- The big news from Google this week is that Meet video calling is being made available to everyone for free. Until now, Meet has only been available to paid G Suite accounts. If you have been using classic Hangouts video calling, you’ll find Meet has nice features like 16-person grid view, automatic captions, and the ability to present high quality video and audio. And you can have up to 100 participants. All that’s required is a Google account. Check meet.google.com to see if it’s available for your account, or sign up to be notified by email.
- Microsoft Teams also has new features, including a 9-person grid view, the option to “raise hands” to show you have something to say, background effects and more.
- Reminder: the Google Publisher Toolbar will stop working this month as AdSense data is removed. You can access the same data in your AdSense account (although not so conveniently).
- Google’s ad revenue is down. In their quarterly earnings call they note that they “experienced a significant and sudden slowdown in ad revenues” in March, and “the timing of the slowdown correlated to the locations and sectors impacted by the [corona]virus and related shutdown orders.” Although most of Google’s ad revenue comes from Search, I think this is likely to affect AdSense Publisher and YouTube Partner revenues as well.
- Google has detailed how it stops bad ads. That’s good for users, good for AdSense Publishers and YouTube Partners, and good for advertisers, as scammy ads reduce people’s trust in advertising in general. By the numbers: in 2019 Google blocked and removed 2.7 billion bad ads and suspended nearly 1 million advertiser accounts.This year they have blocked and removed “tens of millions” of coronavirus-related ads that violate their policies. Google has also terminated 1.2 million Publisher accounts (including AdSense and Doubleclick for Publishers) and removed ads from over 21 million web pages for policy violations.
- If you are ready to take a deep dive into your YouTube channel stats, check out the Advanced Mode in YouTube Analytics.
- Topics are coming to YouTube Home and Up Next on Android, iOS and the web in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. This will let you select specific topics to let you see more of what you are interested in.
- FameBit’s self-service platform for YouTube creators looking to make deals with brands will shut down July 31. FamBit’s invite-only Full Service program will continue. If your US-based YouTube channel is eligible, you will see more information on your channel’s Monetization settings tab in YouTube Studio. Learn more about this change from Creator Insider.
- In order to help prevent the spread of misinformation, YouTube is starting to display fact check information panels on some searches in the US. Previously this was only displayed in Brazil and India.
- If you are running a business, Google has a number of free tools to help you gain insight into customer behavior and update your marketing strategy.
- Vimeo’s Stories in Place project had eight Staff Pick filmmakers each make a film about a small business that is coping with changes due to the coronavirus pandemic.
- Google Product Expert Somnath has a helpful tutorial for setting up multiple signatures in Gmail.
- If you share Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides or Forms, in the coming weeks you’ll notice an improved sharing interface that makes it easier to share with specific people.
- Reddit launched a new “Start Chatting” button that lets you start a chat with other members of a subreddit with just a click, and then rolled it back when moderators made clear there needed to be a way for communities to opt out.
- Finally mark your calendar for We Are One: Global Film Festival from May 29-June 7. It will be hosted on YouTube at youtube.com/weareone (subscribe!), and will have free ad-free content from 20 film festivals, including Cannes, Sundance, Venice, Berlin, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and more. There will be feature films, shorts, documentaries, music, comedy and panel discussions.
Image: Padstow May Day 2016 by Sarah Hoss on Flickr. License: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
Very thorough update!
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