVID-19 outbreak just happened. We started with maternal health articles and we started working with different organisations like government authorities, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as well as other organisations. And when it comes to languages, it is important to reach out. We are encouraging more and more people to write healthcare content. And it is very important because it's writing a history. After 10-15 years, when people come online, they are going to see what's happening right now. Let's say COVID-19, people will learn about its effect and expansion through Wikipedia. We are, thus, requesting organisations to share information.

Lastly, how is India different in terms of the information sources from the global markets?

Suryawanshi: There will be more people accessing the Web in Hindi as compared to English by 2021, as per the recent Google-KPMG survey. More and more people are already coming online. Initially, there were like more consumers and now we have more content creators as well. So moving in two to three years ahead, I feel like the Internet will be dominated by Indian languages and Indians. We are already seeing the trends everywhere and we hope the same thing will continue on Wikipedia because we have so many readers from India, but we don't have those many contributors because of lack of awareness and there are so many different aspects to it. So that's what would be a dream come true situation in upcoming years and India is very special because the internet is pretty new in most of the rural areas and more and more people are coming online.

How are we staying sane during this Coronavirus lockdown? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.

View original post here:
Wikipedia Project SWASTHA Aims to Eradicate Fake News Around the Coronavirus Outbreak in India - Gadgets 360

Stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic, with movie theaters closed and no restaurants to dine in, Americans have been spending more of their lives online.

But a New York Times analysis of internet usage in the United States from SimilarWeb and Apptopia, two online data providers, reveals that our behaviors shifted, sometimes starkly, as the virus spread and pushed us to our devices for work, play and connecting.

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With nearly all public gatherings called off, Americans are seeking out entertainment on streaming services like Netflix and YouTube, and looking to connect with one another on social media outlets like Facebook.

In the past few years, users of these services were increasingly moving to their smartphones, creating an industrywide focus on mobile. Now that we are spending our days at home, with computers close at hand, Americans appear to be remembering how unpleasant it can be to squint at those little phone screens.

Facebook, Netflix and YouTube have all seen user numbers on their phone apps stagnate or fall off as their websites have grown, the data from SimilarWeb and Apptopia indicates. SimilarWeb and Apptopia both draw their traffic numbers from several independent sources to create data that can be compared across the internet.

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Percent change is from the average on Jan. 21 to the average on March 24. App daily traffic is measured in daily sessions. Sources: SimilarWeb, Apptopia

While traditional social media sites have been growing, it seems that we want to do more than just connect through messaging and text we want to see one another. This has given a big boost to apps that used to linger in relative obscurity, like Googles video chatting application, Duo, and Houseparty, which allows groups of friends to join a single video chat and play games together.

We have also grown much more interested in our immediate environment, and how it is changing and responding to the virus and the quarantine measures. This has led to a renewed interest in Nextdoor, the social media site focused on connecting local neighborhoods.

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VPN Super

Unlimited Proxy

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App popularity according to iOS App Store rankings on March 16-18. Source: Apptopia

The offices and schools of America have all moved into our basements and living rooms. Nothing is having a more profound impact on online activity than this change. School assignments are being handed out on Google Classroom. Meetings are happening on Zoom, Google Hangouts and Microsoft Teams. The rush to these services, however, has brought new scrutiny on privacy practices.

Large Media Organizations

Large Media Organizations

March averages are through the 24th. Source: SimilarWeb

Amid the uncertainty about how bad the outbreak could get there are now hundreds of thousands of cases in the United States, with the number of dead multiplying by the day Americans appear to want few things more than the latest news on the coronavirus.

Among the biggest beneficiaries are local news sites, with huge jumps in traffic as people try to learn how the pandemic is affecting their hometowns.

Americans have also been seeking out more established media brands for information on the public health crisis and its economic consequences. CNBC, the business news site, has seen readership skyrocket. The websites for The New York Times and The Washington Post have both grown traffic more than 50 percent over the last month, according to SimilarWeb.

The desire for the latest facts on the virus appears to be curbing interest in the more opinionated takes from partisan sites, which have defined the media landscape in recent years. Publications like The Daily Caller, on the right, and Truthdig on the left, have recorded stagnant or falling numbers. Even Fox News has seen disappointing numbers compared to other large outlets.

Beating all of the news sites, in terms of increased popularity, is the home page for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has been attracting millions of readers after previously having almost none. Over time, readers have also looked to more ambitious efforts to quantify the spread of the virus, like the one produced by the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

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Averages are over the previous seven days. Source: SimilarWeb

The single-minded focus on the virus has crowded out the broad curiosity that draws people to sites like Wikipedia, which had declining numbers before a recent uptick, data from SimilarWeb shows.

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Percent change is from the average on Jan. 21 to the average on March 24. One user can have multiple sessions in a day. Sources: SimilarWeb, Apptopia

With all major-league games called off, there hasnt been much sports to consume beyond marble racing and an occasional Belarusian soccer match. Use of ESPNs website has fallen sharply since late January, according to SimilarWeb.

At the same time, several video game sites have had surges in traffic, as have sites that let you watch other people play. Twitch, the leading site for streaming game play, has had traffic shoot up 20 percent.

TikTok, the mobile app filled with short clips of pranks and lip-syncing, was taking off before the coronavirus outbreak and it has continued its steady ascent ever since. It can be nice to see that at least some things remain unchanged by the crisis.

More here:
The Virus Changed the Way We Internet - The New York Times