Peggy K's Creator News

This Thanksgiving weekend I want to give my thanks to all of you for your support! I write about the tech news that interests me, and it makes me glad that there are folks who read what I write. Thank you! Even though this was a holiday week in the US, there were updates for YouTube, Google Meet, Search Central and more. Plus there are tips and notes on Twitter alternatives Hive, Posts and the Fediverse. Subscribe to get the Weekly Update in your inbox. Get your business and content ready for the holidays (or shop!) AdSense has a holiday checklist for your website Instagram Announces New Live Events Series to Assist Marketers with their Holiday Campaigns New ways to find holiday deals on Google : new labels for coupons and promotions, deal comparisons, price insights New Google  AR shopping features for beauty products and sneakers Easily track your packages with new Gmail features Pint...

 If you manage your YouTube channel on your Android or iOS mobile device, you can check for eligibility and apply for the YouTube Partner Program in the YouTube Studio app.  Watch a quick tutorial . 1. Sign in to your YouTube channel in the YouTube Studio app ( iOS , Android ) 2. Tap the $ Monetize  button at bottom right 3. View your channel's progress towards the YouTube Partner Program eligibility requirements 1,000 subscribers 4,000 public watch hours No active community guidelines strikes 2-step verification enabled 4. If your channel is eligible tap Apply now Otherwise, keep uploading original videos and building your audience.

This week it was beautiful to watch the launch of NASA’s Orion spacecraft to the Moon, as part of their Artemis I mission . It’s in preparation for Artemis II, which will bring people back to the Moon. So exciting. Meanwhile, back on Earth, YouTube has some nice updates for creators, with new features in the YouTube Studio mobile app and the ability to engage with comments when watching videos on TV. And there’s more news for live streamers, web publishers and more. Sign up to get the weekly update in your email inbox. Time to back up your Twitter data! I thought last week at Twitter was chaotic, but this week seems to have topped it. Close to 80% of Twitter’s contractors were fired. Contractors moderate content and review abuse reports, manage property and payroll, and other unglamorous work. Employees were given 24 hours to decide whether they wanted to sign on for Musk’s “Twitter 2.0” vision, along with “hardcore” work hours. Most apparently did not. Twitter offices were closed t...

If you have a Twitter profile and would be sad to lose your tweets or shared images, now is a good time to make a backup.  The past couple of weeks have been chaotic  at Twitter, to put it mildly. There was a hard deadline today for employees who made it through the layoffs to sign on for Elon Musk's "extremely hardcore" Twitter 2.0, and many apparently decided to leave instead. The Verge reports  that it's not looking good:  Multiple “critical” teams inside Twitter have now either completely or near-completely resigned, said other employees who requested anonymity to speak without Musk’s permission. That includes Twitter’s traffic and front end teams that route engineering requests to the correct backend services. The team that maintains Twitter’s core system libraries that every engineer at the company uses is also gone. “You cannot run Twitter without this team,” a departing employee said. Several members of Twitter’s “...

There was a lot going on at Twitter this week, with a tumultuous launch of the new Twitter Blue subscription and its blue checkmark. There were funny and worrisome impersonations, resignations of senior staff, including the heads of security and privacy, and lots of ideas for what kinds of features may be coming to Twitter. If you’re not interested in Twitter, just scroll down for the new features for YouTube Live and Shorts, Instagram, Facebook and more. Sign up to get the weekly update in your email inbox. Twitter Blues Last week I wrote about the turmoil at Twitter  after new owner Elon Musk took over and laid off half the employees. Did things calm down this week? Not at all. Blue Checks For All? After waiting to launch the all new blue-check-for-all Twitter Blue until after the US midterm elections on Tuesday, it quickly became clear that impersonation was going to be a problem. A Twitter Blue subscription includes several benefits, including Tweet editing, the “ve...

Dear North American readers, don’t forget to move your clock ahead one hour tonight! I hate this change, and the early darkness it brings. I’m hoping someday we won’t be changing the time twice a year. This week’s big story is the massive turmoil at Twitter, with huge layoffs, the new owner upset with advertisers, a new subscription plan that lets you pay for verification to launch next week(!) and features (like the Revue newsletter platform) on the chopping block. I’ve never seen anything like it. Fortunately that isn’t the only story. There are new features for creators on YouTube and Facebook, adult content is back on Tumblr, manage projects in Google Sheets and more. Subscribe to my newsletter to get the Weekly Update by email. Note that the newsletter will likely have to be migrated to a different platform, but I will post more information on that when it happens. Goodbye to Hangouts Hangouts was officially closed on November 1. You may still be abl...

It’s finally time to say goodbye to Hangouts. On November 1, Hangouts on the web (hangouts.google.com) will start redirecting to Google Chat. Hangouts hasn’t been available on mobile devices for months, and Hangouts video calling was replaced by Meet in 2020. Hangouts on the web was the last place it was available. As I publish this, just after midnight Pacific time, Hangouts is still available, but that is likely just for a few hours longer. I made a Goodbye Hangouts video, looking back at how Hangouts changed over the years, and how we got to where we are today. I’m not going to repeat it here. Watch the video ! But I do have a few additional thoughts. I think those of us who are fond of Hangouts, and will miss it, aren’t thinking about the Hangouts of the past few years, but rather Hangouts in its heyday (say 2013-2015). Google+ Hangouts was social. It was designed for “Hangout Parties” and being able to connect with anyone who had a public Google+ Profile. Hangouts video cal...