Weekly Update - August 22, 2020: AdSense, YouTube, Meet

It has been a heck of a week here in Northern California. In the midst of a historic heatwave, there was a spectacular lighting storm that set hundreds of fires, many of which have been burning out of control for almost a week. Conveniently, Google has started showing almost real-time fire perimeters on Maps, which is useful information. I’m hoping the weather will become less interesting soon. 

This week there are changes for AdSense payments, YouTube Partners, updates to Blogger’s post editor, Google Meet can be cast to your TV and Zoom is popping up on all sorts of smart displays. YouTube comes out strongly against Australia’s proposed News Media Bargaining Code. Plus there are updates for webmasters, map lovers and more.

AdSense & Monetization

• Last week AdSense announced that Western Union is no longer available to select as a form of payment. This affects both AdSense Publishers and YouTube Partners. YouTube has asked Partners who would be negatively affected by the change to give feedback about what payment methods they would like to have.

In the news

• Google and YouTube specifically have vocally criticized Australia’s proposed News Media Bargaining Code. It would not only require platforms like Google and Facebook to pay publishers for distributing their content. They also argue that the law gives preferential treatment to large news publishers (such as Rupert Murdoch’s media empire), and could force Google and other platforms to share details about their ranking algorithms and data about viewers. YouTube encourages creators to “make their voice heard.”
• The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has responded, claiming Google is spreading misinformation (although they don’t address all of Google’s concerns). It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Blogger and Webmaster Updates

• The latest Blogger updates post explains changes to the way line breaks are entered in blog posts. While that doesn’t sound too exciting, it can affect the way your published posts look, so check it out.
• If you have any forms on your website make sure they use HTTPS. Chrome is getting more proactive in warning users about insecure forms, and it’s best for your site visitors if they can securely submit information on your site. 

Communication

• Google Meet is now available on Chromecast, so you can see your colleagues, classmates or friends on your TV or Nest smart display. Meet uses the camera, microphone and audio from your computer. All you need is a Chromecast-enabled screen to cast to and a computer with the latest version of Chrome. Learn how to set it up.
• If you are using Google Meet for classes or meetings, check out these tips for improving your video and audio quality.
• By the end of the year you will be able to make Zoom video calls on Google Assistant-enabled smart displays, like the Nest Hub Max. Zoom is also coming to Facebook Portal devices and the Amazon Echo Show smart displays.
• Facebook ‘s Portal devices are adding more video conferencing apps for work, including BlueJeans, GoToMeeting, Webex and Zoon. I’m not holding my breath that Google Meet will be available there.

Social Media

• Instagram has replaced Nametags with QR codes. Now people can more easily connect by scanning the code with their Android or iPhone camera, rather than having to use the Instagram camera.
• Now when you receive a DM request on Twitter, Twitter will show the person’s profile and other details.
• Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and TikTok are all trying to remove (or at least make less discoverable) hateful and violence-promoting content, users and groups. It remains to be seen whether this makes a difference.

More

• Google Maps are getting more detailed. Satellite imagery is being used to more accurately depict natural features and street information (starting with New York, San Francisco and London). That is in addition to adding near-realtime wildfire boundaries.
• Google is updating Activity Cards in the search results to better display results for searches for recipes, jobs and products. If you are a webmaster, Google has instructions on how to implement search features.

That’s all the updates for this week. Subscribe to get the Weekly Update in your email inbox or favorite feed reader every week. 

Note: there was a problem with the links in last week’s email edition of the Weekly Update. Apologies! You can get last week’s update with the correct links here.

Image: Lightning photo by Johannes Plenio from Pexels. Free to use.