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Creators: Get the latest tips, tutorials and updates!

Are you a video creator, blogger, content collector or curator? Subscribe to get news and tutorials for YouTube, Blogger, AdSense, and other creator tools, platforms, social media, and more!  Learn more about me . Last updated January 2025       Subscribe to the RSS feed      Subscribe to Weekly Creator Updates only Subscribe to my Weekly Creator Newsletter by email Creator Weekly Live!  Join me live on Sundays at 10:30 AM Pacific to discuss the week's creator updates.  Watch or set a notification. Watch previous episodes: Tips, Tutorials & Updates       Blogger Tutorials & Updates        YouTube  and  Live Streaming  Tutorials & Updates        Chat and Meet  Tutorials & Update...
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Creator Weekly: TikTok Users Move to RedNote, Gemini for Workspace, Free Our Feeds

  The holiday lull is over now, and it feels like we are now rushing headlong into 2025. TikTok looks like it will shut down in the US on Sunday, there’s a new organization to “save social media from billionaire capture”, Google is rolling out Gemini AI features to all Google Workspace business users (who will be paying a little bit more), plus news and updates for video creators, bloggers, social media and more. 📨 Subscribe to get Creator Weekly by email. 10 Years Ago This Week (10YATW) I’ve decided to not include my “10 Years Ago This Week” details in the weekly newsletter, mostly because it’s too long already. Instead it will be part of Creator Weekly Live on Sunday, and I’ll post the details a few days later. If you want to hear it first, join me live ! Last week’s 10YATW: Virtual Reality is a Reality Los Angeles Fire Relief The devastating Los Angeles fires have affected many creators, artists and people who work in creative industries. YouTube says they will “o...

Ten Years Ago This Week: Virtual Reality is a Reality

I'm celebrating 10 years of Creator Weekly by looking back at what was happening in tech during the same week in 2015.   I'll be talking about it in my Sunday live stream, and then publishing a post with a YouTube Short recap a few days later.  What happened 10 years ago this week?  During the week ending January 12, 2015, CNET published their recap of products showcased at CES in Las Vegas.  They declared:   Virtual reality is a reality. Virtual reality, or VR as it's known, has been lurking at the fringes of the tech world for the better part of three decades, but it's often felt more like a gimmick or a sci-fi trope (thank you, " Lawnmower Man "). But no more. VR innovator Oculus Rift was showing the latest version of its hardware in a sizable public booth in the convention center's South Hall -- a far cry from its behind-closed-doors hotel suite presence at CES 2013 and 2014 . (Clearly, that $2 billion-plus check from Facebook is being put to good...

Creator Weekly: Meta Moderation & Policy; YouTube Shorts Editor; Medium Partner Program

Wildfires are my nightmare. They are fast moving, destructive, and near unstoppable when the winds are strong. My heart goes out to folks in Los Angeles County affected by the current fires (which are still mostly uncontained as I write this). It’s sickening that there are selfish people flying drones into the fire areas, for likes or “content”. One of the big water-dropping Super Scooper planes was seriously damaged by a drone and aircraft have been unable to work in some areas due to unauthorized drone activity. I hope they are penalized. This week the big creator news is Meta’s new moderation policies. There are also updates for YouTube, Medium, WordPress, X and more. 📨 Subscribe to get Creator Weekly by email. Top news and updates this week Meta shifts moderation policy, allows more hateful content, and shifts from 3rd party fact checks to community notes. The YouTube Shorts editor now lets you create or upload Shorts up to 3 minutes long (with l...

Meta Replaces 3rd Party Fact Checking with Community Notes; Allows Previously Prohibited Content

  Earlier today  Mark Zuckerberg announced  that Meta would be making big changes to moderation on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, the name of “free expression”. One the one hand, there have been problems with Meta’s mostly automated moderation, and it is good if they are addressing that by hiring additional people for content review. But it’s pretty clear that Meta’s updated Community Standards and moderation policies are designed to align with the incoming Trump administration. The updated content policies mostly focus on allowing content around gender, sexuality and immigration that was previously prohibited as hate speech. Meta is also removing third party fact checking in the US in favor of Community Notes. In a video statement , Zuckerberg calls out “governments and legacy media” that supposedly have been pushing censorship, and suggests that these changes are meant to push back against that and promote free expression. Right. It’s not clear how bad this ...

Creator Weekly: Honey scam, Instagram AI Profiles, Bluesky trending topics

Hello all! I hope you had an excellent new year’s celebration. Mine was with my family at home, and pretty quiet.. We watched the fireworks on TV and around the neighborhood where enthusiastic folks were setting them off. There wasn’t much news this week, which gave me time to finish my end-of-year roundups. Read on for all the details. 📨 Subscribe to get Creator Weekly by email. Top news and updates this week 10 years of Creator Weekly! A look back at 2015. The top YouTube updates of 2024. Honey scams affiliate revenue. Outrage about AI-generated Instagram profiles. YouTube requires advanced feature verification to create new channels. YouTube advertiser friendly guidelines prohibit instructions for AI-generated nudity. Bluesky now shows trending topics 2024 recaps from Bluesky, X, and Google AI. More reading about AI power use, the woman who keeps the “most indispensable machine in the world” running, music videos, problems with passkey technology and the war on Wikipedia. Ten Year...

Year in Review 2024: YouTube Community, Fan Funding, Shorts, and AI Tools

It’s that time again! Here are my top YouTube updates in 2024. Just about every year since I started my weekly creator recap I have rounded up the biggest changes for YouTube and other Google products. It turns out 2024 was a big year! Note that YouTube is constantly running tests. I mention a few in my summary, but I have mostly focused on features that have launched. Creator Features YouTube Shorts Live Streaming YouTube on TV AI-Powered Features Podcasts Community Guidelines and Policy Updates Monetization My top updates feed right into the Creator Trends for 2024 and into 2025. The new thumbnail test and compare tool i n YouTube Studio. My 2025 wish? Title testing too. The Community tab being made available to all channels, and expanded testing of new Community features. Hopefully the new Communities will be more widely available i...