Weekly Update - May 4, 2019: YouTube, Hangouts Meet, Search Console

May the Fourth be with you! This week there’s updates for YouTubers, advertisers, webmasters and more. Plus there were big changes coming to Facebook and Messenger announced at this week’s F8 Facebook developer conference.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki posted her 2019 priorities: “Living up to our responsibility”, taking strong action when needed, like turning off comments on blogs featuring kids; “Supporting creator and artist success” by better explaining policies, improving the copyright claim system, making sure there are more native YouTube videos on the Trending tab, and discouraging harassment; and “Improving communication and engagement” with creators.
This week was YouTube’s Brandcast Event for advertisers, highlighting new advertising opportunities and assure advertisers their brand won’t be associated with unsuitable content.. By the numbers: viewers spend more than 250 million hours per day watching YouTube videos on TV screens, and YouTube now reaches more 18 to 49 year-olds in an average week than all cable TV networks combined.
YouTube announced new YouTube Originals which will be available for free ad-supported viewing, not just to Premium subscribers. And they touted their “Google Preferred” lineup of “Brand Suitable” creators, identified among the top 5% of creators using YouTube’s new “P-Score” algorithm (it considers how popular a channel is, how passionate its fans are, and prioritizes based on protection or brand suitability, production value and platform).Google Preferred videos are also reviewed by humans to assure they are advertiser friendly.
Alongside the Brandcast event was YouTube’s North American Creator Summit, bringing 120 of YouTube’s popular - and advertiser-friendly - creators to New York. They shared what they learned and photos of the fun.
YouTube on desktop now has a new mini version of the left menu when you resize your browser window smaller.
If you are a YouTube creator, be sure to check out the April Team YouTube Roundup, which has new info about the YouTube Partner Program application process, policy, and copyright claims. Tubefilter also has a nice profile of the @TeamYouTube team, the real live humans who respond to user questions on Twitter.
Webmasters, it’s now a bit easier to monitor how structured data is working on your site. Google Search Console has new tools, including the Unparsable Structured Data Report, which aggregates parsing issues such as structured data syntax errors that prevented Google from identifying the feature type.
Hangouts Meet is launching adaptive desktop layouts that adjust depending on the number of participants and the type of meeting. “Spotlight” mode focuses on a presentation or single speaker, “Tiled” mode lets meetings with up to four participants have everyone on screen at once, “Presentation” mode shows up to three speakers in a larger format next to a presentation, and “Side-by-side” is an improved layout for larger meetings that shows more participants and prevents the side of the screen from getting cropped out. Hangouts Meet is currently only available to G Suite users, although consumer users can join a meeting as a guest. These changes will take at least a few weeks to roll out.
As Hangouts Chat is now available to more G Suite customers, the G Suite YouTube channel has a new brief overview of Hangouts Chat features and how to upgrade your G Suite domain. G Suite users can continue to use Classic Hangouts until October of this year. At some time after that consumer users will be transitioned to Hangouts Chat as well.
AdMob and Ad Manager Publishers can now access the new App Policy Center, “a single centralized hub to review and monitor policy violations and appeals, providing publishers with greater insight into [Google’s] policy enforcement process.”
For advertisers Google will be making ads.txt-only sites the default setting for new advertising campaigns. There is also a new Brand Controls Center, allowing advertisers to more easily control where their ads appear and managing content labels, sensitive categories and keyword exclusions. If you are an AdSense Publisher, using AdSense ads on your own website, make sure you have an ads.txt file (Blogger does this for you automatically if you link AdSense to your blog). And, of course, make sure your blog complies with the AdSense content policies.
And, speaking of ads, Google parent company Alphabet released their first quarter earnings report. They reported $30.7 billion in advertising revenue - up 17% over last year, and clicks on ads were up, but the growth of paid clicks decreased (up “only” 39%(!) compared to more than 60% in previous quarters). That decrease in growth was largely attributed to changes at YouTube in “early 2018”, likely referring to implementation of stricter eligibility requirements for the YouTube Partner Program,
Google is introducing new controls that let you automatically delete your Location History, and Web & App Activity data. Instead of having to manually delete that data, you can instead choose to have it automatically delete after 3 months or 18 months. You can also just turn those off, so that Google doesn’t save that data ever. You can change your settings and view your activity in your Google Account’s Activity Controls page. The new options will be rolling out over the coming weeks.
Google updates Wear OS, adding “Tiles” to your Wear OS smartwatch: Goals, Next event, Forecast (weather), Heart rate, Headlines and Timer. You can access the Tiles by swiping.
May 7th is Google I/O. You can watch the keynote and many of the sessions live, so check out the event schedule and mark your calendar.
Finally, this week was the Facebook F8 Developer Conference. The theme was “privacy” with new features aimed at growing private communications, spaces and communication with close friends and family, rather than the public Newsfeed.

Facebook is working on a smaller, faster version of Messenger, with a new feature that lets you watch videos with friends, a “close friends and family” space, and a desktop app for Windows and Mac OS. And eventually you’ll be able to send messages between Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. All messages will be end-to-end encrypted, keeping them private.
Facebook itself is getting a complete redesign, with a more focus on Groups and Events. A new opt-in feature “Meet New Friends” will “help people start friendships with new people from their shared communities like a school, workplace or city”. And Facebook Dating has a new feature, “Secret Crush”, that lets you pick up to 9 friends you’re interested in. If one of those friends adds you as a Crush, Facebook will hook you up.
Facebook’s Portal is getting smarter, with more Alexa skills, the ability to send video messages to your friends, and the ability to get updates on birthdays and events.
Instagram is introducing donation stickers (US nonprofits) for Stories, a new camera and “Create Mode”, and the ability to shop “looks” directly from creators photos.

Read on for more updates and tips for YouTubers, webmasters, advertisers, Android device owners and more.

Image: Image by Сергей Ремизов from Pixabay.