Weekly Update - May 29, 2021: YouTube Community Posts, Photos Storage Manager, new Meet Interface

Can it really almost be June? Where has the time gone?

You may want to spend time this weekend backing up photos and videos to your Google Photos account. On June 1st all newly uploaded images (except those backed up by eligible Pixel phones) will start counting towards your storage quota. Google will also  help you find blurry and large files, and estimate how long your storage will last.

New and updated Docs, Slides, Sheets, Jamboards and Forms will also count toward your limit. You can use your Google account Storage Manager to clean up your Google Drive files and Gmail messages.

What else is happening to your Google account June 1:

• If your YouTube channel is in the YouTube Partner Program, and you are outside the United States, you need to submit your US Tax information by May 31. Google will start withholding taxes on earnings from US viewers. If you do not submit your tax details, Google will withhold 30% of your entire earnings.
• The new YouTube Terms of Service will be going into effect outside the United States (where it is already in effect). YouTube’s new "right to monetize" lets them place ads on videos on channels that are not in the YouTube Partner Program, but that otherwise have advertiser friendly content. The only way to be paid or control the ads is through the YouTube Partner Program.
• Support for Chrome Apps on Windows, Mac and Linux is ending, including the Hangouts Chrome App. The alternative is the Hangouts Chrome extension.

Read on for updates and tips for YouTubers, webmasters, businesses and more.

Conferencing

• The updated interface for Google Meet is rolling out over the next couple of weeks. You will be able to revert to the old interface, but after June 10, the new interface will become the standard for all users.
• Google Meet just launched “gentle notifications” when issues are detected that might affect the quality of your meeting. Open the Troubleshooting & Help option under the 3 dot menu icon and you will see troubleshooting recommendations tailored to your particular issue.

YouTube

• There are several updates to YouTube Community Posts. You can now schedule posts for later, create posts with up to 5 images on your mobile device, and see impressions and engagement rate in YouTube Analytics. Note that your channel must have at least 1000 subscribers to be eligible for the Community tab.
• Streamyard’s Remi Oduyemi has a cool tutorial on how to create a countdown timer for your livestream (or any video) in Canva.

Google Photos

• Save messages from Gmail to Google Photos. The “Save to Photos” button is next to the “Add to Drive” button. It currently only supports .JPG images. This option will be rolling out over the next few weeks.
• On June 1 newly backed up Google Photos will start counting against your Google Account storage limits. Don’t panic! Any “High Quality” images backed up to your Photos before that date will not count towards the limit. Google will also help you find very large or blurry photos and videos on the new “Manage Storage” page.

Webmasters and Bloggers

• If you missed the sessions for webmasters at Google I/O, you can catch up by watching the recorded videos. There were several sessions on Core Web Vitals and immersive storytelling on the web.

Advertising

• The Google Marketing Livestream Keynote was May 27. Read the recap and watch the keynote on YouTube. Among the topics: maintaining user privacy by using Consent Mode in Google Tag Manager and other privacy-safe features for ads and metrics, as well as improved ad automation.
• Google wants businesses to better connect with customers. Soon businesses will be able to “curate how your brand appears on Google through videos, rich lifestyle imagery and interactive story formats, for free.” Plus Google is adding integration with Shopify, WooCommerce, GoDaddy and Square.

Social Media

• Instagram launched Insights for Reels and Live. Metrics will include views, saves, shares, comments and more.
• Casey Newton takes a look at what Instagram learned in an experiment hiding “Like” counts.They found that it doesn’t actually “depressurize” the platform, and while some people find public Like counts stressful, others find them beneficial. Their solution? Users now have the option to hide Like counts on their own feed and posts.

Productivity

• You can now position an image in front of or behind text in Google Docs. This layer is preserved when importing from or exporting to Microsoft Word.

More

• The audio chat site Clubhouse is funding 25 original projects as part of its Creator First accelerator program. It will be interesting to see if that helps Clubhouse compete against similar built-in functionality on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.
• The Google I/O photobooth web app lets you take a photo with Google’s developer mascots. The Google Developer blog explains how it was made and links to open-source code.
• How much money would influencers take to spread misinformation? French and German YouTuber and bloggers were offered money to share false information about COVID-19 vaccines from a supposedly London-based PR firm (which has Moscow-based managers).

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: Monday, May 31 is Memorial Day in the United States. It honors military personnel who died while serving in the US armed forces. Image with red, white and blue bunting by JillWellington on Pixabay.