Weekly Update - October 2, 2021: YouTube Policy, Meet Translations, Google Search AI

This week YouTube banned all vaccine misinformation, Google Meet launched automatically-translated live captions (in beta), and at the Google “Search On 2021” event the company announced improved visual search using MUM AI and Google Lens.

In social media Clubhouse now lets you share audio clips and offer room Replays, Twitter launched Professional Profiles for businesses, and Facebook is under fire (again).

Plus there are more updates for video creators, new productivity features and more.

Top Stories

• YouTube expanded their policy prohibiting medical misinformation so that false claims about any vaccines (not just COVID-19 vaccines) are not allowed.There are exceptions for content about vaccine trials, policy discussion, history and personal testimonials. Already YouTube has removed prominent anti-vaxxers Robert F. Kennedy, Jr and Joseph Mercola from the platform.
• Google Illustrations are new customizable images you can use as your Gmail and Google profile image. You can currently access them when you set your profile photo in Google Contacts on Android. It will eventually be available on iOS devices and the web.
• Live translated captions in Google Meet are available in beta. It will initially support English captions translated to Spanish, French, Portuguese and German. (You can use Chrome’s built in translation tool to translate into other languages)
• Google Meet is also making it easier for teachers with an update to class meetings set up in Google Classroom. New features for Education include: a waiting room for students who join before the teacher; Google Classroom co-teachers are automatically meeting co-hosts; and guests not on the class roster will have to “ask to join” .

AI in Google Search

This week was Google’s “Search On 2021” event, where they announced upcoming advances to Google Search. The MUM AI is making Search smarter, and the results are getting more visual.

• Google Search is using artificial intelligence to show related topics in a video. This will show topics that aren’t even explicitly mentioned.
• Google Lens is coming to Chrome on desktop. This lets you select images, video or text and see the search results in the same tab.
• Google Search is making advances with MUM - Multitask Universal Model - to enable advanced visual search. You will be able to search for information about a “thingamajig” in an image, or search for items with a similar design. The search results - at least on mobile devices - will also get more visible.
• Google Search is expanding the information in the “About this Result” feature for search results. This will include more information about the source from Wikipedia, find out what others have said about that website, and more about the topic.

Are you making short vertical videos yet?

• The YouTube Shorts Fund has launched in more than 30 new countries, from Algeria to Vietnam. Every month the Shorts Fund bonus is split between channels with original high-performing Shorts.
• Reels on Facebook launched, with Instagram Reels suggested on Facebook, plus the option to create Reels in the Facebook app. To encourage creators, Facebook has a new invite-only bonus program for Reels that are popular on Facebook and or Instagram.
• TikTok now has more than 1 billion monthly users, up from 507 million in December 2019.

YouTube and Video

• The YouTube Studio mobile app has a new design with bottom navigation. This is easier navigation than using the left menu.
• YouTube adds a “Typical Audience Retention” metric to the Key Metrics card in Analytics.
• Twitch now lets creators limit live chat to users who have verified their phone number. And when one account linked to a phone number is banned, all accounts linked to that phone number will also be banned.This is meant to cut down on harassment and spam.

Communication

• The Android Meet app now lets you replace your background with video. This option is already available for Google Meet for the web and iOS.

Social Media

• Popular image sharing site Imgur has been acquired by MediaLab. That puts Imgur in the company of Kik, Whisper, and Genius. James Vincent at The Verge suggests that MediaLab’s business model is “acquiring ailing brands with sizable, but stagnant, communities. Presumably, the goal is to bundle together traffic from these properties to sell ads or data, while cutting costs by sharing the work of keeping the sites running.” Not a great sign for Imgur’s active users.
• Clubhouse has made it easier to find and share content. They introduced Universal Search for rooms, the ability to create and share 30 second audio Clips, and audio-on-demand recorded Replays. This may give the platform a boost.
• Twitter opened up Professional Profiles to businesses in the US. If your business has a physical location, you can apply. Professional Profiles have an “About” module with the business address, hours of operation and a “Contact” button. Twitter may also offer business features like Twitter Ads, shopping and more. Twitter plans to offer more Professional Profile types, including Creators.
• David Bloom at Tubefilter takes a look at Facebook’s response to The Wall Street Journal’s recent series based on leaked internal documents, and likens it to “running their own disinformation campaign.”

Productivity

• You can now add image watermarks to your documents in Google Docs.
• Apple Keynote now lets presenters add live video to their presentation, allowing presenters to appear next to their slides. Plus multiple presenters can now control the same slide deck.

More

• A wild story came out about Ozy Media in the New York Times this week. In a call with investors one of the Ozy co-founders impersonated a YouTube executive (hint to investors: Google employees don’t use Gmail email addresses for company business). The company also has made big claims about discovering new talent and huge amounts of traffic to their site which have not stood up to scrutiny. And now the 8-year-old company has shut down.
• There is a new teacher’s guide for teaching with Google Arts & Culture content.
• There is a new “Wildfires” layer for Google Maps on mobile devices. This brings together important information from local governments and important details about the fire. Initially this will only include major fires that cause evacuations. I hate that there are so many big wildfires that this is a generally useful feature.

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: Marigolds by Shiebi AL from Pexels, free for commercial use.