Weekly Update - September 23, 2017: YouTube Sponsorship, Project Fi Phone, Google+ Bulk Moderation

This week there are updates and tips for YouTubers, live streamers, Google Plussers, webmasters, advertisers, photographers and much more!

• YouTube announced a new way for Creators to make money: Sponsorships. Fans can sponsor your channel for a small amount each month, and in return they get access to private chats, custom live chat badge and emoji and more. The catch? Sponsorships are currently only available to gaming channels. If you don’t have a gaming channel, you can submit an interest form .
• While YouTube said hello to Sponsorships, it bid goodbye to Paid channels and videos. Current paid channels will only be available through the end of November.
• Also this week, the YouTube Video Editor and Photo Slideshows was retired. While there are decent free video editing apps for Windows, Mac and most mobile devices, creators with Chromebooks unfortunately have few alternative options. 
• The YouTube Creator Studio app is now officially YT Studio, and has some nice new features, including post scheduling and a prominent subscriber-count card. And, speaking of subscriber counts, there is now more detailed subscriber reports in YouTube Analytics.
• Should game content owners be able to revoke permission to stream Let's Play videos? Even if you don’t care for PewDiePie’s shtick, it seems a little much for game companies to use a copyright takedown, rather than clearly stated license terms, to prevent their game from being associated with offensive content are overstepping their bounds. 
• Google+ Community Moderators can now moderate Ask-to-Join requests in bulk
• G Suite Admins can now set restrictions on what content people interact with and share on Google+.
• Google announced an affordable new phone for Project Fi, the Android One moto x4, which is only available in the United States on the Project Fi network. There is also a new trade-in program that lets your trade in your old phone for money towards a new moto x4.
• Outside the Googleverse, Facebook has been increasingly under fire for the automated advertising sales including selling political ads to a “Russian entity” and allowing ad-targeting to “Jew haters” and other offensive categories.
  In response, Facebook has agreed to provide the political ads sold to the Russian propagandists and “related information” to a US Congressional investigation. To prevent similar issues in the future, they will make political advertising more transparent and strengthen their ad review process. They also removed the offensive ad targeting option, and say they will not add new targeting options without human approval. We're not obsolete quite yet.

Help for Mexico and Puerto Rico

• Google SOS Alert for the earthquake in central Mexico
• Google SOS Alert for Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico

Image: Happy Autumn! Leaf Hydrangea paniculata in autumn. By Dominicus Johannes Bergsm(a Licence CC-BY-SA)

Upcoming:

• 27 September: YouTube NextUp applications deadline for Berlin, Moscow, Dubai, and Rio de Janiero
• 27 September: Google Top Contributors Q&A About Google My Business and Local Search
• 28 September: Google Partners Academy on Air: Dashboards to show off holiday data
• 29 September: Digital Transformation: Mobile Brand Strategy with Google Partners
• 4 October: Made by Google phone event

YouTube and Video Creation

• YouTube bid goodbye to Paid Channels and videos in favor of the new Sponsorships (YouTube)
• YouTube Studio app gets new features: schedule posts & more (YouTube Creators)
• YouTube Analytics Subscriber report update: more detailed data and categories (YouTube)
• Should game content owners be able to revoke permission to stream Let's Play videos?

Go Live

• Sponsorships are a new way to earn money with YouTube Gaming (YouTube Creators)
• Introducing Face Filters in Live (Instagram Blog)

Google+

• Google+ update for Community moderators: Bulk moderation of Ask-to-Join requests (Leo Deegan)
• Google+ G Suite update: Set restrictions on what content people interact with and share on Google+ (G Suite Updates)
• How to disable comments and reshares of your Google+ Profile Photo (Google+ Top Contributors)

Other social media

• Instagram's New Autoplay Video Settings Turn the Volume Up (AdAge)
• Introducing Face Filters in Live (Instagram Blog)
• Fun New Face Filter to Try with Friends (Instagram Blog)
• Hard Questions: More on Russian Ads (Facebook Newsroom)
• Facebook to Provide Congress With Ads Linked to Internet Research Agency (Facebook Newsroom)
• Read Mark Zuckerberg's full speech on how Facebook is fighting back against Russia's election interference (Recode)
• Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will end untraceable political ads (The Verge)
• Sheryl Sandberg called Facebook’s ad-targeting embarrassment ‘totally inappropriate and a fail on our part’ (Recode)
• Instagram uses 'I will rape you' post as Facebook ad in latest algorithm mishap (The Guardian)
• Democrats are trying to limit foreign influence on U.S. elections — beginning with Google and Facebook ads (Recode)
• New Data, New Insights: Twitter’s Latest #Transparency Report (Twitter Blog)

Google Photos and Mobile Photography

• Google Photos now lets iOS11 users back up HEIF photos and HEVC videos (Google Photos)
• Snapseed 2.18 for Android and iOS: Fresh UI, custom “Looks” filters and presets (Snapseed)

Google for businesses

• Join Google My Business Top Contributors for a Q&A (Joy Hopkins) 
• Google Partners Academy on Air: Useful tips for the holiday season - search and shopping campaigns

Bloggers and Webmasters

• Search in the new Google Sites (G Suite Updates)
• Google Webmaster Central Office Hours Hangout (September 19) (Google Webmasters)
• Google Webmaster Central Office Hours Hangout (September 22) (Google Webmasters)

AdSense and advertising

• Google Partners Academy on Air: Useful tips for the holiday season - search and shopping campaigns
• Supercharge your call-only ads with ad extensions (Inside AdWords)
• Unwanted ads on Breitbart lead to massive click fraud revelations, Uber claims (Ars Technica)

Hangouts and Messaging

• How Google went all in on video meetings: Hangouts are born (Serge Lachapelle on the Google Blog)
• Google Allo uses machine learning to make chat smarter (Fast Company Design)
• Google Snaps Up Skype Engineers After Microsoft Disbands Stockholm Office (EXCLUSIVE) (Variety)

Made by Google, Android, Project Fi

• Project Fi: a new phone - Android One moto x4 - and trade in program (Google Blog)
• Google signs agreement with hardware manufacturer HTC (Google Blog)
• Why Google is spending $1.1 billion to acquihire 2,000 HTC engineers (Vox)
• No waiting for Android system updates: manually check for an update to get a new release (Elliott Hughes)

Productivity (Email, Browsers, Maps, Search and more)

• Explore a global map of crowdsourced photos in Google Earth (Google Blog)
• Addresses, phone numbers, and contacts now converted to links in Gmail and Inbox to save users time (Google Blog)
• Gmail is rolling out a new swipe-to-archive interface and a shortcut to the My Account page (Android Police)
• Search and discover with the Google app for iOS (Google Blog)
• Stable Channel Update for Chrome OS (Chrome 60) (Chrome Releases Blog)
• Chrome for Android Update (Chrome 61) (Chrome Releases Blog
• The Chromium team is working on browsing the web in VR with a Daydream View headset (Francois Beaufort)
• Headphones optimized for the Google Assistant (Google Blog)

Privacy and Security

• Avast reckons CCleaner malware infected 2.27M users
• The CCleaner Malware Fiasco Targeted at Least 20 Specific Tech Firms (Wired)
• Someone Made a Fake Equifax site. Then Equifax Linked to It. (New York Times)
• Coinbase vulnerability is a good reminder that SMS-based 2FA can wreak havoc (TechCrunch)

More around the web

• Using a fitness app taught me the scary truth about why privacy settings are a feminist issue (Rosie Spinks @ Quartz)
• Why some buildings crumbled and others survived the Mexico City quake: A sober lesson for California (LA Times)
• 60 years ago, Francis Crick changed the logic of biology (Matthew Cobb @ PLoS)
• Snopes and the search for facts in a post-fact world (Wired)
• Introducing Tez—a mobile payments and commerce app from Google, made for India first (Google Blog)

Updated March 2019 to remove Google+ links