Weekly Update - March 11, 2017: Google+, Hangouts, Google Cloud

This week was Google Cloud Next ‘17, with presentations and announcements for both Google Cloud Platform and G Suite. While the focus is on updates for businesses, many of the updates will apply to us regular consumers as well.

Check out 100 Announcements from Google Cloud Next ‘17 and Powering enterprise productivity and secure collaboration with major updates to G suite.

My top updates this week:

• Introducing the new Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat
• Transforming company culture with Google+ for G Suite: 2017 Road map
• Google+ gets a new notification bell
• Google+ Create Turns One
• YouTube Community Contributions lets viewers help translate your video titles and descriptions

And a bonus for college basketball fans:

• March Madness 2017 in Google Sheets!

Plus updates and tips for YouTube, Google+, GBoard, Google Photos, Webmasters and more.

Image: March Hares: Rabbits on a Log by Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait (1897) (Public Domain)

Upcoming

• 14 March: AdSense livestream: Grow your online business in Latin America (Spanish)
• 14 March: AdSense livestream: Grow your online business in Brazil (Portuguese)
• 15 March: #AskAdSense office hours
• 17 March: Local Guides: Deadline to Reach Level 4 to qualify for 100 GB free storage
• 17 March: YouTube Works for Brands entries close
• 28 March: Google+ Collections 101 panel
• 30 March: Google Partners Livestream: Digital Transformation: Audience with Tadej Udovic 
• 31 March: Google Map Maker closing

YouTube and Video Creation

• YouTube Community Contributions lets viewers help translate your video titles and descriptions (YouTube)
• Improved YouTube subscriber count display on Channel and Watch pages (YouTube)
• Google can now recognize objects in videos using machine learning (Google Cloud Platform blog)
• Vimeo launches 360 video: easy upload, offline viewing, option to sell and more (Vimeo Blog)
• Introducing Facebook 360 for Gear VR (Facebook Newsroom)

Go Live

• Reminder: Firefox 52 temporarily won't support Hangout video calls or Hangouts on Air (G Suite Updates)
• Introducing Collections: all your best videos in one spot (Twitch blog)
• Never miss a moment with new Notifications (Twitch blog)

Google+ and Spaces

• New Google notifications rolled out on Google+, without Mr. Jingles (Mike Blumenthal, Robert Wallis)
• Transforming company culture with Google+ for G Suite (Danielle Buckley)
• Google+ iOS update: Native Community Moderation (Michael Wattendorf)
• How to block a person or page on Google+ (video)
• Happy Birthday Create! (Google+)
• My year in Google+ Create (Nina Trankova)
• Happy Birthday Create! (Carter Gibson)

Other social media

• Twitter adds Analytics to Moments to reassure publishers it's no waste of time (The Next Web)
• New Geostickers in Instagram Stories for New York City and Jakarta (Instagram)
• Introducing (SnapChat-like) Messenger Day (Facebook Newsroom)

Google Photos and Mobile Photography

• How to block someone in Google Photos (video) 
• Snapseed 2.16 update: Sharable Looks; Structure in Selective Adjust; and more (Snapseed)
• Introducing Similarity Search (Flickr Blog)

Google for businesses

• Moderation of Business Listing Changes Now Available to Level 5 Local Guides (Mike Blumenthal)
• Businesses: make sure your promotional materials are up to date 

Bloggers and Webmasters

• Webmaster Central Office Hours (March 11) (Google Webmasters)
• Google launches invisible reCAPTCHA (Google Developers)
• Test your website with Google - is it mobile friendly?
• Wordpress.com for Google Docs makes it easy to collaborate on blog posts (Wordpress.com blog)

AdSense and advertising

• Google Partners Academy on Air: Trueview ads for beginners (Google Partners on YouTube)

Hangouts and Messaging

• The new Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet offer new ways for business teams to work together 
• Meet the new Hangouts (Google Blog)
• The future of Google's Allo, Duo and Hangouts (Amit Fulay)
• How to block someone in Google Hangouts (Video)
• Building a video conferencing culture at Google with Hangouts and Chromebox (Serge Lachapelle)
• Introducing (SnapChat-like) Messenger Day (Facebook Newsroom)

Nexus, Android, Project Fi

• Gboard for Android update with new features (Google Blog)
• Project Fi update: Android N + March Security update rolling out to Nexus 6 (Project Fi forum)

Productivity

• Powering enterprise productivity and secure collaboration with major updates to G Suite (Google Blog)
• Quick Access in Google Drive: Using Machine Learning to Save You Time (Research at Google)
• Google Drive updates: Team drives, quick access, and taking up less space on your computer (The Verge)
• Introducing new, enterprise-ready tools for Google Drive (Google Blog)
• Higher quality neural translations for a bunch more languages (Google Blog)
• Google Play turned 5 today! Happy Birthday! (Google Blog)
• 5 Cool Google Search tips (Nat and Lo)
• Yahoo launches "Captain" personal assistant that works via SMS, not an app (Yahoo Blog)

Privacy and Security

• Bolstering security across Google Cloud (Google Blog)
• Yahoo confirms 32M accounts hacked as CEO forfeits annual bonus in apology (The Next Web)

More around the web

• Google’s “One True Answer” problem — when featured snippets go bad (Search Engine Land)
• Google’s Algorithms May Feed You Fake News and Opinion as Fact (MIT Technology Review)
• My Life As A Secret Tumblr Star (@kaludiasays)
• Every NYT front page since 1852: The rise of the front page photo (The Verge)
• What Minority Report computers would really be like (College Humor)

Updated March 2019 to remove Google+ links