Weekly update - February 11, 2017: YouTube Live, Google+, and more

Love is in the air, and there were some sweet updates this week:

• YouTube mobile live streaming rolls out to all channels with at least 10000 subscribers 
• Google announced Android Wear 2.0 with Google Assistant and more 
• Google+ iOS updated with offline posting with smart retry
• You can now insert videos from Google Drive in Google Slides

Plus tips and updates for Bloggers, webmasters, AdSense publishers, YouTubers, Google+ers and more.

Image: For Valentine’s day Google+ wants to know: What Can't You Live Without? #CantLiveWithout - I choose technology :)

Upcoming

• 16 February: #AskAdSense office hours
• 16 February: Google Partners Event: Make a professional video for your business with YouTube Director Onsite
• 21 February: Google Webmasters Office Hours Hangout
• 23 February: Google Partners Livestream: Digital Transformation: Brand Solutions with Elisabet Manyosa Blasi
• 24 February: Google Webmasters Office Hours Hangout
• 28 February: YouTube Fan Funding retired

YouTube and Video Creation

• What is Super Chat? (YouTube Help)
• YouTube Discloses Glitch That Caused Subscriber Counts To Plummet This Week (Tubefilter)
• YouTube Go App, Which Lets Users Save Videos For Offline Viewing, Launches In Beta In The U.S. (Tubefilter)
• Music teams from YouTube and Google Play combine (The Verge)
• Was Your YouTube Channel Suspended for No Reason? (A Guide to Community Guidelines-related Suspensions) (longzijun)
• Find out how much traffic your videos get from Google+ (and other external sites) using YouTube Analytics (Video, Blog post)
• How many views are your videos getting NOW? Check your YouTube Analytics Realtime report 
• Vloggers and live streamers: what does your video background say about you? (The Creative Landscape of YouTube)

Go Live

• YouTube mobile live streaming rolls out to all channels with at least 10000 subscribers (YouTube Blog)
• YouTube takes on Facebook with mobile live (USA Today)
• Twitch introduces activity and interest-based Communities (Twitch.tv blog)
• Who even cares about live streaming? (ThioJoe)

Google+

• For Valentine’s day: Google+ wants to know: What Can't You Live Without? #CantLiveWithout (Google+)
• Google+ iOS update: Offline Posting with Smart Retry (Michael Wattendorf)
• Vote to get Google+ Collections posting through Buffer! (Dustin Stout)
• How to send a private message on Google+ (The Lady from UNCLE)
• Find out how much traffic your videos get from Google+ (and other external sites) using YouTube Analytics (Video, Blog post)

Other social media

• Twitter: An update on safety and stopping abuse (Twitter blog)
• Facebook is being audited because metrics are hard (The Next Web)
• Improving Enforcement and Promoting Diversity: Updates to Ads Policies and Tools (Facebook Newsroom)
• Empowering People to Help One Another Within Safety Check (Facebook Newsroom)

Google Photos and Mobile Photography

• Google Brain tech synthesizes realistic details into images while enhancing their resolution -zoom, enhance! (Ars Technica)
• Flickr turns 13! (Flickr)

Google for businesses

• Google Drops Review Star Threshold to 1 or 2 Reviews AND Stops Using Bayesian Average (Get Five Stars)

Bloggers and Webmasters

• A case study in custom development: building an #AMP proxy for a large and high traffic Blogger website (David Kutcher)
• Google Webmasters Office Hours Hangout for Latin American Webmasters (English, 8 February) (Google Webmasters)
• Google Webmasters Office Hours Hangout (10 February) (Google Webmasters)
• How to get started monetizing your blog (AdSense)

AdSense and advertising

• Is your AdSense approved, but you can't access the "My Ads" tab? (Gracey S)
• How to get started monetizing your blog (AdSense)

Hangouts and Messaging

• WhatsApp switches on two-factor verification for 1.2 billion users (The Next Web)

Nexus, Android, Project Fi

• Google announced Android Wear 2.0 - Google Assistant and more (Google Blog)
• Here is the complete list of every watch getting Android Wear 2.0 (Android Police)
• On-device machine intelligence: smart replies from your watch (Research at Google)
• Pixel's February security patch fixes audio issues (Phandroid)

Productivity

• Insert videos from Google Drive in Google Slides (G Suite Updates)
• Creating files from templates now easier in Google Drive (G Suite Updates)
• Get real time commute, transit and nearby restaurant info in the Android Google Maps app (Google Blog)

Privacy and Security

• How Gmail protects you from phishing attacks and Google prevents hackers from accessing your account (Google Blog)
• Keep your Android phone safe and secure (Android)
• WhatsApp switches on two-factor verification for 1.2 billion users (The Next Web)

More around the web

• Tech Can Do More to Help Survivors of Abuse. Here’s Where to Start (Wired, via Yonatan Zunger)
• Google Is Quietly Rebuilding Itself Offline: Developing for the developing world (Fast Company Design)
• The official Merriam-Webster dictionary GIPHY page has useful animated GIFs
• Gawker, Gamergate, and a Lesson in How Not to Do Journalism (Nilay Patel)
• A great disturbance in the force… (And inside look at the development of the IMDB message boards) (Colin M. Strickland (cms))

Updated March 2019 to remove Google+ links