Weekly Update - April 13, 2019: Cloud Next, Hangout Chat & Meet, Currents

This week was Google Cloud Next ‘19, a three day conference showcasing updates and features for G Suite, Google Cloud Platform, developers, businesses, and educators. It’s both promotional - look who’s using Google Cloud! - and informational. I was particularly interested in the updates for communication and collaboration, including Google Docs, Google+, Voice, Hangouts Meet and Chat. But that’s not all - there are updates this week for YouTubers, webmasters and more.

The successor to Google+ for G Suite customers is Currents. While G Suite users will be able to access their Google+ content in Currents, it will be something new. Google+ features like public posts, Circles, Collections, and even +1s will be gone. New features will include tags, topic streams, starred posts and more. Watch the presentation “Engage Employees with Currents” for a peek at what it will look like. It will be available by the end of the year.
Hangouts Meet is rolling out automatic live captioning in English, which can be enabled by viewers. While consumer users cannot currently organize a Hangouts Meet meeting, anyone with a Google account can join.
Google is increasing the maximum number of participants in a Hangouts Meet video call to 250. Currently you can use Hangouts meet to meet with up to 25 (G Suite Basic), 50 (Business, Education) or 100 (G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Enterprise for Education) people at a time. To get a sense of where Google is heading with this, see the presentation “G Suite’s Vision and Roadmap for Smarter Meetings”.
Currently G Suite Enterprise and Enterprise for Education customers can use Hangouts Meet to live stream to 100,000 in-domain users. Google announced that “soon” live streams can be listed as “Public’ to allow up to 100,000 viewers outside your domain to watch. Note that this isn’t truly public, and doesn’t archive a copy to YouTube. However, the organizer can record the meeting to Google Drive.
G Suite users will soon be able to access Hangouts Chat in Gmail, the same way you can access classic Hangouts today. If you are a G Suite administrator you can request an invite to the Hangouts Chat Accelerated Transition Program to get started today. The Program will also let you use Hangouts Chat to collaborate with external users in Chat Rooms and 1:1 direct messages - see the Cloud Next presentation for more details. Classic Hangouts users will eventually be transitioned to Hangouts Chat, but Google has not announced when that will happen.
Google Voice - Google’s “cloud telephony” service that is integrated with Calendar, Hangouts Chat and Meet - is now available to G Suite customers in Denmark, France, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and US and will soon be available in Canada, Ireland and the Netherlands. Google Voice for consumer accounts is still only available in the US.
Your phone running Android 7.0 or higher can be your 2-step-verification security key to sign in to your Google account on a desktop computer.
Google Docs, Sheets and Slides will soon let you edit Microsoft Office files. G Suite users will also be able to use Visitor Sharing in Google Drive to allow external users with a pincode to directly edit Docs, Sheets and Slides.
Google is opening up the side panel in Gmail, Drive and Docs to third party developers. Currently that’s where consumer users can get quick access to Keep, Calendar, and Tasks.
Dropbox is now offering Google Docs, Sheets and Slides integration, letting you create and edit files right in your Dropbox account. Dropbox has confirmed that while this currently requires a G Suite account, it will eventually be available to all users with a Google Account.
Google Search Console has added a report to show your website’s traffic and performance in Google’s Discover feed. Google also has a guide with tips for optimizing your site for Discover.
Google Search is retiring the sort-by-date option, but added “before:” and “after:” search operators, making it easier to narrow the date range for the search results.
YouTube Stories now let you @mention other channels using a Mention Sticker. YouTube Stories is currently only available to eligible channels with at least 10,000 subscribers.
YouTube TV (US only) is getting more channels, including Food Network, Discovery, Animal Planet and Oprah’s OWN - yay! But the price is increasing from $40 to $50 per month - boo!
Google is considering more ways they can monetize Google Maps. “The company is betting that adding more data about places and businesses to Maps will lead people to spend more time on the service. As users expect more from Maps, Google has extra space to introduce more ads.”
Changing gears from the Googleverse, Flickr is teaming up with Pixsy to help users find and fight theft of their images. Flickr Pro members get free access to 1,000 monitored images, 10 DMCA takedown notices, and unlimited case submissions to recover lost revenue.
Facebook is once again updating its Newsfeed to reduce visibility of “low quality” content. They are using a number of criteria, including “whether a domain’s Facebook traffic is highly disproportionate to their place in the web graph” and the originality of the content. For example they are “reducing the distribution of video content that is compiled and posted from third-party content creators”, taking direct action against “web pages that have broken links, load slowly, or are otherwise difficult to us” and introducing penalties for repeat offenders. It remains to be seen if these steps result in any improvement. However, if you are using Facebook to promote your own site, it’s worth making sure what you are sharing is original and “high quality”.
And it’s the weekend! Watch the performances at Coachella live on YouTube. Tune into Coachella’s YouTube Channel on any screen (desktop, mobile or TV) and within the YouTube Music app (live streaming is a new feature there!). You can watch live performances this weekend and next, including Childish Gambino, Ariana Grande, Tame Impala, Kacey Musgraves, Billie Eilish, BLACKPINK, Juice WRLD, Kid Cudi, Wiz Khalifa, Gryffin, Maggie Rogers, Chvrches Little Zimz, and Cola Boyy.

Read on for more updates for businesses, YouTubers, webmasters and more.

Image: Photo by me, all rights reserved. "There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds." -Gilbert K. Chesterton.

Upcoming

April 12-14: YouTube live at Coachella
April 14: Deadline for the Google Podcasts Creator Program
April 23: Google Partners Academy on AIr: Best Practices for Video Campaigns
April 30: Deadline for Google Registry’s Website Competition
April 30: Deadline for Local Guides Connect Live 2019 application
April 30: Google Play Music Artist Hub shuts down

Google Cloud Next

Other Social Media

Google Photos and Photos in the Cloud

Flickr partners with Pixsy to fight image theft (Flickr)
Google Photos navigation drawer throws out Google account cover photo (Android Police)

Google for businesses

Google Local Spammy Lead Gen Listings & How they Work on the Ground (Mike Blumenthal)
Google flips the switch on its next big money maker: Maps (AdAge)

Bloggers and Webmasters

Search Console reporting for your site's Discover performance data (Google Webmasters)
The Future of Google Sites (G Suite)
Edu in 90: Innovate with Blogger (Google for Education)

AdSense and advertising

5 steps to improve ad media performance using Google Analytics (Google Marketing Platform)
Incorporating YouTube for Action into your advertising performance strategy (Google Partners Academy on Air)

Hangouts and Messaging

Live captions in Hangouts Meet (G Suite Updates)
Apply to be a part of the Hangouts Chat Accelerated Transition Program (G Suite Updates)
Google Voice for G Suite: Cloud telephony with the intelligence and security of Google Cloud (G Suite Updates)
Skype Preview: Introducing Screen Sharing on mobile (Skype)
Google Duo rolling out Data Saver feature, sacrifices video quality to limit data usage for both parties (9to5Google)

Made by Google, Android, Google Fi

See Brighter in the Dark with Pixel at Coachella (Google)
Here’s what the Android Q Beta 2 patch fixes (and breaks) (9to5Google)

Productivity

Office editing makes it easier to work with Office files in Docs, Sheets, and Slides (G Suite Updates)
Dropbox announces enterprise Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides integration (9to5Google)
Dropbox and G Suite’s new integration is more like a mind meld (Fast Company)
Slack is now easier to use with Microsoft’s Office 365 apps (The Verge)
Advanced phishing and malware protection for Gmail beta (G Suite Updates)
Get more done in less time with G Suite Add-ons beta (G Suite Updates)
Set, structure, and search metadata in Drive launching in beta (G Suite Updates)

Privacy and Security

Gmail making email more secure with MTA-STS standard (Google Security)
Use an Android phone as a security key for 2-Step Verification (G Suite Updates)
The ultimate account security is now in your pocket (Google Security)

More around the web

Comments

Jeff DiverApril 14, 2019 at 6:42 PM
As can be seen by developments related by the posts on gplusmigration.blogspot.com the principal problem with "Currents" is its failure to provide for any kind of window to the world outside the organization. With Currents, GSuite members cannot even communicate with other GSuite members! For the time being, we on GSuite are still communicating with each other using our old G+, but it is unlikely that will last much longer.
ReplyDelete
Replies
Julie StrietelmeierApril 18, 2019 at 5:56 AM
Repected Mam,

Madam, good evening madam, My name is Nikhil from India, My I have a question :
Q. My how many days it took a new domain for adsense approval?

Please madam try to reply me in your leisure time, we all miss google plus, try to give me your active social media account details.

Your admirer
Nikhil
India
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Peggy K's Creator News

Search This Blog