Weekly Update: November 7, 2020 - Chat, YouTube, Election Week

This has been a heck of a week here in the US. As I write this, votes for the presidential election still being counted. It’s probably a good thing I’m taking a break from refreshing the election results and reading hot takes on Twitter. And hopefully when you read this it will be decided. One of the emerging stories is how well (or not) social media is handling this; Social Media Today has an overview and Casey Newton’s Platformer argues “YouTube got played on Election Day”.

Mark your calendar: On November 15 I will be hosting a blogging workshop through Tangi. It’s free, but you need to sign up in the Tangi mobile app, which is not currently available in the EU or Brazil. I hope to see some of you there!

This week there are a few product updates for Chat, Meet, YouTube and webmasters, and I’ve also included a few tutorials from my fellow Google Product Experts to boost your productivity.

YouTube and Video

• Updates on YouTube: improved sharing of private videos front the video Details page (click the Visibility setting) and a revamped Membership tab. 
• If you need special effects for your next project, check out YouTube’s Audio Library, now available in YouTube Studio. I’ve put together a quick tutorial on how to use it.
• YouTube does read your feedback! On Creator Insider, members of the YouTube Analytics team responded to creator feedback, both from Twitter and submitted from inside YouTube. They point out the most useful feedback is specific, so try to make your feedback as clear as you can
• YouTube’s most watched video of all time is …. Baby Shark. And now I have the song stuck in my head doo doo doo doo doo doo.
• Vimeo Record is a new collaboration tool that lets you record and share video messages from your browser. Recorded videos are uploaded to Vimeo (naturally).

Webmasters and Bloggers

• Web Stories are getting more interactive with quizzes and polls. Google is really pushing the web story format, with a prominent place in Discover, and a WordPress plugin for easy creation.
• If you have had trouble with blog post photo placement in Blogger’s new interface, Blogger Product Expert Adam has some tips. Hopefully the Blogger team gets the issues sorted out soon.

Meetings

• Google Meet is rolling out the ability to accept “knocks” in bulk. That means if multiple people ask to join you can admit them in a single step.

Communication

• In a big change for Google Chat, new Rooms will be unthreaded by default starting November 16. If you want a new Room to have threaded conversations, you can set that at the time of creation. That setting cannot be changed after the Room has been set up. In unthreaded Rooms history can be turned off so that messages are deleted after 24 hours.
• Chat also now lets you pin a conversation or Room to the top of the list. Note that personal accounts will be migrated from classic Hangouts to Chat in the first half of 2021.
• Facebook’s WhatsApp now lets you send chat messages that disappear after 7 days.

Productivity Tips

• If you use Gmail on the web, you should check out this overview of how the “Important” label works, and how you can change its behavior from Gmail Product Expert Somnath..
• If you are getting spam notifications from Google Slides Comments, Docs Product Expert Ms. Drasby has tips for reporting the spam and protecting your account.
• If you are still getting used to the new Google Groups interface, Product Expert Nina Trankova has some tips for using shared labels.

More

• Google celebrates the 20th anniversary of the International Space Station, with a 3D model to explore, multiplayer jigsaw puzzles, coloring book and more.

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.

Photo by Nikolett Emmert from Pexels. Free to use. Chrysanthemums are the birth flower for November.