Weekly Update - November 2, 2019: Internet is 50, Site Kit, Twitter Ad Policy

The internet was born 50 years ago this week, and everyone is reminiscing. You can learn how it all started, read Vint Cerf’s top moments in internet history and argue about the 50 most important websites of all time. T he question is how long it will take until we have a truly “invisible internet”?

This week, on our still “visible” internet there are tips and updates for webmasters, YouTubers, podcasters, and much more.

Site Kit, Google’s official WordPress plugin, is now available.Install the plugin and you can see metrics and insights on your WordPress dashboard from Search Console, Google Analytics, AdSense and more.
The end is nigh for Flash. Google Search will start ignoring Flash later this year. It’s already disabled by default in Chrome 76, Firefox 69 and Microsoft Edge browsers and Adobe will officially end support in December 2020. Flash has been dying for a long time, and as the announcement says “most users and websites won't see any impact from this change.”
Google has updated the account switcher on desktop. If you use multiple Google accounts or sign out of your Google account at the end of the day, you may have noticed that the account switcher - what you see when you click your profile photo at top right on sites like Gmail, Drive or Blogger - has gotten an update.Now you will see a “Sign out of all accounts” button and “Manage your Google account”, instead of just “Google account”
If you are interested in what YouTube is testing, keep an eye on this thread in the YouTube help forum, which TeamYouTube will update with new “cool and interesting” experiments happening. You can also opt in to experimental features for YouTube on desktop at YouTube New.
Google has a new video series on Podcasting basics. The first episode is “Should I make a podcast?”. Seems a good place to start.
IBM Watson Media has a new mobile live streaming app. It requires an IBM Video Streaming or Ustream account. IBM video streaming is aimed at corporate users, and while you can try it free for 30 days, monthly plans start at a pricey $99 per month.
Google is going to acquire fitness tracking wearable maker Fitbit.Current Fitbit users have expressed concern about how their data will be used, but Google has promised that Fitbit “health and wellness” data will not be used for Google ads, and users will have the option to “review, move, or delete” their data. It has been reported that Facebook tried to acquire Fitbit first, but only offered half as much for the company, so lost out to Google. Google says this is part of an investment in the Wear OS ecosystem, which doesn’t seem to have gotten much love recently.
Twitter announced that they will ban all political ads, including both ads relating to elections and “issue” ads. There is some concern about how broad the policy will be (it will include ads “for or against” issues relating to healthcare and climate change, for example) and how it will be enforced. Meanwhile, Facebooks’s political ads policy is a bit of a mess. It seems likely to me that Facebook will eventually ban political ads as well. As @jack explained why Twitter made the policy change: “This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach.” We’ll see if the changes actually work in practice.
The Pinterest mobile apps are getting a fresh new design, with personalized recommendations “front and center” on the main home feed. Pins will also have less space around them, better highlighting the content. Pinterest currently claims 322 million monthly active users, who have visited Pinterest or interacted with Pinterest content at least once in a 30 day period. (That number is almost impossible to compare to other social networks, who all use their own metrics. For example Twitter reports 145 million “monetizeable daily active users”).
Instagram has expanded their policy prohibiting suicide and self-harm content to include fictional depictions, drawings and memes.
LinkedIn has posted its principles for maintaining the trust of LinkedIn members. They say they are trying to keep the content and community professional, removing fake profiles and are trying to build a platform with no unfair bias.
Facebook is launching Work Groups, to help people “connect with their coworkers”. WorkGroup profiles only show work-related information and members of a work group can message each other without being “Friends”. Using Facebook for both personal and work purposes doesn’t sound great to me, but I’m not a big Facebook fan.
It’s not all bad out there. Monica Lewinsky launched @GoodnessBot on Twitter which can be called into action to respond to a mean Tweet with positivity.
Just for fun: Queen and YouTube Present Three New Fan Music Videos for ‘You Are the Champions’ Campaign

Read on for more news, updates and tips for businesses, advertisers, Chrome users and more.

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Image: Day of the Dead is a time to remember family members and friends who have died. It’s celebrated in Mexico and by people of Mexican heritage. Decorated altars often include orange marigolds. Photo by sarangib on pixabay. (Free for commercial use)

Made by Google, Android, Google Fi

Productivity

Google.com rolling out refreshed design for account switcher on web (9to5Google)
The Google Recorder to head to older Pixel devices (9to5Google)
Tell compelling stories with your data using Google Sheets (Google Cloud)
More Bird's Eye imagery has been released and static maps API support added! (Bing Maps)
Stable Channel Update for Desktop: Chrome 78 (Chrome Releases)

Privacy and Security

DNS over HTTPS Will Give You Back Privacy that Big ISPs Fought to Take Away (EFF)
Addressing some misconceptions about our plans for improving the security of DNS (Google)
Top tips for keeping data safe and secure on Android (Google)
How to protect your privacy with Android (Android on YouTube)
How to protect yourself from phishing with Android (Android on YouTube)

More Around the Web

Deadspin Is Being Burnt To The Ground By Its New Management As Staff Quits Or Revolts (TechDirt)
'Nearly All' Counter-Strike Microtransactions Are Being Used for Money Laundering (VICE)
Revealed: How One Company Surveils Everything Kids Do and Say In School (BuzzfeedNews)
A call for the next big ideas in news (Google)
Apple TV+ is now available and AirPods Pro arrive in stores around the world (Apple)
Kincade Fire: Why your cell phone is silent (Mercury News)

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