Week in Review - August 15, 2015: Alphabet City

Alphabet, Hangouts and more: This week Larry Page announced Alphabet, a new parent company, with Google as a subsidiary headed by new CEO Sundar Pichai. It doesn't appear this will bring any significant changes to the apps and services you know and love, at least for the near future.

Also version 4 of the Android Hangouts app was (finally) released, with group MMS updates and Outbound Caller ID. And there are more updates and tips. Read on!

Google and Alphabet

• Larry Page announces Alphabet - Google's new parent company (Larry Page)

Google+

• Even with the reorganization, Larry and Sergei still love Google+
• Get your Google+ Social Cards from Spiderfly Studios

YouTube and Video Creators

• YouTube Creator Academy: learn how to improve the sound quality of your videos (YouTube Creators)
• Schedule native video uploads to social media sites - Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and more with Buffer

Live Broadcastin

• Blab lets you live broadcast and record your video conversations (Review by Moritz Tolxdorff)

Hangouts

• Version 4 of Hangouts for Android is (finally) released
• - Google Voice and Project Fi: receive and reply to group MMS
• - Android Wear lets you view past convos and respond from your watch
• - Outbound Caller ID

AdSense

• Publishers: double check the ad implementation on your website (AdSense)

And More...

• Phone Guts: Nat and Lo take a look at what's inside phone
• The Google Map Maker program was re-enabled in six countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, India, Philippines and Ukraine (Marc-André Beauchamp)
• Google Drive Gets Friendlier with your desktop computer (Google Drive)
• Twitter Direct Messages can now be more than 140 characters (Twitter blog)

Updated March 2019 to remove Google+ links