This week is all about video, with YouTube updates, VidCon announcements and live streaming discussions. Did you know all the hip youth are on TikTok now? I feel old just writing that.
- I’ve started trying out services that might replace Hangouts on Air, which will be going away sometime later this year. If you want to see the tests live and join the chat, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and enable notifications!
- And I’m not the only one interested in live streaming platforms, StreamYard co-founder Geige Vandentop joined Michael Daniels and Heather Kraafter on the Tinkering with Tech show.
- YouTube announced changes that make it easier for creators to resolve manual Content ID claims. Claimants will now have to include timestamps with their claim, so that creators can more easily dispute the claim (if it’s incorrect) or edit the video. Editing the video to remove the claimed content now releases the claim. And to that end, YouTube has made it easier to either mute or replace claimed audio with music from the YouTube Audio Library or trim out the claimed content.
- This week at VidCon YouTube’s Neal Mohan talked about YouTube’s community and monetization features and announced several updates. “Learning Playlists” is a new option for organizing content that lets you divide a collection of videos into Chapters. Those videos will not show recommendations so as not to distract learners from the lessons. That is currently only available to a handful of channels. Also updated: Channel Memberships can now include member-only videos and have up to five different funding levels, new merch partners, and YouTube Giving - easy fundraising for US non-profits - is out of beta. Note that most new features are limited to channels in the YuTube Partner Program with 10,000 or more subscribers.
- Adobe is teaming up with YouTube Space to provide software tools like Premiere Pro, Photoshop and After Effects, along with learning programs and mentorships. If there is a YouTube Space near you - and your channel is eligible - check out the schedule of upcoming events and classes.
- Pinterest released new tools for video creators and businesses, including an updated video uploader, a new video tab on business profiles, video analytics for businesses and a new Pin Scheduler tool.
- Amazon and YouTube have started to play nice. You can stream Amazon Prime Video to your Chromecast, and there’s now a YouTube app on Amazon’s Fire TV.
- As of July 10th, G Suite for Education accounts no longer support Brand Accounts for YouTube (or anything else), unless the G Suite admin set up an extension. For G Suite for Education users who did not transfer Primary Ownership of their Brand Account to a consumer account or other sort of G Suite account, the Brand Account and its YouTube channel has been suspended. If the user is older than 18 AND is not a primary or secondary (K-12) student, their G Suite admin can still request an extension until July 2020. For students that unfortunately means their affected Brand Account YouTube channels will be deleted starting November 15.
- Messages - Google’s SMS, MMS, & RCS app for Android phones - now has an open beta program. If you want to test new features and provide feedback, sign up today! A word of caution, though, that beta versions of apps can be glitchy. The first beta version after the program announcement crashed when people tried to open it, and Google had to quickly roll out an update to fix it.
- There are improvements to Google Voice will make it easier to place calls on desktop. Those changes will be rolling out through August. Note that currently Google Voice is currently only available in the US.
- Mac users need to make sure their Zoom video conferencing software has been updated. Security researcher Jonathan Leitschuh revealed a vulnerability in the Zoom Mac software that allows malicious websites to turn on your camera without your permission. This also affects RingCentral, which is Zoom under the hood. Zoom also installed a hidden web server(!) that was not removed even when the Zoom software was uninstalled. After initially down-playing the issue (it’s actually a feature!), Zoom released an update on Tuesday, and will address the “video on by default” setting in a release on July 13th. Apple also released a silent update to remove the hidden web server automatically.
- If you have more than one Google Account, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides will start showing a message indicating which of your accounts you are signed into. There will be a button to quickly switch accounts if you need to. No more creating a document with the wrong account!
- If you need to share large files, Dropbox’s new Dropbox Transfer may be what you’re looking for. You can send up to 100GB of files in each transfer, and recipients don’t need to have a Dropbox account. And you can customize the download page for your business or brand. Unfortunately it’s not widely available; you’ll need to join a waitlist to get access to the beta version.
- Dark mode is rolling out to Google Keep on desktop. I’m a fan!
- Google Translate’s instant camera translation has added 60 supported languages, can automatically detect the language and has improved translations powered by Neural Machine Translation technology.
- This week Google Photos stopped syncing with Google Drive. That means images you upload to Google Photos will no longer automatically appear in Google Drive, and there is no option to automatically view images uploaded to Drive in Photos. There is an option to upload selected photos from Drive to Photos, but it could count against your total storage limit in both places. Get all the details here.
- Are you ready for a new social network from Google? Shoebox is a “hyperlocal network for people who want to find others to join them in activities like sports and attending shows” . Currently it’s invite-only and only available in New York City.
- As an experiment, I’ve created a playlist of the videos I suggest in my weekly roundup link list. You can click the save playlist link
to save the playlist to your own YouTube account. I plan to add the latest videos each week. If you like it, let me know!
Read on for more updates and tips for video creators, business owners, webmasters and more.
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Image: Los Angeles by David Mark from Pixabay
Subscribe to get the Weekly Update in your email inbox or favorite feed reader.
Image: Los Angeles by David Mark from Pixabay
Upcoming
- July 15: Deadline to apply for Artist + Machine Intelligence Grant
- July 15: Deadline to apply for the Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge
- July 17: Women of Publishing Webinar: Content and Audience Strategy
- July 18: Deadline to apply for YouTube NextUp Tokyo
- July 31: Feedburner users can no longer add new domains to MyBrand service
- July 31: Women of Publishing Webinar: Using data to drive growth
YouTube and Video Creation
- YouTube makes it easier for Creators to resolve manual Content ID claims
- More information and better tools to resolve manual Content ID claims (YouTube Creators)
- YouTube VidCon announcements: Learning Playlists, Merch Options and More
- Live from VidCon: Creating new opportunities for creators (YouTube)
- YouTube’s Cleanup Efforts Are Driving Business Opportunities for Creators, Says Product Chief Neal Mohan (Variety)
- Adobe Unleashes Creativity for Creators (Adobe)
- NEW FEATURES ALERT! Improvements to Manual Claiming!! (Creator Insider)
- What YouTube’s Content ID Changes Mean (Plagiarism Today)
- Newsflash Appetizer! Policy Resources for Creators and Studio Beta Updates! (Creator Insider)
- G Suite for Education users: brand accounts no longer supported after July 10th without an extension
- How to improve your YouTube recommendations and search results (Team YouTube)
- YouTube ‘Blocks’ Popular MP3 Stream-Ripping Sites (Torrentfreak)
- Prime Video is on Chromecast and Android TV, plus YouTube on Fire TV (Google)
- TikTok Stars Are Preparing to Take Over the Internet (The Atlantic)
Go Live
- Tinkering with Tech StreamYard Live guest Geige (Michael Daniels)
Social Media: Facebook and Instagram
- 'It's very buggy': Facebook's Creator Studio continues to aggravate publishers (Digiday)
- How Facebook is wooing video creators as a reliable source of revnue (Digiday)
- Facebook’s $5 billion FTC fine is an embarrassing joke (The Verge)
- Understand Why You’re Seeing Certain Ads and How You Can Adjust Your Ad Experience (Facebook)
- ‘Hard to justify investing resources': Publishers still cautious on IGTV efforts with lack of ads (Digiday)
- Instagram will test a feature that allows users to shadow ban their bullies (The Verge)
Social Media: Twitter
Other Social Media
- Hank Green’s Internet Creators Guild To Shutter, Citing No “Path To Financial Stability” (TubeFilter)
- More ways to discover inspiring video on Pinterest (Pinterest)
- Google's taking another crack at building a social network (The Next Web)
- How the biggest decentralized social network (Mastodon) is dealing with its Nazi problem(The Verge)
Google for Businesses
- New Google Shopping program enables customer photos to show with their product reviews (Search Engine Land)
- How Long Will Google’s “Calculative PR” Playbook Work in Local Search? (Street Fight)
Bloggers and Webmasters
- Google Launching #AskGoogleWebmasters YouTube Video Series (Search Engine Roundtable)
- English Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout IRL From Zurich (Google Webmasters)
- English Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout (July 9) (Google Webmasters)
- Google Drops Bing Discover, Google Plays A Joke On Joke Sites, Mega Menus, Google Ads, Vlogs & More (rustybrick/Search Engine Roundtable)
AdSense and Advertising
- Capture the attention of sports fans with Display & Video 360 (Google Marketing Platform)
Hangouts, Meetings and Messaging
- Join the Messages Open Beta Program! (Android Messages)
- Making Google Voice easier to use on your computer (G Suite Updates)
- Revamped Google Voice web interface offers quick access to calls and settings (Android Police)
- Microsoft Teams is now officially bigger than Slack (Ars Technica)
Made by Google, Android, Google Fi
- Android Q Beta 5 Update (Android Developers)
- Google contractors are secretly listening to your Assistant recordings (The Next Web)
- Google: More information about our processes to safeguard speech data (Google)
- Nest kills smartwatch apps for Wear OS and Apple Watch (9to5Google)
Productivity
- Google declutters its news tab on desktop search pages with a fresh look (The Next Web)
- Improving active account awareness when opening files with multiple sign-ins (G Suite Updates)
- Remove or select a custom color for chart borders in Google Sheets (G Suite Updates)
- Dark mode now available for Google Keep on web (G Suite Updates)
- Quickly send large files to anyone with Dropbox Transfer (Dropbox)
- Google Translate’s instant camera translation gets an upgrade (Google)
- Bing Maps releases new “Bird’s Eye” Imagery (Bing)
Privacy and Security
- Zoom Zero Day: 4+ Million Webcams & maybe an RCE? Just get them to visit your website! (Jonathan Leitschuh)
- Security Update and Our Ongoing Efforts (Zoom)
- Apple is silently removing Zoom’s web server software from Macs (The Verge)
Wow!! That was a lot, Peggy! All interesting and important information so thanks a bunch for the summary and links. Well done. I must admit, my favorite was the article about TikTok. Makes YouTube seem like the much older generation who doesn't get it.
ReplyDeleteI think it will be really interesting to see what happens with TikTok "stars". Apparently a lot of the old Vine stars moved over to YouTube eventually, in part because of the monetization options. But right now it seems like TikTok folks are a fun group, willing to interact directly with their fans, which is neat..
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