Peggy Ks Tips & Tricks

Spring has sprung, and while new Google products are budding, we’re down to the final week for Google+ and Inbox. Consumer Google+ will be shutting down in 9 days. Here is where you can find me after the shutdown of Google: You can subscribe to my blog updates by email or just the Weekly Updates by email, or if you use Feedly or another feed reader, subscribe to the feed. I regularly post on Twitter, and irregularly post tutorials to YouTube. I have accounts on MeWe and Pluspora, but I haven't really used either yet. .
Google’s big announcement at this week’s Game Developer Conference is Stadia, a new cloud gaming platform integrated with YouTube. The games run on Google’s servers, with low enough latency that people using different platforms - phones, tablets, desktop computers - can play against each other, and you may see a “play now” button on YouTube that lets you jump into a game with your favorite gamer. There is a dedicated game controller, with buttons for Google Assis…

Google Calendar, like many Google products, was integrated with Google+. Before consumer Google+ shuts down on April 2, 2019, the Google+ features in Google Calendar will be removed.  Google Calendar will no longer show Google+ EventsGoogle Calendar will no longer show birthdays of people in your Google+ CirclesWatch my overview: Read on for more detailed information.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day (almost)! This week there are updates for Plussers, YouTube Music fans, webmasters, ad publishers and more.
This week there is a new reminder from Google+ to start the download of your content in Google Takeout by March 31 to be sure it’s archived before April 2nd. Do it!You can now download a copy of the posts from public Google+ Communities you own or moderate. Select which Google+ Communities you want to archive in Google Takeout. And if you do that, be mindful that your community members may not want their content posted anywhere outside of Google+, so ask them permission before you repost anywhere.Google+ custom URLs now redirect to a link with the user’s 21-digit user ID. After consumer Google+ shuts down, the vanity URL will no longer work, including in links to Album Archive. Note that your YouTube custom URL will not be affected.MeWe now has a Google+ data importer. I have some questions about how it works, and I’ll share when I get answers.Also, the…

There is less than a month until consumer Google+ shuts down, and it is clear the end is nigh. All Google+ buttons and follower badges have disappeared from websites, the Google-wide notification bell has disappeared and more and more users are making their final farewells. But it’s not all bad, there are some nice updates from YouTube, Flickr, Google My Business and more.
This week the Google API shut down, and Google+ buttons, follower badges, embedded posts and comments disappeared from blogs and websites. If you have Google+ plugin code on your website, now is the time to remove it. This week the Google desktop notifications bell also disappeared. You can still get Google+ notifications at plus.google.com/notifications or by enabling browser notifications in your Google+ settings. Whether you are a die hard (like me) or a G Suite user, the latest version of the Android Google+ app is required. It should be version 10.26.0.233822663 or later, which was released in mid February. If …

YouTube has launched a new live stream control room in YouTube Studio (beta) that you can access from anywhere on YouTube. If your YouTube channel is enabled for live streaming (check your Status and Features page), the new control room should be available in your YouTube account.

The new desktop Live Control Room (www.youtube.com/livestreaming/) has three options:
Stream Beta for live streaming using an encoderWebcam for live streaming using your computer's camera, no encoder requiredManage to manage your current and scheduled live streams You can also manage your live streams and live stream archives from the Live tab on your Studio Beta (studio.youtube.com) Videos page.

YouTube wants you to try it out and send them your feedback!

Note that Live Stream Events and Stream Now are still only available in Creator Studio Classic. There is a Classic Live Streaming button to return to Classic on the bottom right of the live stream control room.

Read on for more details.

When consumer Google+ shuts down on April 2, your Google+ "Photos from Posts" and "Photos of You" albums in your Album Archive will be deleted. Google Photos is a separate product, and will NOT be shutdown. Any of your photos that are in Google Photos will NOT be deleted.

Photo upload, editing and management were a major draw to Google+ from its launch in 2011. Google+ offered "Instant Uploads" to back up the photos on your phone to the cloud, Creative Kit, which let you easily edit your photos, and later "Auto Awesome" enhancements. (See the timeline at the end of the post for the highlights.)

Then in 2015 Google announced that Google Photos would be a standalone product, split away from Google+. That was a harbinger of doom: just two months later Google announced that Google+ would no longer be a social layer across Google+. The new Google+ no longer included any special photo features, and had a new design where Profiles no longer even had a…

March has arrived along with tons of updates for YouTube, messaging, webmasters and businesses. it’s also time to start saying goodbye: Allo and Inbox will be shut down this month. And while consumer Google+ won’t be shut down until April 2nd, the legacy Google+ API will shut down March 7th, which will affect Google+ widgets and features on 3rd party sites. Plus the Google-wide notification bell will also disappear. It's not going to be a happy week.
If you are a developer who hasn’t yet removed all Google+ API features from your app or site, be sure to read the latest update which may “help mitigate the impact of the shutdown”.Casey Newton at the Verge took a look at one of the US companies that provides contractors to moderate Facebook content, and it’s not pretty. The low-paid employees routinely view traumatic images and videos, and are allowed little leeway for errors. There is high turnover, and even after someone quits (or is fired) the lingering effects of what they have s…