Peggy K's Creator News

While most of the images uploaded to your Google account are accessible through Google Photos , the only place to find the special albums created for your Google+ photos from posts, Blogger blogs, Hangouts chats and YouTube channel cover art is the new Google Album Archive . Update March 2023: You can finally access and  manage your blog's images from inside your Blogger account in the new Media Manager . As consumer Google+ shut down in April 2019 , and Hangouts  shut down in November 2022  (and Google Chat does not store images in Album Archive), the only reason to use Album Archive is to access your Google account profile photos and maybe your YouTube channel art (if you can find the album).  Update June 2023: Google Album Archive will be shut down on July 19, 2023. Learn more.   Albums that are only available in your Album Archive include: Google Profile Photos (shared by Google+, YouTube and other Google products). (NOTE: you can now access your Goo...

This week Google launched Emergency Location Service for Android phones in Europe and Nexus phones got better spam call protection. There were updates to the Google Spaces and YouTube Gaming mobile apps. Plus there are tips and updates for YouTubers, live streamers, bloggers, Maps navigators, Drive users and more! Image: Summer Night by Elin Danielson-Gambogi (1894)

This week YouTube made a creator-friendly change to strike penalties: now they only last 3 months and your channel (mostly) won’t be penalized. They also redesigned the channel Status and Features page . Google+ Web Preview got a nice update, with Related Collections displayed on post pages and a redesign of the format of reshared posts. Google+ Create India also launched, and is looking for Indian creators to apply. And just in time for Comic-Con, Google Play Books made it easier to read comics with the new Zoom Bubble feature Plus there are more updates and tips for YouTube, live broadcasters, Google+, Google Photos, Local Businesses, Blogger, AdSense and more. Image: Toy balloons red and blue, by B. Weber on Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported , 2.5 Generic , 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license. The image is in honor of the Republican National Convention last week and Democratic National Convention this week, ...

This week Google Hangouts got some long-awaited updates. It’s now possible to invite people to group chats with a link, taking the pain out of invitations. And if someone gets unruly, you can kick them out of the conversation. Hangouts 11 for iOS was also released and Hangouts 11 for Android is starting to roll out. The biggest changes are in the Android app, with the introduction of video messaging (yay!), and the removal of merged conversations (boo!). There have also been updates for the Google+ iOS app and Google+ Create program, Google and YouTube explained how much revenue it’s sending to the entertainment industry while fighting piracy, Project Fi now offers international high speed data, and the Republican and Democratic conventions will be live streamed. It’s also been a hard week, Susan Wojcicki asked YouTube creators to use their voice to "help us all figure out how to live together in respect." And Google and mobile carriers are offering free calls to Fra...

This was a quiet week, with just a few updates. The Google Spaces mobile apps got an update and Now on Tap can now translate text, QR and barcodes. And there are tips for photographers, video makers, business owners and more. The image is Carnation, LIly, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent (1885-6)

Lots new this week in the Googleverse: Android N is officially Nougat, Google+ turned 5, the Google Album Archive launched (goodbye Picasa Web Albums), the new Google “My Activity” page shows your history, Google Small Business community has a new home and more! There were also a number of updates on Facebook, Twitter, and Twitch for business, brands, live broadcasters, and writers. Contacting Turkey in the aftermath of the Istanbul Airport attack (mostly through July 5th) Google offering free calls to Turkey via Hangouts & emergency information Major carriers ATT, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile offer free texts and calls to Turkey Photo by me, taken on the #G+5BayArea photowalk. Check out Nina Trankova’s great Collection of Google+ 5th anniversary posts.