Weekly Update - September 5, 2020: Blogger, Image Search, Chat

We’ve made it to September and autumn is on the horizon (although it still feels like summer in my neck of the woods). Join me and the other OnEBoard members tomorrow when our Vacation 2020 video Premieres on YouTube, with summer images from around the world!

This week there are updates for Blogger, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Twitter, webmasters and more. Plus new features for Google Chat and Meet.

YouTube, Video and Live Streaming

• In case you missed it: TeamYouTube has a roundup of all the YouTube creator updates in August 2020. Highlights are the new Editor (Limited) role on Channel Permissions, Audience Interests showing in YouTube Analytics, Dark Mode for the mobile YouTube Studio app, and a new option to subscribe to Advertiser Friendly content Guidelines updates.
• You can get a sneak peek at a new YouTube feature in the works, that checks your uploaded video for copyright issues as part of the upload process. Learn about Pre Publish Checks.
• Watch Parties are now available to all Twitch creators worldwide (with an Amazon Prime account). This lets you watch TV shows and movies available on Prime Video with your community of fans. And not incidentally this may boost viewership of Prime Originals.
• Twitch Sings is shutting down at the end of the year. Sings is a live streaming karaoke app, that let singers perform together and chat live with fans. Twitch will start removing Sings videos and clips on December 1, and the app will stop working January 1, 2021. You can download your videos today.
• TikTok creators will soon be able to sell merch to their followers with Teespring integration.

Bloggers and Webmasters

• Updates to the Blogger post editor for the week of August 29: improved process to add Labels, easily add a link in HTML mode, and the default image size is now medium, not extra large. The legacy Blogger interface will be going away by the end of September, so be sure to try it now and send Blogger feedback!
• Bing Webmaster Tools has a new and improved robots.txt testing tool.
• Robert Wallis has instructions for adding a Telegram comments widget to your blog.

Photos on the Web

• Google Images search results will now show a “licensable” badge on images that include licencing information. There will be a link to the license details and to a page where the image can be acquired, if available. On desktop you can filter the image search results for images with a Creative Commons license or commercial license. To implement this on your own website visit the Google developer help page for Image Licenses in Google Images and the Image Metadata FAQs page.
• Facebook has updated their photo and video transfer tool to let you transfer your images to Dropbox or Koofr, in addition to Google Photos.

Communicate

• Google Meet is rolling out new Host controls for G Suite for Education users. Teachers can use these settings to prevent students from presenting their screen or from sending chat messages.
• Google Chat will soon show read receipts for direct messages, just as it shows in classic Hangouts. Your avatar will display next to the last message you viewed. Read receipts will not be available in group chats or Rooms. Google Chat is currently only available to G Suite users, or personal Google accounts invited to chat by G Suite users.
• Facebook Messenger now limits forwarding of messages to five people or groups at a time. The goal is to limit the spread of ‘viral misinformation”.

Social Media

• A few weeks ago, Google published an open letter to Australians arguing against the draft News Media Bargaining Code. Google’s argument is that if enacted it would “hurt the free services you use” like YouTube. This week Facebook posted a similar article, but took things one step further. If the law is approved they will “reluctantly stop allowing publishers and people in Australia from sharing local and international news on Facebook and Instagram.” They note that news is not a significant source of revenue, and makes up a minimal part of the Facebook Feed. It will, however, likely hurt Australian news publishers that get traffic from Facebook.Whether this will result in changes to the proposed law.
• Twitter updated Retweets with comments are now called Quote Tweets. Tap “Quote Tweets” on any tweet and you can see all the quote tweets in one place.
• Twitter Trends let you see what’s popular, but it can sometimes be hard to figure out what people are talking about. Twitter will be adding brief descriptions and pin a representative Tweet in some trends so you can understand the context.

More

• The hashtag # is now 13 years old. “Inventor” Chris Messina looks back at its origins, the early social web, and the responsibility technology creators have for their innovations.
• If you use Google Maps for navigation, you may wonder how it routes you around the worst of the traffic. Learn how Google uses advanced machine learning and AI to predict traffic.

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 by USA-Reiseblogger from Pixabay in honor of California’s redwood forests burned in lighting-sparked fires over the past few weeks. Free for commercial use.