Weekly Update - July 18, 2020: Google Chat, Meet, Live Streaming

This week Google announced their vision for a “home for work” with integrated Gmail, Docs, Meet video calling and Chat. One place with all your apps. There was an AMA with the YouTube gaming team, who answered questions about live streaming, monetization and gaming content.

Google Cloud Next ‘20: On Air

This week Google Cloud Next On Air kicked off with “Industry insights”. Of particular note is Google’s vision for G Suite as a “home for work”, with deeper integration between Gmail, Google Meet, Google Chat, Docs and more. Sign in to Gmail and you will be able to chat with your colleagues, join a video call, edit documents, and more without switching between different sites. Watch the demo video.

There are new safety and privacy features for Google Meet video meetings that will be available in the coming weeks, starting with personal accounts (yay!) and G Suite for Education:
All participants in a G Suite for Education-hosted meeting will now need to be signed in to a Google account. Anonymous participants cannot join. Admins can request an exception to this policy. (It is already the case that all participants must be signed in to a Google account to join a meetings hosted by a personal account)

• “Knocking controls” : If someone is ejected from a meeting, they will not be able to try to join the meeting again, unless the host invites them.
• “Safety Locks”: the meeting host can decide which attendees can chat or present in the meeting.
• Meet in Gmail is now rolling out on iOS devices, and will be available in the Android Gmail app soon.

Google Chat is the successor to the text communication in classic Hangouts. It’s currently only available to G Suite customers and the people they invite to their conversations and “Rooms”. There will be new integrations and features. But no word when Chat may be available to personal accounts.
Like Google Meet, Chat is already available in Gmail on the web, and will be coming to the mobile Gmail app.

• Shared files and tasks will be added to Rooms. You will be able to open and co-edit a document with your team in a Room without leaving Gmail.
• You can join a video call from a chat, forward a chat message to your inbox, create a task from a chat message.
• Use search in Gmail to search Chat.
• Pin important rooms so they’re easier to find and access
• Set your availability to “Do Not Disturb”
• Add a status notice like “Out of office”

There should be more details next week when the focus is on productivity and collaboration.

More Productivity

• In celebration of World Emoji Day, Google launched a quick access emoji bar for G Board. It is first available in the beta, and will roll out to all Android users in the coming months.
• Google Contacts finally gets a trash can. Deleted contacts will remain in the Trash 30 days, unless you permanently delete them sooner than that.

Video and live streaming

• The YouTube gaming team participated in an “AMA” answering questions about live streaming features, monetizing gaming content and more. I recommend live streamers give it a read, even if you don’t live stream games.
• Shoploop is a new experimental shopping platform from Google’s Area 120. It features 90 second video product reviews and simple one-click buying. They are currently focused on beauty products, but you can apply to be a Shoploop creator if you are interested in producing content for Beauty, Fashion, Home & Garden, Art & crafts, Electronics or Toys & games. It looks like creators may be able to earn money by using affiliate links.
• Rainmaker is a new sponsorship platform built by Lightstream that incorporates alerts and chatbot service StreamJar and audience analytics platform Arsenal.gg. It’s motto is “sponsorship for everyone, even creators with “a few dozen or few thousand viewers” can earn “meaningful income doing what you love”. If you are a Twitch streamer you can sign up for early access.
• Lightstream Studio live streaming service has eliminated their free tier. You do get a one week free trial when you sign up for a paid plan. Lightstream launched paid plans in February this year.
• Amazon just launched Interactive Video Services, which lets businesses add live streaming to their apps and websites using Twitch live streaming technology. Prominent creators and teams could use this to create a white-labeled live streaming platform. Amazon lets you try the service for one year for free.

Webmasters and Publishers

• Google has provided more information about how content appears in Discover . Discover shows users content based on their interests and web activity. Any web page indexed by Google that meets Discover’s content policies may appear there, but there are also best practices for your site to follow. You can use the Search Console Performance Report for Discover to see how your content is performing there.
• AdSense for Search will be getting shopping ads. If you use AdSense for Search on your website, you will be automatically enrolled, with 30 days to opt out.

Other News

Twitter suffered a serious security breach. It was discovered when a number of prominent accounts, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Apple, and former President Barack Obama tweeted out a Bitcoin scam. According to Twitter, a “small number” of their employees were compromised through a “social engineering” scheme that gave the attackers access to Twitter’s internal support tools. 

130 accounts were targeted, and 45 of those had their password reset, allowing the hijackers to sign in to those accounts and tweet. That means the attackers likely had full access to those accounts, including DMs Eight accounts had an archive of their data downloaded, although none of those were verified accounts. This is quite troubling, and hopefully Twitter will provide more information about how they will prevent such attacks in the future.

Upcoming

• July 21 begins week 2 of Google Cloud Next On Air with a focus on Google’s productivity and collaboration tools. If you are interested in learning more about Google Meet, Chat, Gmail, Docs and other services offered by G Suite (and to consumers too), be sure to take a look.
• You could win a Fujifilm camera in the Flickr “Shine a light’ photo contest. The deadline to submit a photo is July 23.
• Mark your calendar for July 25. Shoot video of your day, and submit it to be included in the new Day in the Life movie.
• If your YouTube channel is in the YouTube Partner Program, July 27 is the deadline to update mid-roll ad settings. Don’t wait to update!

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.

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