Peggy K's Creator News

Google Allo was  launched to great fanfare at Google I/O in May 2016 .  Less than 3 years later, it's scheduled for a shutdown, and  will only work through March 12, 2019 . Until it's shut down you can download your Allo chats and shared images and files. Notably, because you don't sign in to Allo with your Google account, you cannot download your Allo data using Google Takeout . You must download the data from inside the Allo app. To download your content: Open Allo on your Android phone (it needs to be the latest version) Tap the 3 line menu icon at top left and select "Settings" Tap "Chat" Select which data you want to export: Export messages from chats: This only includes message text, not photos or videos.  Export stored media from chats: This includes photos, videos, and other files.  Choose where you want to send the exported file   You can select Dropbox, Google Drive or other cloud storage app on your phone Your mess

YouTube prohibits using or promoting services that artificially inflate subscriber count, views or other engagement metrics. They may enforce that policy by removing links from video descriptions, removing videos and issuing Community Guidelines strikes. This week a number of creators received warnings that they had violated the policy and links were being removed. What is "fake engagement" ? It's the opposite of "legitimate engagement": We consider engagement to be legitimate when a human user’s primary intent is to interact with content free of coercion or deception. And YouTube's "Spam, Deceptive Practices, and Scams" policy prohibits "Incentivization Spam": Content that sells engagement metrics such as views, likes, comments, or any other metric on YouTube. This also includes content where the only purpose is to boost subscribers, views, or other metrics (e.g., “sub4sub” content). It also has always been the case that yo

This week YouTube made major updates in how they enforce policy, there are new tools for merchants to get their products seen on Google, and more. In personal news, my YouTube channel is finally back in the YouTube Partner Program. It lost monetization just over a year ago, because my channel didn’t meet the new watch time requirements. Thank you all for watching! YouTube announced a total revision of how Community Guidelines strikes are enforced , with an initial one-time warning. After that, the first strike results in a 7-day freeze in posting content, the second strike within 90 days a 14 day freeze, and a third strike within 90 days, channel termination. Under the current system, a single strike causes live streaming to be restricted for 90 days. Under the new system live streaming will be restricted for the shorter period. The new system goes into effect on February 25 .  In response to reports that pedophiles were networking in the comments of videos featuring children, Y

This week YouTube Partners expressed fears of a new "adpocalypse", with advertisers were pausing their spending on reports of a  "softcore pedophilia ring" organized through comments on videos featuring children posing, doing gymnastics and yoga and just playing.  YouTube has quickly responded by disabling comments and limiting monetization of potentially affected videos. YouTube has temporarily disabled comments on "tens of millions of videos that may include minors".  Also monetization may be limited . Videos that include minors and might be at risk for predatory comments may not be considered advertiser-friendly and show the yellow $ icon    indicating that it will receive l imited or no ads. If this affects one or more of your videos, it does not mean you have done anything wrong.  This is what YouTube recommends: If your video features minors, consider keeping comments turned off.  If you do re-enable comments, you should not

YouTube has introduced a simpler Community Guidelines strike system with more consistent penalties and more informative notifications. Under the old system, a single Community Guidelines strike could cause your channel to lose live streaming privileges for 90 days, but it would take two strikes to lose the ability to upload videos, and then for only two weeks. That is confusing and always felt a bit unfair. Update August 30, 2023: Community Guidelines warnings are no longer permanent! Learn how to remove a warning by going through policy training . There are no changes to how strikes work. Starting February 25th, here's how the new system will work: The first time your channel violates the Community Guidelines, the content will be removed, and you will get a warning . This is a one time thing - it's one warning ever. After that, the first strike will result in a 7-day freeze on uploading any content to YouTube, including live streaming. You will also be unable to create

I hope you all had a lovely Valentine’s/Galentine’s/Palentine’s day! This week we lost some old features in Hangouts and Contacts, got more clarifications about the Google+ shutdown, and some new features for Gmail and Google Assistant. Mr. Jingles Valentine posted February 14, 2014 on Google+ ( link to post ). The old Google Contacts interface was retired. This was announced for G Suite accounts last November , but there wasn’t any obvious announcement for consumer accounts. For us Plussers it makes a difference because the new Google Contacts interface doesn’t let you view your Google+ Circles. It’s still not clear how best to save that information.  Conversation notification settings in the classic Hangouts Android app are being simplified . On Android O or higher devices, customized ring tones and chat messaging tones per conversation or contact will be removed and default to the general app notification tone settings.  Small update on YouTube for Creators : based on u

Mid-February feels like the heart of winter. It’s been wet and cold even here in sunny California. And online, the sunset of consumer Google+ is finally in full swing. It’s not all gloom though, read on for updates to YouTube, Android and more. The shutdown of consumer Google+ took its first big steps this week: The ability to create a new Google+ Profile or Google+ Page was disabled Google+ Comments, badges and buttons were removed from Blogger blogs Also at some point in February, YouTube will remove its few remaining Google+ features. The Google desktop navigation bar notification bell widget will disappear on March 7th. This is currently only used for Google+, Google Photos and Hangouts Chat (for G Suite) notifications. The alternative is to use browser notifications instead. Rarely used Google Groups settings will be removed in May 2019 and other settings will be updated. If you are using Google Groups, be sure to check the details about what’s changing . Faceboo

The notification bell on the desktop Google navigation bar will disappear on March 7th. You can switch to browser notifications for Google Photos, Hangouts Chat, and Google+ for G Suite.  You will see a message with a Learn More link when you click the notification bell starting today. The notification bell on the Google navigation bar first appeared in 2011, allowing you to access your Google+ notifications anywhere you are signed in to Google. As Google+ was integrated with other Google products, you could get your notifications for Google+ comments on Blogger and YouTube and for activity on your Photos. Peak Google+ integration was in 2013. In 2015, as Google+ split away from other Google products, the notification bell was updated so that Google+, Google Photos and YouTube notifications could be managed separately. And in 2017, shortly after the shutdown of Classic Google+, the notifications under the bell got a redesign, and Mr. Jingles - the Google+ notifications

We now have a timeline for the shutdown of consumer Google+ and it’s happening fast. Be sure to see all the links under the Google+ heading below for the latest information, tips and tutorials . And, of course, that’s not all. Read on! This week Google finally provided a timeline for the shutdown of consumer Google+ there will be changes as early as next week. Full shutdown will be on April 2nd, with the deletion of all consumer Google+ Profiles, all Google+ Pages, and their posts and Google+ photos. Photos in Google Photos will NOT be deleted and other Google products like Gmail and YouTube will not be affected.  Blogger announced they will be switching blogs with Google+ comments to Blogger comments (which removes the Google+ comments), and removing Google+ widgets and buttons from blog Layouts on Monday, February 4th. In March, all accounts using a Google+ Profile will be switched to a Blogger profile.  YouTube removed the option to automatically share videos, likes and pl

With the  shutdown of Google+ on the near horizon , YouTube has announced the last few Google+-related features will be removed in February 2019.  While  YouTube's breakup from Google+  was mostly complete by 2016, there were a few remaining Google+-dependent features. Google+ Circles will be removed from private video shares The option to update your channel icon and cover art in the YouTube Mobile app will be removed Links to Google+ profiles and pages on your channel's About tab and header will be removed Pre-September 2016 versions of the YouTube mobile app will no longer be able to read or post comments What will NOT change: Your YouTube channel, your videos, comments and playlists will NOT be deleted Your YouTube channel's Brand Account will NOT be deleted Your verification badge from Google+ will NOT be removed See the FAQ in the official YouTube Help Forum for details . Watch the video for a quick overview.  Related posts about the Google