Happy Halloween! I hope this weekend brings you more treats than tricks.
Google has spooky music, cute games and AR jack o’lanterns and other
creatures to help get you into the mood.
This week was the annual Google Product Expert Program summit. Like most conferences this year PES@Home was a virtual conference, so no travel, no group lunches, parties or late night chats in the hotel bar. But there were interesting sessions, and it’s always great to learn about Google’s products and services directly from the folks working on them. Hopefully we’ll be able to gather in person next year.
This week was the annual Google Product Expert Program summit. Like most conferences this year PES@Home was a virtual conference, so no travel, no group lunches, parties or late night chats in the hotel bar. But there were interesting sessions, and it’s always great to learn about Google’s products and services directly from the folks working on them. Hopefully we’ll be able to gather in person next year.
Finally, Tuesday is election day in the US. If you are a registered voter, be sure to vote! Google, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Vimeo, and other platforms not only want you to vote, but say they have put measures in place to reduce the spread of misinformation. Even so, I think I’ll skip social media.
There are updates this week for YouTube, Meet, Chat, and more.
YouTube
- YouTube has made it easier to make changes to videos with a copyright claim. Now if you need to snip out the claimed content, you can adjust the endpoints for smooth transitions. If music is claimed in your video you can use the improved audio replace tool in YouTube Studio you can swap in multiple new audio tracks to resolve multiple claims. And the audio library of “copyright safe” tracks has an updated interface and new advanced features to find just the right music.
- There have been several small improvements to the YouTube mobile apps. You can more easily see a list of Chapters for each video, the player buttons have been rearranged to make them easier to find, and it’s easier to use gestures to switch in and out of fullscreen mode. Plus there are now “suggested actions” that might prompt you to rotate your phone, or take other actions to improve your viewing experience.
- If you wonder how YouTube search and discovery works, Creator Insider answers frequent questions.
- Creator Insider also answers questions about Shorts (short vertical videos) and they offer a new option to submit your questions on video.
- Apple Clips, the video creation app for iOS devices, has a major update, with an updated interface, better iPad support, and the ability to create in multiple aspect ratios.
- Instagram made several changes to Live: you can go Live for up to 30 hours, you can save your Lives 30 days before they delete, and there is a new “Live Now” section on Explore.
Webmasters and Publishers
- December 8 is the 2020 Black Publishers Summit. This is a multi-day livestream event, which is open to “Black-led digital businesses looking to start monetizing their site/app, grow their monetization business, or network with others in the industry.”
- Microsoft Clarity is now generally available. It’s a free analytics product that lets you see a heatmap of where your site visitors clicked, insights into your site’s performance and more.
- WordPress has launched Patterns, which are “prebuilt blocks for beautifully designed websites.”
Communication
- You can now set your status to “away” in Google Chat. That lets you show your status as offline, even if you are online. And if you are using classic Hangouts, disabling “Show when you were last active” will now show you as “away” in Chat.
Video Meetings
- Google Meet is rolling out the option to add a background during a video meeting, rather than just blur. This doesn’t require any additional downloads or extensions. It runs right in your browser. The down side of that is the requirement you use a browser that can support it. The basic requirements: Chrome 84+ (Mac & Windows) or Chrome 86+ (ChromeOS), Chrome hardware acceleration enabled and WebGL2.0 support. Learn the technical details behind this update on the Google AI blog.
- Microsoft Teams launched a number of new features this month, including live captions, the ability for the presenter to pin a video feed for all attendees, advanced production options for professional broadcasting and more.
- Zoom has launched end-to-end encryption for free meetings. The catch is that a number of features are not available for encrypted meetings, including recording, live transcription, meeting reactions , and the option to have participants join by phone. Plus, even though it’s available free, you have to give Zoom your payment information to use it.
Productivity
- If you use Adobe Creative Cloud Libraries, get the Adobe Creative Cloud Add-on for Google Workspace. This lets your team “easily access and share assets in Gmail and apply brand colors, character styles, and graphics to Google Docs and Slides to keep deliverables consistent and on-brand.”
More
- If you are of a certain age, Sierra On-Line was a big name in adventure games, with popular titles like King’s Quest and Leisure Suit Larry published in the late 80s and early 90s. And then they were bought up and killed off by a “massive accounting fraud” and greed. Vice has the story.
Comments
Post a Comment
Spam and personal attacks are not allowed. Any comment may be removed at my own discretion ~ Peggy