Weekly Update: January 12, 2019: YouTube, Google+, Assistant and more

2019 has finally gotten rolling and there have been some updates rolling out. Before you ask, no, Google+ has not provided any additional information about the shutdown process, although we are starting to see its effects. And there are updates for YouTubers, webmasters, travelers, and more.

The official YouTube Help forum is now easier to get to. Just open the YouTube Help Center (support.google.com/youtube) and click the “Community” tab (support.google.com/youtube/community). Team YouTube has a list of official announcements and updates, which should be your first stop for information.
YouTube will be removing the ability to automatically share newly uploaded videos, Likes, and adds to playlists to Twitter and Google+ on January 31st. You can still share videos and playlists manually from the video watch page.
According to Google, one of the 2018 highlights for G Suite was “introducing more G Suite apps to help teams collaborate, including Hangouts Chat, an enterprise messaging app with built-in security that features threaded conversations to house your projects over time, as well as increased investment in Google+ for the enterprise.” That’s a yay for G Suite users, a sigh from us consumers who won’t see any benefits.
The official Google+ Aspire Community is now closed to new posts (announcement). Originally launched in 2015 as the Collections Community, it was rebranded in September 2018 as Aspire, with the expanded aim to provide resources for “creating and curating great content on G+.” With the shut down of Google+ in sight, the community has been reconfigured so that no new members can join and new posts from current members won’t be published. The Community will remain publicly accessible for folks to read, copy or remove their posts.
If you use Google+ sign-in on your website, there is now a developer guide for migrating your site to Google sign-in.
The official Google Webmasters blog turned off comments. It looks like they were probably using the Google+ commenting system, and rather than switching back to Blogger comments, decided to forgo having to moderate spam and off-topic comments and turned them off. They point webmasters to Twitter and the official Google Webmasters help forum.
At CES Google announced new features for Google Assistant that should improve your travel. You can now share your ETA while navigating in Google Maps via SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Hangouts, Viber, Telegram, or Android Messages. If you are flying, you will soon be able to use Assistant to check in to your flight, and save and retrieve your boarding pass. And Assistant can help you book a hotel room.
Prepare to say goodbye: over the next few months Google will be shutting down the Picasa Web Album API (including slideshows), the old desktop version of Google Contacts, Inbox, Allo, and the consumer version of Google+. This is going to be a difficult spring for some of us Googleverse diehards.
Want a refresher for the happenings over the past year? Check out my 2018 year in review.

Read on for more links, tips and updates for YouTube creators, business owners, Docs creators, Podcast listeners, Google Fi customers and more.

Image: Winter Landscape by Adrianus Haanen (1854) (Public Domain)

Made by Google, Android, Google Fi

Productivity

Embed Google Drawings files saved in Drive into Google Docs (G Suite Updates)
Pick up where you left off on Search (Google)
Google Podcasts rolling out link support, improved formatting in episode show notes (9to5Google)
GitHub Free users now get unlimited private repositories (TechCrunch)
Two new enterprise Chromebooks for cloud workers announced at CES (Chrome Enterprise)
Two new ways the Google Assistant can help with an upcoming trip (Google)
Hey Google, what's new with the Assistant at CES this year? (Google)
2018 in G Suite: A year in review (Google Cloud)

Privacy and Security

Google Public DNS now supports DNS-over-TLS (Google Security Blog)
Google Demanded That T-Mobile, Sprint Not Sell Google Fi Customers' Location Data (Motherboard)

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