Peggy K's Creator News

As 2019 draws to a close, I wanted to take a look back at the top changes in the Googleverse for Creators of all sorts. My top 2019 creator updates: Shutdown of consumer (and public) Google+ Retirement of Hangouts on Air The new YouTube Studio  YouTube policy updates around harassment, violence and misinformation Tools for resolving YouTube video copyright claims  Development of a mobile-friendly Blogger Updated AdSense account interface and new ads features Google removed a number of outdated, redundant, and perhaps little-used products and features. While some will be greatly missed, products like Inbox and Allo let Google develop new features which were eventually incorporated into their more established counterparts before they were shut down. There has also been an increased focus on products aimed at businesses, from the Google+ successor  Currents , to Hangouts  Meet  and  Chat , and updates to  Google Sites  and  Voice . It probably makes some sense to design fo

2019 brought many changes for YouTube creators, from the new YouTube Studio and stricter policies, to the removal of direct messaging and the last lingering Google+-related features. YouTube truncated subscriber counts and tried (but mostly failed) to change how the verification badge was awarded. Plus lots more. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki shared three letters to creators this year, in  February ,  April , and  November . They are the best way to get a sense of YouTube's priorities: "supporting creator and artist success, improving communication and engagement, and living up to our responsibility." These are the biggest changes in 2019: The new YouTube Studio  The new Live Control Room and demise of Hangouts on Air Removal of YouTube DMs  YouTube policy updates around harassment, violence and misinformation New tools to deal with copyrigh t claims New ways for YouTube Partners to earn money Other to channel and creator features Limited features on vid

If you are an AdSense Publisher, using AdSense ads on your own website or blog, 2019 brought updates to the AdSense account pages and changes in ads. Plus AdSense content policy is now consistent with AdMob and Ad Manager policies, and it's slightly more relaxed than it used to be. Make a New Year's resolution to check your ad settings in your AdSense account and the ad code on your site to make sure your And if you get visitors to your site from California, make sure to  check your California Consumer Privacy Act settings  in your AdSense account. Simplified Ad Settings One of the major changes to AdSense this year was simplifying available ad formats, and a new push for the use of Auto Ads instead of fixed ad units. Auto Ads let you add a single bit of code to your pages, and AdSense uses machine learning-based algorithms to decide where ads should be inserted. Text-only ads and display-only ads were phased out , and replaced with a single type of Display Ads. Th

Blogger turned 20 this year . While blogs may seem so last decade, Blogger has  outlived Google+ , and is getting a much needed mobile-friendly interface update.  And FeedBurner, currently used to manage Blogger's email subscriptions, has been updated with the removal of some outdated features. It's very nice to see updates, even if they are minor ones. There have also been a number of Google webmaster updates, including retirement of the old Search Console .  Blogger and the shutdown of Google+ While Blogger and Google+ were separate platforms, many Blogger blogs used Google+ features, such as Google+ comments and a  Google+ Profile  as their author profile. Those were default options for some time, so many users may have had those Google+ features enabled, even if they didn't use Google+ itself as a social media site. With the shutdown of consumer Google+ scheduled for April, many users were taken by surprise when it was announced Googl

In 2016 my review of the state of Google's messaging was subtitled " Yes, still Hangouts ".  And so I'm a bit surprised to be saying, once again, yes, still classic Hangouts. Hangouts was originally Google's all-in-one messaging app. It had video calling, text chatting and  SMS text messaging. Now it's a perennial joke that Google seems to spawn new messaging apps every year. But that's a bit tired as Google has clarified its messaging strategy . Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat are video calling and text conversations aimed at businesses. Like classic Hangouts, these are linked to your Google account (currently G Suite only).  Classic Hangouts will be around until consumer users are migrated to Meet and Chat. Duo and Messages are video calling and text conversation for consumer users. They are linked to your phone number and designed for use on mobile, even though they can be accessed in a  web browser. Ah, but, what about in-product chats? G