Peggy Ks Tips and Tricks

This week there were updates for gamers, video creators, webmasters and much more. Dig in!
In honor of World Blood Donor Day, Facebook and Google are making it easier to become a blood donor in the US. Google partners with the Red Cross to help donors find a blood drive using Google Maps. And starting today, you can sign up to be a blood donor on Facebook. And if you are able, consider donating.In a change meant to reduce user confusion, Google announced that Photos will no longer synchronize with Google Drive as of July 10th. What this means is that any images or videos uploaded to Google Photos after that date will not automatically appear in Google Drive, and vice versa. There will be an option to import selected images from Drive into your Google Photos. Many users probably won’t notice the change, but for those of us who do use it to manage image uploads via Drive (and organize into albums in Photos), access Photos images from third party services (which is done via Drive), embed…

Google announced today that Google Photos will no longer be integrated with Google Drive. Youtube is also updating its desktop video uploader, and the new version (currently in beta) does not include the option to import videos from Google Photos. Also, the new YouTube desktop uploader no longer includes import from Google Photos.

Google+ Photos were made available in Google Drive in March 2015, shortly before the independent Google+-free Google Photos launched. That integration has been been useful in a number of ways:
Photos and videos uploaded or synced to Google Drive appear in Google Photos and so can be added to Photos albums and shared via Photos.You can use Google Drive file embedding options to embed Google Photos videos on your blog or website.You can import videos from Google Drive into your personal YouTube channel using the "Import from Google Photos" option.Photos and videos backed up or uploaded to Google Photos can be accessed by third party sites and services…

This week you can explore the ocean or become a Stadia Founder; Apple announced software updates, new features and hardware; and there was much furor around changes in - and enforcement of -YouTube policy. Plus so. many. updates.
Take a moment to explore the oceans. There are new underwater Street View images available in Google Earth. And to remind us that we humans aren’t alone on Earth,Pattern Radio Whale Songs is a new site that lets you visualize and explore recordings of whale songs. Maybe we will learn what they are a saying?Google Earth for Chrome now shows clouds and weather patterns from the past 24 hours.Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference was this week. There were a bunch of announcements, including updated iPhone photo editing software (you can now rotate video!), new features for iPads that let you use it as a second display for your Mac, the death of iTunes (replaced by Apple Music, Apple TV, and Apple Podcasts), and the pricey redesigned Mac Pro. If you use a Mac, …

YouTube seems to be playing continual catch-up to reduce the spread and influence of hateful content and bad actors on the platform. This week YouTube made two announcements: they posted an overview of their policies designed to protect kids, and updated their hate speech policy.

In brief, today's update expanded YouTube's hate speech policy now includes:
Claims that one group is superior to justify discrimination.Claims that the covered attributes are an illness or mental deficiency.All videos that promote or glorify Nazi ideology.Claims that deny well-documented violent events took place.Added caste as a protected attribute. Read on for more details about what YouTube's hate speech policies cover and how those policies are enforced.

On Monday the New York Times published a damning article detailing how YouTube's recommendation algorithms lead viewers with a sexual interest in children from an innocent home video of kids to not only more similar content, but content that is more sexual:
Any individual video might be intended as nonsexual, perhaps uploaded by parents who wanted to share home movies among family. But YouTube’s algorithm, in part by learning from users who sought out revealing or suggestive images of children, was treating the videos as a destination for people on a different sort of journey. Julia Alexander of The Verge has pointed out that YouTube has an interest in supporting the very popular "family vlogging" channels, which often feature kids. Since the 2017 "adpocalypse" YouTube has seemingly increased the recommendations of videos with kids, as they are usually "advertiser friendly". Creators noticed that change and started featuring kids in their videos.
Tha…

This week is all about … the future. There are changes coming to Analytics in YouTube Studio, Google Search indexing, AdSense ad unit settings, Chrome extensions and much more. Read on!
We got a sneak peek at new features in development for Analytics in YouTube Studio. You will be able to see a selection of other videos your audience watched (not only from your channel), and there will be a new Important Notifications card on your Analytics dashboard. In mid-June there will be "YTA Day" where everyone will be directed to new YouTube Studio so that YouTube can get feedback. If you are a die-hard user of classic YouTube Analytics, check out this overview of advanced features in YouTube Studio Analytics from YouTube Creators YouTube channel Memberships will be integrated with Cameo, a platform for booking personal video shout-outs.The stand-alone YouTube Gaming mobile apps and desktop site have been shut down. You can now find gaming content on YouTube proper at www.youtube.com…

Today Google AdSense emailed Publishers (including me) a notice that they will be updating and simplifying the ad unit options in Ads Tab. The changes reflect a shift towards richer media in ads and more reliance on Google's optimization algorithms and machine learning, rather than custom settings.

It will include the following changes, which are rolling out in the coming weeks:

All ad units will be Responsive by default. Responsive sizing allows the ads to adjust to different screen sizes. You will still be able to create ad units with a fixed size.

Text-only and display-only ad units are being phased out. "Text ads only" and "Display ads only" ad units will be renamed "Display ads" and will be updated to serve all ad types.

Custom text ad styles are being deprecated. You will no longer be able to create ad styles for new ad units and existing ad styles will have "Google-optimized text ad styling."

Custom "If no ads available" option…