Weekly Update - November 16, 2019: YouTube, RCS, Maps

This past week I was in Boulder, Colorado at the 2019 Google Product Expert Meetup. It was great to see my fellow PEs from the US and Canada, and learn about and provide feedback on Google products. Now that I’m home again, I'm only just getting caught up, so hopefully I didn't miss any big news. I can tell you that this week there were major updates for YouTube creators, Android users, business owners, webmasters and much more.

This week YouTube announced that creators need to indicate whether their videos or channel is “made for kids” (YouTube will also automatically review content to help ensure compliance). This is the outcome of a settlement with the US FTC to ensure YouTube complies with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA). That requires getting permission from parents before any personal data is collected from young children. When changes are rolled out in January, channels “made for kids” will be missing many of YouTube’s features, including the notification bell, discussion tab, video comments and stories. Those videos can be monetized, but won’t show personalized ads, or have Super Chats, Super Stickers or Memberships. Creators are understandably concerned.
There is now a “copyright claims” filter for your videos in YouTube Studio, so you can easily find all videos with claims.
You can now sort videos and playlists in the YouTube Android app.
If you have heard speculation about channel “P Scores”, Creator Insider has provided some information. YouTube has “internal scoring mechanisms” that are used by algorithms for rating “advertiser friendliness” and the like. P Scores are primarily used for “Google Preferred”, the lineup of very top YouTube channels that advertisers can place ads on at premium rates. The score itself is supposedly not really informative for creators. Their recommendation is that if you want to monetize your videos, you should follow the advertiser friendly guidelines.
If you have wondered about the artist behind the illustrations on the YouTube Contributors site, check out this Twitter thread by illustrator Andy J. Pizza about his creative process. And if you are interested in the YouTube Contributors program, take a look
This week Google starting rolling out RCS Chat messaging to Android phones in the US. US carriers have been slow to implement the upgraded, more rich-featured, version of SMS. It’s already available in the UK, France and Mexico. If you jumped the gun and manually enabled RCS in Google’s sandbox on your phone, you should be automatically migrated to the official version “once the rollout is complete”.
Meanwhile, US carries T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T and Verizon announced the Cross-Carrier Messaging Initiative to build their own network of servers and new (of course) messaging app for RCS, independently of Google.The speculation is the carriers want to be sure they have some way of monetizing the service. It should be available in 2020.
This week was the Chrome Developers Summit. If you are a web developer, you’ll want to read the overview of announcements and watch the sessions on the Chrome Developers YouTube channel. The Chrome team is starting to explore ways to encourage the movement to a faster web by “identifying sites that load fast or slow for users with clear badging”. They are working with Microsoft and Chrome OS to create secure Progressive Web Apps with advanced capabilities, like “complex editing, creativity tools, and advanced device communication”.
Google is rolling out the ability to embed MP3 and WAV audio files in Slides presentations. This should be available for all users by the end of November. I can see the option in my account, so this is not limited to G Suite users.
If you have a WordPress.com blog (hosted by WordPress) you can use the new Recurring Payments feature to easily have your fans pay for a newsletter, collect club dues, or get monthly donations. Payments are processed through Stripe.
Top Local Guides will soon be featured on the “For You” tab of the Google Maps app. You can then follow them for recommendations of things to do and places to go. This will first be available in Bangkok, Delhi, London, Mexico City, New York, Osaka, San Francisco, São Paulo and Tokyo.
Google Maps is also trying to make international travel easier with integration with Google Translate. You will see an option to have place names and addresses spoken aloud, which should be useful in countries where you don’t speak the local language. It will be available in 50 languages in the Maps app on Android and iOS devices.
Google Stadia officially launches on November 19 with 12 “carefully chosen” games, with another 14 available by the end of the year. There has been buzz that “key features” will be missing. The Stadia team spent some time answering questions in an AMA on Reddit, which may or may not make potential users less concerned. We’re sure to hear a lot more about it next week, once people have had a chance to play a few games.

Read on for more news, updates and tips for businesses, advertisers, webmasters and more.
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Image: Macarons at the Google Product Expert Meetup in Boulder. Photo by me.

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