Weekly Update - April 14, 2018: Google Photos, YouTube, Facebook

It’s been another long week, without many updates. What we need is some music!

• Coachella music festival is live this weekend on YouTube, with bonus features from Google Assistant and Google Home. Watch here: https://coachella.withyoutube.com/
• The new YouTube metrics - Impressions, Unique Viewers, and Click Through Rate - are rolling out to more YouTube Creators. You can see if those numbers are available for your channel in YouTube Studio Beta (studio.youtube.com) on the Analytics Discovery tab.
• Google Lens in Google Photos on Android devices can now recognize (some) dog and cat breeds. 
• Google Photos desktop backup tool will be shut down May 12th (as will the legacy Google Drive desktop sync client). The replacement is the Google Backup & Sync tool for Mac and Windows, which lets you backup both your photos to Google Photos and other files to Google Drive.
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the US Congress this week. Meanwhile Facebook is continuing to implement changes, including a reward for reports of abuse by app developers, limiting apps ability to access user data, plus they have posted an update on how they are trying to prevent the spread of “false news”. There are still many unanswered questions, and with little competition, there may be new regulations aimed at Facebook (and other social media platforms) coming.

Plus there are tips and updates for Business owners, Webmasters, AdSense Publishers, Docs and Sheets users, YouTubers and more.

Image: California poppies are in bloom. Photo by me, all rights reserved.

Upcoming:

• mid-April: updated YouTube firearms policy goes into effect
• 23 April: Google+ #CreateConnections with Lisa Watson
• 25 April: AdSense on Air: Track your AdSense Revenue
• 30 April: Application deadline for YouTube VR Creator Lab at YouTube Space LA
• 1 May:Google Webmaster Central Office hours Hangout

YouTube and Video Creation

• YouTube expanding rollout of new metrics: impressions unique viewers and click through rate (Creator Insider)
• How to publish VR180 (Google Blog)
• Announcing high-quality stitching for Jump VR video (Google Blog)
• Build better media plans on YouTube and across the web with Reach Planner (Inside AdWords)
• YouTube hack hits popular music videos, causes biggest video ever to disappear (The Verge)
• Do your video thumbnails feature “YouTube Face”? (Open Space @ SFMOMA)

Go Live

• What’s it like to moderate Twitch chat for Logan Paul? (Polygon)

Google+

• Google+ #CommunityExperts: learn about Community Moderation tools with Margaret Tompkins (Google+ Moderators Community)

Other social media

• Hello is the next generation of Orkut - connect with people who share your interests - now in Brazil and India
• Instagram introduces Focus, a new portrait mode (Instagram)
• Instagram traps data without a Download Your Information tool (TechCrunch)
• Within Facebook, a Sense of Relief Over the Zuckerberg Hearings (WIRED)
• This Facebook tool will tell you instantly if your data was harvested by Cambridge Analytica (Mashable)
• Facebook begins blocking apps from accessing user data after 90 days of non-use (TechCrunch)
• Facebook Recently Announced a Major Update to News Feed; Here’s What’s Changing (Facebook Newsroom)
• Head of Facebook Analytics Explains How News Feed Works (Facebook Newsroom)
• Machine Learning, Fact-Checkers and the Fight Against False News (Facebook Newsroom)
• Designing New Ways to Give Context to News Stories (Facebook Newsroom)
• Data Abuse Bounty: Facebook Now Rewards for Reports of Data Abuse (Facebook Newsroom)
• Twitter says it will comply with Honest Ads Act to combat Russia social media meddling (The Verge)

Google Photos and Mobile Photography

• Google Lens in Google Photos can now identify cat and dog breeds (Google Blog)
• New AR Stickers in the Android Motion Stills app

Google for businesses

• Review-Gating is Now Against the Google My Business Guidelines (Joy Hawkins)
• Google Adds Restaurants to the Book with Google Feature (Mike Blumenthal)
• Google Formally Announces New Service Menu for Local Knowledge Panel (Mike Blumenthal)
• These online volunteers fight fake reviews, ghost listings and other scams on Google Maps — and say the problem's getting worse (CNBC)

Bloggers and Webmasters

• Multiple accounts? Let your avatar be your guide (Adam @ Too Clever By Half)
• Webmaster Central Office Hours Hangout (April 13) (Google Webmasters)
• Add custom links to the navigation bar in the new Google Sites (G Suite Updates)

AdSense and advertising

• The AdSense Valuable Inventory policy limits number of ads based on both the quantity and quality of a page's content (AdSense)
• Academy on Air: Audience Solutions (Google Partners)
• Build better media plans on YouTube and across the web with Reach Planner (Inside AdWords)

Hangouts and Messaging

• Dial into Hangouts Meet from six additional markets: Dominican Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Luxembourg (G Suite Updates)
• Learn about Google Voice with Dencil Smith ( H&M show)

Made by Google, Android, Project Fi

• Google stops selling the Pixel and Pixel XL (Ars Technica)
• John Legend's "A Good Night", shot on a Pixel 2 (Google Blog)

Productivity

• Google Sheets now lets you record macros, plus more options for formatting and printing (Google Blog)
• How to extract text from a PDF or image in Google Drive (TechRepublic)
• Chrome OS features a brand new interface for touch and convertibles devices in Canary channel (Francois Beaufort)

Privacy and Security

• Adobe Patches Six Flash Player Security Bugs, Three Critical (Bleeping Computer)
• Facebook exits anti-privacy alliance it formed with Comcast and Google (Ars Technica)

More around the web

• Molly Ringwald Revisits “The Breakfast Club” in the Age of #MeToo (The New Yorker) 
• Jigsaw introduces Outline: Making it Safer to Break the News by operating a VPN (Jigsaw)

Updated March 2019 to remove Google+ links