Weekly Update - February 13, 2021: YouTube, Google Photos, Google Fi

Happy Valentine’s weekend ❤️! I hope you are able to spend time with the people you love.

This week there are updates for short vertical video creators (YouTube Shorts, Reels, TikTok), Google Photos video and photo editors, plus updates to the Google Fi VPN, Google Meet and more.

To do 

• For a personal Valentine's Day gift, make a movie of the two of you in Google Photos? With just a few clicks you can create a movie of any two people in your Photos library.
• February 17-18 is Learning with Google, a global live stream event where you can learn about G Suite for Education, Google Classroom and Google Meet. It's free to register.
  

• Tuesday was Safer Internet Day, and there are plenty of tips for keeping your online activity safe and secure:
• How Google keeps you safe online
• Keep your kids safe online
• Control your Google Maps experience
• Stay safer in Gmail
• Facebook Messenger added new privacy and safety features
• TikTok safety features all parents should know about
• Discord thanks their moderators
• SnapChat has added a “Friend checkup”
• Run a privacy checkup on your Google, Facebook and Twitter accounts

YouTube and Video

• The YouTube Copyright Match Tool now lets you give a seven day notice. If the video is not taken down after 7 days, only then does the re-uploader have it removed by YouTube and get a copyright strike. Learn more from Creator Insider.
• YouTube has launched a new “Shorts Report” with product updates and tips for YouTube Shorts. They include information that is useful for any short vertical videos (which are everywhere now). You can subscribe by email to get an update with the next edition.
• Make it original! Instagram will not promote Reels recycled from other apps, with a watermark or logo, or that are mostly covered with text. What do they suggest? Fun vertical videos that use music from Instagram’s library.
• TikTok is rolling out a new integration with recipe app Whisk. On cooking videos it adds an overlay on the video with a link back to the recipe.
• YouTube is the first platform to be accredited for content level brand safety from the Media Rating Council (MRC). This is a reassurance to advertisers that want to advertise in “safe environments” online. If you are a YouTube Partner, this is why you have to go through self-certification of your uploaded videos, and otherwise comply with the advertiser-friendly content guidelines.
• On Vimeo, Enterprise and Premium customers can enable automated closed captions on live streams.

Google Photos

• The new Google Photos video editor lets you crop, change perspective, add filters, change contrast, brightness, saturation and more. This is currently available on iOS devices, and will soon be available in the Android Photos app. There’s no word if they plan to make it available on desktop.
• Some currently Pixel-only Google Photos machine learning-based effects will not be rolled out to all phones. Instead, beyond the Pixel, only Google One members will get enhanced editing options like Portrait Light, Portrait Blur, Dynamic and sky suggestions. Google One is Google’s paid storage option, which starts at $19.99 per year for 100GB. You may need that when new Photos, Docs, and Sheets start counting against your Google account storage in June.

Communication

• The Google Fi VPN has exited beta, and will soon be available on iPhones, in addition to Android devices. There is also a new privacy and security hub in the Fi Android app. Google Fi is Google’s mobile phone service, and is only available in the US.
• Video Conferencing
• Google Meet now has separate dedicated IP addresses for participants using a personal account and Google Workspace users. You can use that information to configure your firewall and network.
• Zoom has added facial effects, if you want to look silly during a meeting.

More

• Kandinsky was the “artist who could hear colors” due to synesthesia. Google Arts & Culture lets you “play a Kandinsky”, to let you hear what his painting Yellow-Red-Blue might have sounded like to the artist.
• The Google Daydream VR platform is dead. That’s not really a surprise, as it only supported a few phones and did not work with the latest Pixels.
• Email aliases are now included in the Gmail search results. You can set up aliases in your Gmail settings.

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 StockSnap from Pixabay (Free for commercial use Pixabay License)