March has arrived along with tons of updates for YouTube, messaging, webmasters and businesses. it’s also time to start saying goodbye: Allo and Inbox will be shut down this month. And while consumer Google+ won’t be shut down until April 2nd, the legacy Google+ API will shut down March 7th, which will affect Google+ widgets and features on 3rd party sites. Plus the Google-wide notification bell will also disappear. It's not going to be a happy week.
Image: It’s March and daffodils are in bloom. Spring is around the corner! Image by LoggaWiggler on Pixabay (Free for commercial use)
- If you are a developer who hasn’t yet removed all Google+ API features from your app or site, be sure to read the latest update which may “help mitigate the impact of the shutdown”.
- Casey Newton at the Verge took a look at one of the US companies that provides contractors to moderate Facebook content, and it’s not pretty. The low-paid employees routinely view traumatic images and videos, and are allowed little leeway for errors. There is high turnover, and even after someone quits (or is fired) the lingering effects of what they have seen can affect their mental health. This isn’t specific to Facebook, as Google and Twitter similarly outsource content review.
- A new live streaming dashboard is rolling out on YouTube in Studio Beta. Keep an eye out for it over the next week or so.
- YouTube has begun enforcing its policy that prohibits links to content that violate the Community Guidelines with a crackdown on links and content that promote “fake engagement”. A number of creators using Gleam (gleam.io) giveaways and sweepstakes to promote their channel had links removed from their video description and received a warning email from YouTube. In a couple of weeks YouTube will start issuing strikes for policy-violating links, so now is the time to clean up!
- Following last week’s revelations of pedophiles networking through comments on videos of children, YouTube has provided additional information about actions it is taking to protect children. More videos featuring children that are likely to attract predators will have their comments disabled, and only a limited number of channels will be able to re-enable them. YouTube will work with those channels to ensure there is sufficient comment moderation. They have also improved the automated systems that detect and remove predatory comments. Will this reassure brands that it’s safe to purchase ads again? Hopefully so.
- While there is plenty of non-family-friendly content on YouTube, this week’s outrage about the “Momo suicide challenge” being inserted in children’s videos is a viral hoax. YouTube says they haven’t actually seen any evidence of such videos, which would violate the YouTube Community Guidelines. The irony is that now news organizations and channels that hop on every trend are now actually making videos about it, and those videos are being demonetized (including those produced by mainstream media, like CNN, NBC and Fox) and may require viewers to click through a warning screen to view the content.
- Google Duo is now available on desktop. You just need to connect your Google account to your Duo account, and you can video call in Chrome, Firefox or Safari.
- TalkingHeadz interviewed Scott Johnston, responsible for the G Suite communications applications including Hangouts Meet, Hangouts Chat and Google Voice. With regards to the migration from classic Hangouts, he notes that Hangouts Meet and Chat are “a new version” and “a step forward”, and that “the transition should be very straightforward” and “it should feel like an upgrade”. If you are interested in the future of Hangouts and Voice, be sure to check it out.
- Google Assistant will be built into Messages (formerly Android Messages) to “lend a helping hand” when you need it. Google has also launched RCS Business Messaging to allow businesses to “deliver fast, branded, interactive experiences”
- Google has revamped the “Test My Site” tool to make it easier to see how well your business’s website performs on mobile devices and provide you with recommended fixes. Give it a try. (www.thinkwithgoogle.com/feature/testmysite)
- It’s now possible to set up “domain properties” in Google Search Console to see your domains as a whole, with data from http, https, www, and non-www versions of your site all together in one report. This replaces Property Sets, which will go away by the end of March.
- “All Medium paywalled stories are now free and unmetered when you’re coming from Twitter.”
- An update to improve your productivity: you can now access the sidepanel with Google Calendar, Keep, and Task in Google Drive. That side panel is now available in Drive, Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets and Slides.
- G Suite Basic, Business and Enterprise, will have improved grammar error detection and suggestions in Google Docs. G Suite for Education customers can apply for the beta program. No word on when this might be available to consumer user
- There’s a new “designed for Google Fi” phone: the Motorola moto g7. There are some great deals on the moto g7, the older moto g6, LG G7, LG V35 and Pixel 3 through Fi. If you want to give Google Fi - Google’s mobile phone service - a try, use my referral code and we can both get a $20 credit (click here).
Image: It’s March and daffodils are in bloom. Spring is around the corner! Image by LoggaWiggler on Pixabay (Free for commercial use)
Upcoming
- March: Allo shuts down
- March: Blogger switches accounts using a Google+ Profile to a Blogger profile
- Early March: Google Takeout updated so Google+ Community Owners and Moderators can download more community data:
- March 4: Google Voice removing call routing rules based on Google+ Circles
- March 4: Applications open for Local Guides Connect Live 2019
- March 7: Google+ APIs shut down. Google+ sign-in will stop working, Google+ widgets, buttons, and embedded posts will stop displaying.
- March 7: Google+ comments on sites other than Blogger removed
- March 7: All G Suite Android users will need to update to the latest version of the Google+ Android app before March 7, 2019 to continue using Google+ on mobile device.s
- March 7: Google navigation bar notification bell removed
- March 7: Google Partners Academy on Air: Drive more leads with Google Ads
- March 11: Call to action overlays removed from videos, will remain available on video ads only. Use cards or end screens to add a link to your website instead.
- March 12: Flickr deletion deadline extended to this date: any photos and videos over 1,000 on free Flickr accounts will be at risk for deletion.
- March 15: Picasa Web Albums Data API completely shut down.
YouTube and Video Creation
- New Mobile Merch Carousel, Breaking News, and YTA Tip of the Week (Creator Insider)
- From YouTube: More updates on our actions related to the safety of minors on YouTube (YouTube Creators)
- YouTube’s Response to the Momo Challenge & Character (YouTube)
- The Momo Challenge Is Not Real (Taylor Lorenz @ The Atlantic)
- YouTube is demonetizing all videos about Momo (Julia Alexander @ The Verge)
- Traditional media’s handling of Momo is far scarier than the story itself (The Next Web)
- YouTube increases enforcement of "fake engagement" links policy (YouTube)
Go Live
- A new live streaming dashboard is rolling out on YouTube in Studio Beta. (Ryan Wyatt)
- Celebrate Women’s History Month on Twitch (Twitch)
- Alpha, the geek-friendly streaming service from Nerdist and Geek & Sundry, is shutting down (TechCrunch)
- Redesigning the Discord Overlay for game streams (Discord)
Google+
- Google+ API update that "may help mitigate the impact of the shutdown for some developers" (Google+)
- Google+ Exporter bugfix release (Friends+Me)
- Google Plus Users Find a New Digital Home at MeWe (Mark Weinstein on Medium)
Other social media
- The secret lives of Facebook moderators in America (Casey Newton @ The Verge)
- Facebook’s Patreon competitor is a bad deal for creators (The Verge)
- Anti-vaxx 'mobs': doctors face harassment campaigns on Facebook (The Guardian)
- Cracking Down on the Sale of Fake Accounts, Likes and Followers (Facebook)
- Facebook sues four Chinese companies over trademark infringement (TechCrunch)
- Pinterest H2 2018 transparency report (Pinterest)
Google for businesses
- You Can Now Report Spam Businesses Direct to Google My Business (Online Ownership)
- Google My Business Updates Guidelines on Content Related to Terrorism (Sterling Sky)
- Tools to build a better mobile experience for your business: Test My Site, Business RCS messaging (Google)
- Definition & Disambiguation - the need for Schema in your Website (Confluent Forms)
Bloggers and Webmasters
- Google announces domain-wide data in Search Console (Google Webmasters)
- Google to kill off property sets within Search Console (Search Engine Land)
- All Medium paywalled stories are now free and unmetered when you’re coming from Twitter. (Ev Williams)
- Insert a Table of Contents in Google Sites (G Suite Updates)
- .dev domains are available to everyone (Google envisions websites for developers) (Google)
Hangouts and Messaging
- Google Duo is now available on desktop (Justin Uberti)
- How to export your Allo messages, photos and other media
- Google – How Suite it Is (Talking Pointz interviews Scott Johnston)
Made by Google, Android, Google Fi
- Shaping the future of mobile with Android: foldables, 5G, RCS, AR and more (Google)
- Building the Google Assistant on phones for everyone, everywhere (Google)
- Google Fi welcomes a new phone from Motorola (moto g7) (Google)
- Android can now wake you with YouTube Music or Pandora (The Verge)
Productivity
- Everyday AI: beyond spell check, how Google Docs is smart enough to correct grammar (Google Cloud)
- Why so tense? Let grammar suggestions in Google Docs help you write even better (Google Cloud)
- G Suite quick access side panel in Drive (G Suite Updates)
- Accessibility settings are now easier to access on Docs, Sheets, and Slides (G Suite Updates)
- Microsoft Excel will now let you snap a picture of a spreadsheet and import it (The Verge)
- Chrome for Android Update (Chrome 72) (Chrome Releases)
- Chrome Stable Channel Update for Desktop (Chrome 72.0) (Chrome Releases)
Privacy and Security
- Google Play Protect in 2018: New updates to keep Android users secure (Android Developers)
- Android Is Helping Kill Passwords on a Billion Devices (WIRED)
More around the web
- Facebook, Twitter, and Google still aren’t doing enough about disinformation, EU says (The Verge)
- Designing a planet-scale real-world AR platform (Niantic)
- The ‘Hidden Mechanisms’ That Help Those Born Rich to Excel in Elite Jobs (Joe Pinsker @ The Atlantic)
- China banned millions of people with poor social credit from transportation in 2018 (The Verge)
- Google’s celebration of Black History Month (Google)
- New milestones in helping prevent eye disease with Verily (Google)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMam i have got "Valuable Inventory: No content" ? Why? can you tell me please. I have 15 articles but AdSense website review said no content.
ReplyDeleteAbhsinchau: is it the blog on your Blogger profile? I tried to view it and got an error that the server IP address could not be found. The first thing you need to do is make sure the custom domain you are using works.
DeleteThen consider that the 15 articles may not be sufficient original content for AdSense. AdSense doesn't consider embedded videos as part of your content for example.
Mam its a wordpress website. I have wrote near about 18 articles. I have wrote all content in my words. That's mean its a original.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAll I can suggest is to continue to add original content for a few months, then apply again.
Delete