Weekly Update - December 7, 2019: YouTube, Photos, Sites

As 2019 draws to a close, it’s time to look back on the year, on YouTube and beyond. It’s also the last chance for app updates before the holidays. This week there are updates for YouTube Creators, webmasters, business owners, and a whole lot more.

Coming up this week:: YouTube new Terms of Service go into effect (some clarification on the terms) and Yahoo Groups data will be deleted.
It’s once again time for YouTube Rewind - 2019. Taking to heart the overwhelmingly negative reactions to last year’s “cringy” Rewind, this year YouTube simply shows the top videos and creators from around the world, both in general and for music, dance, gaming and beauty content. I like it. Also check out the top videos of the year in the US, Canada, Australia, India, Japan, Korea, Brazil, and Mexico.
YouTube has updated its policy on violent video game content, so that it’s treated the same as scripted or simulated violence in TV shows or movies.
If your YouTube channel has at least 1000 subscribers you can now @mention other channels (with at least 1000 subscribers) in your video title and description. When someone @mentions your channel, you will see that in your notifications.
YouTube is rolling out the “Hold potentially inappropriate comments for review” setting to more channels. You can disable it, but the setting has reduced comments being reported by viewers by as much as 75%. Learn more about how it works.
Just in time for the holidays, if you are in the US you can purchase and send a YouTube Gift Code on amazon.com. The recipient can spend the gift on YouTube Premium, YouTube Music Premium, YouTube TV, movies or Channel Memberships.
Google Photos now lets you share photos as an ongoing private conversation in the app. Instead of creating a new shared album every time you share a photo with your mom or best buds, a conversation will be created where all the participants can add photos, comment, like, and add images to their own photo library. There have been some jokes about Google launching a new “chat app”, but it’s actually a nice solution to what has been a lousy user experience. (I can’t be the only one with a zillion single-photo albums shared with only my mom, can I?)
A coalition of the big tech companies - Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter - launched the Data Transfer Project in 2018, with the goal of building tools to allow users to transfer content between the different platforms. Facebook just announced that they are testing a photo transfer tool based on that code, that will allow users to transfer photos from Facebook to Google Photos. It’s currently only available to users in Ireland, but will be more widely available in the first half of 2020.
As part of Google’s initiative to help local news organizations, they created Realtime Content Insights (RCI), a free tool to see top articles on your own site in real time. They’ve now added realtime regional trending topic information from Google Trends. If you have a website or blog and use Google Analytics, check out RCI for insights.
It’s now easier for webmasters to see notifications and messages in Google Search Console. Just click the bell icon for new notifications.
Google Sites got several nice updates: you can review the latest changes before publishing, add captions and control transitions in the image carousel, choose between styling options for buttons, and view the site’s version history.
You can now use Google Assistant to create and manage notes and lists in Google Keep, Any.do, Anylist and Bring!
Online design tool Canva now offers apps that can let you easily get content from across the web, edit your images or share your designs on social media. Current apps let you add content from Giphy (GIFs), Google Maps, Pexels, Pixabay, YouTube, or import your own images and videos from Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, or Google Drive.
Finally, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have stepped down from their roles as CEO and President of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Current Google CEO Sundar Pichai will be the new CEO of Alphabet, while continuing his role as Google CEO. Page and Brin will still be active as members of Alphabet’s Board of Directors. The general consensus in the tech press seems to be that this change just formalizes the way the business has been running for a while anyway. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen.
If you want to watch the videos mentioned this week, take a look at my playlist of the videos I suggest in my weekly roundup link list and follow it in your YouTube account.

Holiday Updates

Live from the North Pole, it’s Santa’s Village! (from Google)
‘Tis the Season of Giving on YouTube!

2019 Year in Review

Read on for more news, updates and tips for video creators, businesses, and webmasters. more.Subscribe to get the Weekly Update in your email inbox or favorite feed reader. Miss last week’s update? Get it here.

Image: Pantone’s 2020 color of the year is “Classic Blue” (Pantone 19-4052). Why that blue? It “brings a sense of peace and tranquility to the human spirit”, aids concentration, brings a “laser like clarity”, and “re-centers our thoughts”. It looks to me like almost, but not quite Facebook blue.). Photo by alijava on Flickr, shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) license. Found using TinEye Labs Multicolr search engine for Hex #34558B

Other Social Media

Google Photos and Photo Sharing

Now it’s easier to share everyday moments in Google Photos (Google)
Driving Innovation in Data Portability With a New Photo Transfer Tool (Facebook)
Nest Hubs let you easily hide, star, and share slideshow photos (Android Police)

Google for Businesses

Google Has Confirmed The November 2019 Google Local Update (SEO Roundtable)
Help! I Got a Negative Review From Someone That’s Not My Customer. (Sterling Sky)
Google Lets Businesses Add a Custom List of Services to GMB Listings (Search Engine Journal)
Google My Business Guide for Restaurants (Online Ownership)

Bloggers and Webmasters

Introducing the new Search Console messages (Google Webmasters)
Improving real-time data for newsrooms everywhere (Google)
Review the latest changes to a new Google Site before publishing (G Suite Updates)
Improvements to image carousels, table of contents, and buttons in new Google Sites (G Suite Updates)
Embed Cloud Search in your new Google Sites (G Suite Updates)
View the version history of a new Google Site (G Suite Updates)
Create useful websites for your business with updates in new Google Sites (Google Cloud)
Package Tracking Early Access Program (Google Webmasters)
Google Search Explained | Search for Beginners Ep 4 (Google Webmasters on YouTube)
English Google Webmaster Central office-hours from November 29, 2019 (Google Webmasters on YouTube)
The Month in WordPress: November 2019 (WordPress)

AdSense and Advertising

Top 3 misconceptions about mobile ads (AdMob)
Introducing new and improved AdSense Auto ads (AdSense on YouTube)

Hangouts, Meetings and Messaging

Use Hangouts Meet with Internet Explorer 11 (G Suite Updates)

Made by Google, Android, Google Fi

Productivity

New Chrome extension brings full-screen Google Tasks to Chromebooks (About Chromebooks)
Missing or Misplaced Keyboard Shortcuts on Your Non-English Chromebook? Here’s What to Do (Moonshots Beyond the Cloud)
Drive file suggestions in Google Chrome will be generally available beginning in December (G Suite Updates)
How I’m making Maps better for wheelchair users like me (Google)
Google Disability Support now includes American Sign Language (Google)
Privacy and Security
Stop Using Avast and AVG Plugins Right Now (Gizmodo)
Firefox Preview 3.0 comes with enhanced tracking protection, optional toolbar on top, and more (Android Police)

New (Old) Alphabet CEO

Alphabet management change (Alphabet)
A letter from Larry and Sergey (Google)
Pichai is a mistake (The Next Web)
Google third era: what’s next now that Sundar Pichai is CEO of Alphabet (The Verge)

More around the web

How to fight lies, tricks, and chaos online (the Verge)
How to Build an AI (Scott Penberthy)
It should be the goal of every business to protect our planet (Google)
Here’s What’s Happening in the American Teenage Bedroom (New York Times)

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