Weekly Update - July 25, 2020: Meet & Chat, Messages, AdSense

This week we learned more about Google’s plans for Meet, Chat and their vision for a “home for work”, learned which playlist features YouTube plans to deprecate, and updates to AdSense content policies, prohibiting medical misinformation and spyware content. Plus there are updates for Messenger, webmasters and more.

Google Cloud Next ‘20: On Air: Meet, Chat, Docs and more

• Week 2 of Google Cloud Next 20: On Air focused on Productivity & Collaboration. G Suite VP Javier Soltaro talked about the new “home for week” with more integration of Gmail, Meet, Chat, Docs and Tasks. Watch a demo of “G Suite’s vision for content collaboration” to see how that works..
• There was a sneak peek at new Meet features in the works. Watch the Meet session starting at 14:11 to get a glimpse of breakout rooms, hand raising, polls, virtual backgrounds and more.
• Meet will be getting new security and moderation tools, that allow the meeting host to control whether participants can chat or present their screen. And participants ejected from a meeting will not be able to ask to rejoin.
• Meet in Gmail is rolling out on Android devices this week, following the roll-out on iOS devices.Once you have this feature, you will be able to start or join a Meet meeting without leaving the Gmail app.
• Google Chat is also getting new security features. You will be able to report and block chat Rooms, and spammy invitations will be blocked automatically.

More Messaging

• Google Messages - Google’s app for SMS, MMS, and RCS (“chat”) - got five new features this week: Duo video calling integration, easier voice messaging, emoji reactions (RCS chat only), stickers in Smart Reply suggestions, and an editor to draw or write on shared photos.

YouTube and Video

• New in YouTube Studio: it is now easier to add info cards to your videos, and there is a new “Latest Comments” card on the Dashboard.
• YouTube is updating Membership perks. Members of a channel will be able to use custom emoji in both live chat and comments. Your channel must have at least 30,000 subscribers to be eligible for Memberships (or 1000 if it's a gaming channel).
• This informal interview with YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan touches on their shift to more automation due to COVID-19, trending and recommended videos, changes in YouTube over the years, and vision for the future.
• YouTube will be deprecating some playlist features, such as the ability to create an “official series” playlist, auto-add videos and add video notes.
• YouTube Partners should check out this helpful video showing how to set up and manage Super Chat and Super Stickers.
• Facebook just introduced the option to broadcast to Facebook Live from a Messenger Room. Messenger Rooms are group video calls that don’t even require a Facebook account to join. The Room creator controls the broadcast to a Profile, Page, or Group.

AdSense

• AdSense content policies will be updated in August to explicitly prohibit content that "relates to a current, major health crisis and contradicts authoritative, scientific consensus," or that promotes spyware or surveillance products and services (with a few exceptions).

Webmasters

• You can now filter Google Search Console reports to see the performance of your site in the News tab in Google Search (not to be confused with Google News, which is a different thing).

Upcoming

• Today is the day!. Shoot video of your day, and submit it to be included in the new Day in the Life movie.
• Last reminder: if your YouTube channel is in the YouTube Partner Program, July 27 is the deadline to update mid-roll ad settings. If you do not change this setting, all your eligible videos at least 8 minutes long will have mid-roll ads inserted.

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: Sunflower and Bee photo by Pixabay from Pexels. Free to use (CC0)