- Google+ launches Topics. There are currently at least 162 topics for you to browse and discover people, Collections, and Communities that share your interests, in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
- AdSense expands policy prohibiting placing ads on pages with dangerous or derogatory content
- Getting around is getting easier. Google Maps now lets you save your parking location, get local business reviews in your own language, and has a new home screen for users in India. Plus Google Trips, the travel planning app, now lets you better manage reservations.
- Making the internet more inclusive in India: Google introduced improved translation of nine Indian languages in Google Translate and Chrome, 22 Indic languages were added to GBoard for Android, and (along with Oxford University Press) is bringing the Rajpal & Sons Hindi dictionary online.
- Now anyone can create a class using Google Classroom
- The Project Fi Travel Trolley is in more places! Share your experience on Twitter and you could win a Pixel
- Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Microsoft and Twitter announced their first quarter earnings, and the news was pretty rosy all around.
Plus tips and updates for YouTubers, webmasters, photographers, business owners, Google Plussers, and users of Maps, Chrome, Translate and much more!
Image: A Quay in the Crimea, by Konstantin Korovin (1913), public domain
Image: A Quay in the Crimea, by Konstantin Korovin (1913), public domain
Upcoming
- 2 May: YouTube Annotations editor retired
- 2 May: Google Webmaster Central Office Hours Hangout
- 3 May: AdSense Wordpress Plugin Retired
- 4 May: #AskAdSense office hours
- 5 May: Google Webmaster Central Office Hours Hangout
- 17-19 May: Google I/O 2017
- 17 May: Deadline to apply for NextUp Paris, NextUp Tokyo and NextUp Mumbai
- 19 May: Deadline to submit your video to the Best.Cover.Ever competition
- 22 May: Carrier SMS removed from Google Hangouts
- 22 May: Deadline to apply to the Google Jump Start program (360 video)
- 23 May: Google announcing the latest Analytics, DoubleClick and Ads innovations
- 26 June: Google Talk retired, replaced by Hangouts
Quarterly Reports
- Cloud produces sunny earning at Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet (New York Times)
- Alphabet beat profit estimates for its first-quarter earnings but lost more money on its ‘Other Bets’ (Recode)
- Google’s ad revenue on its “own sites” is increasing (Jan Dawson)
- Amazon blows past earnings expectations (TechCrunch)
- Microsoft's Q3 2017: cloud and Office power growth (The Verge)
- Twitter’s revenue declined for the first time last quarter, but it still managed to beat expectations across the board (Business Insider)
- Twitter's First Quarter Was Good. Instagram's Was Better. (The Motley Fool)
YouTube and Video Creation
- The YouTube Kids app is now available on select smart TVs (YouTube)
- Filmmakers: if you're interested in VR, 3D-360 video, apply for Google's Jump Start program (Google Jump Start)
- YouTube Creators in India: Apply to join the NextUp class of 2017 (Google India blog)
- Facebook updates Rights Manger so video creators can monetize unauthorized uploads (Facebook Media blog)
- How to enable monetization on your YouTube channel (video, blog post)
- How to block advertisers from your YouTube Videos (Ileane Smith on YouTube)
- How to connect your YouTube channel to Twitter (video, blog post)
- The hidden laborers training AI to keep ads off hateful YouTube videos (Wired)
- The secret lives of Google raters (Ars Technica)
- YouTube will Teach Teens To Spot Fake News, Spread Tolerance In U.K. Workshop Series (Tubefilter)
Go Live
- Both YouTube Partner and Twitch Affiliate? Be sure to read the terms (Christopher Schmidt)
- Ustream is IBM Cloud Video (Ustream Blog)
Google+
- Follow your passion: Topics on Google+ let you see people, Collections and Communities you’re interested in (Google Blog)
- CircleCount has found - and linked - 162 Topics (CircleCount)
- This month on Google+: April Edition
- Photographers: share the story of your toughest shot with #MyToughestShot on Google+ (Google+)
- If you run a Google+ Community, enable "Ask to Join" to screen new members (Paul Snedden)
Other social media
- James Comey’s Twitter Security Problem Is Your Problem, Too (Technology Review)
- News Feed FYI: New Test With Related Articles (Facebook Newsroom)
- Facebook says it will crack down on government-led misinformation campaigns (The Verge)
- Never Forget When Mark Zuckerberg Tried to Bury the Fake News Scandal (Gizmodo)
- Reddit is putting limits on subreddit customization, and users are worried (The Verge)
Google Photos and Mobile Photography
- Flickr Available In 130 New International App Stores (Flickr Blog)
- Google Photos now lets you send images to your TV using AirPlay (The Verge)
- Google Tilt Brush gets a new sharing platform & more (Nackblog)
- Experimental nighttime photography with the Nexus and Pixel phone cameras (Google Research Blog)
- Introducing the new Facebook Camera (Facebook on YouTube)
- Pixlr, the popular photo editor by Autodesk, has been sold to 123RF (Android Police)
- FaceApp apologizes for building a racist AI (TechCrunch)
Google for businesses
- Local reviews in your language, wherever you are (Google Blog)
- How not to be a stupid brand (tl;dr what could happen when your old domain expires) (The Next Web)
- One Approach to Appointments Only Scheduling (Joy Hawkins)
- Google Geo Developers Blog: Introducing structured menus in the Google My Business API (David Kutcher, Google Maps API)
Bloggers and Webmasters
- Announcing "link sharing with anyone” in Data Studio (Google Analytics)
- Our latest quality improvements for Search (Google Blog)
- Shopping for a custom domain for your blog or website? Research its history first
- Bing refines its copyright removals process (Webmaster Blog by Bing)
AdSense and advertising
- AdSense "hate speech" policy prohibits placing ads on pages with dangerous or derogatory content (AdSense, Marketingland)
Hangouts and Messaging
- Most Google Hangouts Video Call apps stopped working April 25 (but Hangouts isn't going away)
- Android Messages v2.2 cleans up the setup for solo and group messaging, allows adding new people to conversations [APK Download] (Android Police)
Nexus, Android, Project Fi
- The Project Fi Travel Trolley is in more places! Share your experience on Twitter and you could win a Pixel (Project Fi)
- Pixel and Pixel XL phones will get security updates through October 2019 (Android Police)
- Google opens up the Google Assistant to developers, shows off mocktail mixer to prove it (The Next Web)
Productivity
- Gboard for Android gets new languages and tools (Google Blog)
- Google Trips update: track, share and update reservations (Google Blog)
- Where's my car? Save your parking location in the Google Maps app (Google Blog)
- Google is fixing up Chromecast’s ‘Cast a tab’ feature and you can try the new version now (TechCrunch)
- Chrome for Android Update (Chrome Releases blog)
- Chrome is improving "Cast a tab" by “forwarding directly the video content bitstream to the Chromecast device when a video is fullscreened” (François Beaufort)
- Google Chrome 59 Gains Animated PNG Support (Android Headlines)
- Even better translations in Chrome, with one tap (Google Blog)
- Making the internet more inclusive in India (Google Blog)
- A new homescreen on Google Maps - designed for users in India (Google India Blog)
- Remember where you’ve been and what you’ve done with Your Timeline on iOS (Google Maps)
- Now anyone can create a class using Google Classroom (Google Blog)
Privacy and Security
- People are the weakest link: Spearphishing is the most boring kind of hacking, but also the most dangerous (GQ)
- Chromium Blog: Next steps toward more connection security (Chromium Blog)
More around the web
- Myanmar’s Smartphone Revolution (craigmod)
- The Surprising Benefits of Sarcasm (Scientific American)
- Facebook’s Race to Link Your Brain to a Computer Might Be Unwinnable (Wired)
- In the Wake of Fyre Festival Fiasco, Will the Effectiveness of Celebrity Influencers Take a Hit? (AdWeek)
- On the "fakeness" of nature documentaries (BoingBoing)
- Google launches Cuban operations for an internet-starved population (The Next Web)
- Amazon wants to put a camera and microphone in your bedroom (Motherboard)
- Amazon Echo Look is a voice-controlled camera for fashion tips (Engadget)
- How maps and machine learning are helping to eliminate malaria (Google LatLong blog)
- If you are in the Phoenix area, apply for the Waymo "early rider" program and help shape the future of self-driving cars" (Waymo)
- The young hackers who will shape our world deserve more than our lists (Motherboard)
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