Peggy K's Creator News

Monday is Labor Day in the US, the unofficial end of summer. Pack away your swimsuit, put on a sweater, and dig in to this week’s updates and tips. There is news for YouTubers, AdSense Publishers and more. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki posted her quarterly update for creators , with a discussion of how YouTube tries to balance “openness” with protecting the YouTube community. She argues that having an open platform gives “diverse and authentic voices” a platform and helps build community. But that also means allowing some controversial and offensive content. So YouTube tries to follow the “4 Rs”: quickly Remove policy-violating content, Raise-up authoritative voices, Reduce the spread of content that almost (but doesn’t quite) violate policy, and Reward eligible creators with monetization opportunities. To that end, YouTube made changes to their recommendation system in the US to reduce the spread of problematic content. That worked well enough that they are testing similar changes i...

Because of an "increase in abuse and spam" in Community Contributions,  all contributions will be held for channel owner review . As a YouTube creator, you can enable Community Contributions to allow your fans to add subtitles and translate the titles and descriptions of your videos. It's a great way to help reach viewers all around the world. But, as with so many good things, spammers ruin it for everyone. How Community Contributions work 1. Viewers submit contributions 2. YouTube moderates submissions for spam and inappropriate content. 3. If enough people have added translations to a video, the community is asked to help review them. Previously, when a submission got enough reviews, it was automatically approved for the video. Unfortunately, this process was not working well enough, and contributions with spam and abusive language sometimes were published. Now, all contributions are held for manual review by the channel owner before publication Enabl...

Starting the week of September 2, YouTube will stop publicly displaying exact subscriber counts. You will still be able to see your own channel's exact number of subscribers in YouTube Analytics. YouTube announced in May that they would abbreviate public subscriber counts  to help make the numbers more consistent across YouTube . And it's true that the numbers don't exactly match anywhere. Here are the current numbers for my channel : On my channel: 2,895 Social Blade : 2,894 Dashboard of YouTube Studio Beta and YouTube Studio app for Android: 2,890 YouTube Analytics in Studio Beta: 2,886 YouTube subscribe button (on the right menu here): 2k  That's not a very big difference, but it makes a case that those last digits aren't that precise at a given time. This change will also affect the YouTube API, which means features like  Social Blade’s popular live subscriber counts  - watched both by excited creators nearing a milestone and by  gaw...

Google announced that publisher policies for AdSense, AdMob and Ad Manager will be streamlined and simplified starting in September 2019. Each product will have a change log where publishers can easily find any updates.  Note: AdSense and Ad Manager Publishers received an email on September 30, 2019 that these changes are going into effect. This change is meant to simplify finding policy information and to standardize policy across all Google's publisher products. Policy will cover two categories of content. The Google Publisher Policies cover content that Google will not monetize with ads. Trying to place ads on such content is now, and will continue to be, an AdSense policy violation that could result in account suspension or termination. The Google Publisher Restrictions covers content that Google will not place Google Ads on, but that you can monetize with other advertising products or with direct deals with advertisers. Placing ads on this content will NOT b...

This was a busy week in the Googleverse, with updates for YouTube, Photos, AdSense, Duo and much more. I looked back on Blogger’s 20 years and forward the rescheduled migration from Hangouts in late 2020. Twenty years ago this week Blogger was born. I took a look back and talk about why Blogger is my chosen blogging platform. Starting this month Google Photos is rolling out the ability to search your photos by the text in them. You can use built-in Google Lens to copy the text once you find it. Engadget reports that Google Photos face grouping is finally rolling out across Europe. It’s not clear where exactly this feature is available. Check your account to see if the option to enable face grouping is available. YouTube has updated their policy to start removing “mature” content that targets younger children and families , including videos with sexual themes, obscene content, and violence. Previously such videos were age-restricted. Similar content that does not explicitly t...

Twenty years ago today, folks were  Livin' la Vida Loca  and Blogger was born at Pyra Labs*. Blogger Home Page October 1999 "Weblogs" were a fairly new idea, and Blogger was not only one of the first weblog platforms, but also helped popularize the terms "blog" and "blogging", which is not quite as much of a mouthful. Pyra Labs' Meg Hourihan on the origin of the word "Blogger" Blog*Spot free hosting service for Blogger-powered blogs, April 2011 After struggles with funding, Blogger was sold to Google in February 2003 . This may have rescued the platform, as  Guardian reported at the time : The sale is a dramatic turnaround for San Francisco-based Blogger, which rode the high and subsequent low of the dotcom boom. The company was founded in 1999, and Mr Williams had to lay off the company's entire staff in late 2000. He continued to maintain the service by himself from his home until last year, when he increased ...

AdSense is improving their systems that detects potentially invalid ad traffic. That allows AdSense to limit ad serving to protect the Google Ads advertisers. Up until now, actions around invalid activity have been opaque to users, and AdSense is working to change that too. To make enforcement more transparent, AdSense and AdMob Publishers will soon be able to see notification of ad traffic restrictions in their account's Policy Center. The goal: This will allow [Publishers] to understand why they may be experiencing reduced ad serving, and what steps they can take to resolve any issues and continue partnering with us. Note that AdSense unlikely to provide any details about the detected sources of invalid activity. It's your responsibility to monitor your AdSense account for unusual activity and make sure you are not encouraging clicks or generating low quality traffic. Read on to learn how to check your AdSense Policy Center for violations , and what to do if your acc...

YouTube is now removing videos with "mature" content that target younger children and families (based on title, description and tags), including videos with sexual themes, obscene content, and violence. Previously these videos were just age-restricted. Videos labeled "for children", "for kids" or "family fun" will fall under this policy. Examples of content that will now be removed Such content that is not targeted to children may be age restricted, but not removed. Any content that was uploaded prior to this update may be removed, but should not result a strike. Learn more about YouTube's Child Safety policies   and recent changes to YouTube policy to protect kids . Read on to learn how to protect your channel from video removals, or appeal a strike or age restriction .

Google has announced that the migration from classic Hangouts to Hangouts Chat for G Suite users (work and school accounts) is postponed from October 2019 to June 2020.  Migration of consumer users -- personal accounts, usually using an @gmail.com address -- will be after the migration of G Suite users . "Phase 4" of the migration process for G Suite users will be in "late 2020". At that time all remaining classic Hangouts G Suite users will be moved to Hangouts Chat and G Suite users won't be able to use classic Hangouts. But " no changes will be made to the consumer version of classic Hangouts. [Hangouts is] continuing to support consumers. " You can see the updated transition timeline her e. Update June 2, 2020: Phase 3 is complete, and we're entering Phase 4 . Update October 15, 2020: Migration from classic Hangouts to Chat will be in the first half of 2021. In the meantime, Google will be working to improve the transition process, and...

YouTube announced that the private Direct Messaging feature will be going away on September 18th, 2019. Some features, like sending a video by DM, may be disabled before that date. You can download an archive of your YouTube private messages using Google Takeout . YouTube's current direct messaging feature was  announced in April 2017  as a way to share videos and chat with friends and family. YouTube's original private-messaging Inbox was replaced by Google+-based Messages in 2014 , which was in turn shut down in July 2018 . Goodbye YouTube Friends :( YouTube says  they will be focusing on improving public communication: T wo years ago, we launched a feature to enable you to share videos via direct messages on YouTube. Since then, we've also focused on public conversations with updates to comments, posts, and stories. We’re constantly reevaluating our priorities and have decided to discontinue YouTube’s native direct messaging feature while we focus on i...

This week students started heading back to school, with Chromebooks, laptops and all their other electronic devices in hand. There are plenty of updates to help them along. Plus news for YouTubers, bloggers, webmasters and much more. Social blogging platform Tumblr is finding a new home with Automattic, the owner of WordPress. Yahoo originally bought Tumblr in 2013 for $1.1 billion (with a b). Verizon purchased Yahoo in 2017, acquiring Tumblr and other assets like Flickr. Verizon didn’t seem to know what to do with Tumblr, beyond implementing a controversial and not-particularly-successful ban on porn and adult content. The sale price was reportedly for less than $3 million, a tiny fraction of Tumblr’s original (likely inflated) value. Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg told The Verge he appreciates Tumblr’s unique and devoted community, and sees it as an opportunity to bring back some of the feel of old-school blogging, with a solid mobile app and social features. “The people who lo...

YouTube announced an update to to make the copyright claiming system a bit fairer : YouTube's new policy forbids copyright owners from "using the Manual Claiming tool to monetize creator videos with very short or unintentional uses of music." Note that this does NOT mean you can use copyrighted music without permission: This change  only applies to manual claiming, not YouTube's automated Content ID system. Copyright holders can still prevent the creator from monetizing Copyright holders can still block the video from being viewed An exception to this policy is "a compilation of short clips primarily containing audio content" such as "Top 10" lists of music or audio content or "Compilations of short clips from music-focused social media apps" The policy change goes into effect in mid-September. And YouTube says there will be penalties for violating the Manual Claiming policy : Once we start enforcement, copyright owners who ...

This week Google is rolling out new tools to help you plan your next vacation. There are also cool updates for bloggers, webmasters, podcasters, YouTubers and much more. YouTube Studio Beta is now the default, and direct links to the classic video manager, analytics or dashboard will redirect there. But not to worry, i f you are missing features from “classic” Creator Studio, you can switch back - for now . Twitch is making it easier to “go live” . Twitch Studio (now in beta), has guided setup of your live stream, customizable templates, built in chat and more. If you’re interested, sign up for the beta . If you are a blogger, video creator or journalist in India, Indonesia, and Nigeria, check out Google’s Question Hub to find questions that people want answers for. You can browse by keyword or category, review unanswered questions, and expand on them when creating content. Once you create an article or video, you can submit it to Question Hub where you can review performance...

Starting this month, YouTube Studio Beta ( studio.youtube.com ) is now the permanent default for your channel. That means if you use a link to the Classic Video Manager, Analytics, or Dashboard you will be redirected to Studio Beta. As Studio Beta is still a work in progress, not all Classic features are available yet. That means - for now - you can switch back to the Classic version of Creator Studio. Find Classic features missing in Studio Beta Temporarily switch back to Creator Studio Classic But before you do that, give Studio Beta a serious try. The Classic version will be going away later this year, and YouTube really wants your feedback. You should see a banner at the top of your dashboard with a survey link. As it says, don't hold back! Note that if you are having trouble getting Studio to load, the problem may be that your web browser is out of date. You should see a message if that's the case. You can use current versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera a...