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Weekly Update - March 25, 2017: Blogger, Ads on YouTube, Hangouts and more

Lots new in the Googleverse this week!
  • Blogger introduced 4 new modern template themes. I used the Notable theme to give this blog a new look. If you want to give one of them a try, it’s easy to switch!
  • Google continued to be under fire from advertisers whose ads appeared with “extremist” content. Despite assurances from Google and YouTube that practices would be improved, big advertisers in the UK and US pulled millions of advertising dollars. And it’s not clear how much the changes will affect Creators.
  • Google continues to refine its messaging strategy. SMS will be removed from Google Hangouts (except for Google Voice and Project Fi) and Google Talk will finally be completely retired. 
  • Google Photo was updated for faster backup and sharing, especially when you have a poor internet connection 
  • Snapseed got some nice new features, including Double Exposure and Face Pose
  • Real-time location sharing is coming back to Google Maps.
Plus there are tips and updates for Webmasters, Live Streamers, YouTubers, and Google Voice, Gmail, Maps and more.

Image: Spring has sprung! Curved spring by Ingo Dierking on Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Upcoming

YouTube and Video Creation

Go Live

  • Tips for live broadcasting from Facebook (but applicable to everyone)
  • Facebook now lets you go live from your desktop computer (Facebook Newsroom)
  • Instagram update: Save Your Live Video to Your Phone (Instagram blog)
  • Twitch ads “auto” video quality option (Twitter blog)

Google+

  • Google+ features in Gmail to be retired (G Suite Updates)
  • Google+ wants help identifying the best Collections and Communities to feature (Carter Gibson)
  • More organizations and celebrities can now post directly to the Google Search results (Google Blog, TechCrunch)

Other social media

Google Photos and Mobile Photography

  • Google Photos update: Faster backup and sharing, no matter the connection (Google Brazil blog)
  • Snapseed 2.17 update with new tools: Double Exposure, Face Pose, Expand (SnapSeed)
  • How Gcam started in Google Glass, and now powers the Pixel camera (X, the moonshot factory)

Google for businesses

  • Google is automating business listings ownership conflict resolution (Google My Business, Mike Blumenthal)
  • Google deriving information in your website to designate content in unique ways for Google My Business / Google Local data (David Kutcher)

Bloggers and Webmasters

AdSense and advertising

Hangouts and Messaging

  • Hangouts will no longer support SMS, except for Google Voice and Project Fi (G Suite Updates blog)
  • Gmail lab to listen to Google Voice or Project Fi voicemail in Gmail will be retired after April 24th (Scott Greenstone)
  • Google Duo audio calling, Google Allo File Sharing and Smart Smiley in Brazilian Portuguese (Google Brazil blog)
  • Introducing Message Reactions and Mentions for Messenger (Facebook Newsroom)

Nexus, Android, Project Fi

Productivity

Privacy and Security

  • Google takes Symantec to the woodshed for mis-issuing 30,000 HTTPS certs (Ars Technica)
  • Senate votes to let ISPs sell your Web browsing history to advertisers (Ars Technica)
  • Thousands of Compromised Joomla Websites Leading to Fake Flash Player Update Sites. (Malware Breakdown)
  • A new kind of malware forces users to say they like it (Technology Review, John Skeats)

More around the web

Updated March 2019 to remove links to Google+

Comments

  1. Moreover,my two adsense accounts and YouTube channels are suspended with more than $86 earnings in them.

    This all happened after these new changes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. As far as I know changes haven't gone into effect yet. And, in any case, they are mostly just stronger enforcement of existing policies around advertiser friendly content - they aren't about spam or invalid activity policies. You can try submitting an appeal, but do first try to figure out why exactly your accounts were disabled.

    ReplyDelete

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Spam and personal attacks are not allowed. Any comment may be removed at my own discretion ~ Peggy