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Showing posts from June, 2017

Weekly Update - June 24, 2017: VidCon, Google+ Sharing, Google Posts

Happy summer! VidCon US was this week, and YouTube had a big presence, including a live show with YouTube stars, and a Keynote address from CEO Susan Wojcicki hosted by Rhett and Link . There were some stats - 1.5 billion logged in viewers visit YouTube every month, and viewers spend over an hour a day watching YouTube just on mobile devices. And, of course, there were announcements: a new VR180 video forma t for virtual reality, mobile sharing rolling out to more countries, improvements to the YouTube mobile apps , 12 new YouTube Red shows and 10 new YouTube TV markets , and more. See the full list of VidCon links below. Also this week: Google explained four ways it's fighting terrorism online YouTube Trusted Flaggers, better automated detection, content warnings, and counter-radicalization content   The Google+ share button on desktop now just reshares to Google+. That means fewer clicks if you just want to share on Google+, but it’s a but harder to share to T

Weekly Update - June 17, 2017: YouTube VR, Local Guides, Father's Day

Sunday is Father’s Day in the United States and many other countries. You can use Google Photos to make a Father’s Day movie for the special dad in your life. (And you can still make a Mother’s Day movie too). Plus Facebook is offering special Father’s Day cards and Instagram has Father’s Day stickers . My top updates this week: YouTube Analytics now offers VR heatmaps so you can see where people were looking at your 360-degree and VR videos. And if you want to give VR video making a try, YouTube Space LA is taking applications for VR Creator Lab The Google Local Guides program totally changed the achievement levels and now offers more ways to contribute. If you are a Local Guide, check your current points (and perks) in the Google Maps app or a desktop computer . If you are a gamer, I’m sure you know this week the Electronic Entertainment Expo AKA E3. YouTube was Live at E3, as was Twitch . Check out all the announcements on the official E3  site . If you are a small busi

How to Manage Google+ Comments on your Blogger Blog

Blogger will switch all blogs using Google+ Comments to Blogger Comments on February 4, 2019 as part of the shutdown of Google+. Learn more . Blogger offers two different comment systems for your blog. You can use the Blogger comment system, or you can use the Google+ comment system.  They function significantly differently, so it's good to understand what the differences are before you start getting comments on your blog. I'm using the Blogger Comment system here, because I expect a significant percentage of my readers will not be active Google+ users. Here's my suggestion: Use  Google+ Comments  if you expect most of your readers to have a Google+ Profile and you are not concerned about comment moderation. Use Blogger Comments  if you want to allow anonymous posting, or comments from people without a Google+ Profile and you want a variety of comment moderation options. How do Blogger comments and Google+ comments compare? . Blogger Comments G

Weekly Update - June 10, 2017: Apple WWDC, Google Posts, YouTube Adpocalypse

The Googleverse was fairly quiet this week, but there are still plenty of updates: This week was the annual Apple WWDC , so there are some fruit-flavored goodies. Despite Apple choosing to limit live stream viewership by using their proprietary live streaming technology that doesn’t support Chrome, Android or really anything other than Mac/iOS and the latest version of Windows,  you can watch the recording of the keynote on YouTube  (not that I was annoyed or anything).  Last week was goodbye Google+, this week  Google Posts is  part of Google My Business. Beyond the ability to create a post, Google+ and Google Posts are different beasts. But it remains to be seen if business owners embrace Google's latest posting option any more than they embraced Google+. The YouTube “Adpocalypse” is ongoing : advertisers in the UK apparently have pulled their ad buys. Sometimes little changes make a big difference: Google+ says goodbye to the red top bar Plus there are tips and update

Weekly Update - June 3, 2017: YouTube, AdSense, Better Ad Standards, Google+

New this week: YouTube is rolling out updated Android and iOS apps, with improved navigation and organization. YouTube Partners should pay attention to YouTube’s latest update to the advertiser-friendly content policies . There is also a free YouTube Creator Academy course to help make sure you know and understand those policies. If you want to take your Google+ Collections to the next level, apply to the new Collections mentorship program AdSense introduced page level enforcements and a new Policy center Google introduced Funding Choices, which lets site visitors pay for an ad-free experience. That is part of Google’s support of Better Ad Standards . Publishers and websites should take heed: Chrome will be updated to stop showing ads on sites that don’t comply with those standards. Try the new Ad Experience Report to see how your website fares. Google is using machine learning to block phishing attempts in Gmail and to automatically build charts in Google Sheets Plus ther