Weekly Update - April 4, 2020: YouTube Monetization, Creator Resources, Video Calling

As we head into April, most of the world is staying at home. Tech companies wisely decided to forgo April Fool’s jokes this year, as there isn’t much to laugh about. 

What is new this week are more product updates due to the coronavirus pandemic, video conferencing platform updates, and resources for educators and struggling creators.

• Today is 404 Day, and the Internet Archive wants to celebrate by helping you (and me, and everyone) archive current web pages.

Creator Updates

• YouTube Partners can now monetize COVID-19-related content, as long as it complies with the Community Guidelines and Advertiser-Friendly Content Guidelines.
• YouTube is piloting a new program called “Unlisted Video Review”, where creators can get a human feedback for uploaded unlisted video that have limited ads. Watch the linked video for more details and let YouTube know what you think of the idea in the video’s comments.
• If you are looking for a live streaming platform, Lightstream Studio has expanded available features until May 1st. Now Free users can stream for up to 8 hours a month (up for 4 hours) and have up to 3 remote guests (up from 1). There are also deals for Creator and Professional paid tiers.
• Mixer, Microsoft’s live streaming platform, now has an Education category.
• WeVideo video editing platform has made screen recording easier. They are also offering free WeVideo for Schools accounts with a number of helpful features and G Suite for Education integration.
• The Awesome Screenshot extension has extended its free video recording time from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, and offers professional features free for educational use.
• Flickr introduced new features to make Group management easier for admins. If you are a photographer looking for a Group to join, Flickr has some recommendations. Zoom responded with some explanation of the fixes they are making, and an updated privacy policy.
• The 2020 Adobe Summit was all digital. You can watch the keynote and presentations here.
• Adobe has also shared a list of grants and other resources for artists and creators during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most appear to be US only.

Webmaster Updates

• Organizations with important COVID-19-related announcements can submit the announcement in Google Search Console or use SpecialAnnouncement structured data to make it eligible for specially formatted appearance in the Google Search results. Currently this is being used for health and government sites.
• If you have a Google My Business listing, you can now create COVID-19 Update posts for your business. That way you can let customers and clients know about changed hours, updates to service options and other related information.
• Chrome is temporarily rolling back enforcement of SameSite cookie labeling, to ensure websites that provide essential services are not affected.
• If you missed the Google Webmaster Conference in Mountain View last fall, the sessions have now been uploaded to the Google Webmaster YouTube channel, so you can watch any time.
• Google Webmaster office hours are ongoing. Keep an eye on their calendar for the current schedule. Next up are JavaScript SEO Office Hours on April 8th.
• Form controls in Chromium-based browsers - including Chrome and Edge - are getting a new look and improved accessibility. If you have forms on your website, be sure to check out the changes.

Communication Tools

• Google’s Hangouts Meet is extending the availability premium features to all G Suite business and education customers through September. While you need a G Suite account to create a Meet meeting, you don’t even need to be signed in to a Google account to participate.
• Skype posted a reminder that it lets you create and join video conference calls without an account. All you need to do is start here to create a meeting link.
• Facebook launched a desktop Messenger app with group video calling. “You don’t need to know someone’s email or phone number since all your Facebook friends have Messenger.”
• Slack launched Microsoft Teams calling integration, plus VoIP calling via Zoom, Cisco Jabber, RingCentral, and Dialpad.
• Zoom has become the default video conferencing tool for many students, businesses and people hanging out with their friends. But that’s not without controversy. Zoom came under heavy criticism this week for encryption flaws and routing traffic through Chinese datacenters.

And More

• You can now see how your community is moving around differently due to COVID-19 with Google’s new Community Mobility Reports. Google is also providing access to a public repository of COVID-19-related data sets. You can run queries for free through September 15th.
• Just for fun: you can use the Google Arts & Culture app to turn a selfie - or any photo - into a work of art. The app also lets you explore art and museums around the world from the comfort of your living room.

That’s all the updates for this week. Subscribe to get the Weekly Update in your email inbox or favorite feed reader every week. Miss last week’s update? Get it here.

Image: April showers bring May flowers. Ladybug with drops of water by ddouk on Pixabay. Free for commercial use.