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Celebrating International Women’s Day
March is Women’s History Month, and more specifically, March 8th was International Women’s Day. Platforms celebrated in their own way.- YouTube’s official channel (web archive) is highlighting Women to Watch in Gaming, Food & Cooking, Fitness, Tech, and Fashion & Beauty.
- Twitch has a Together for Legendary Women shelf on the front page. They encourage women streamers to use the LegendaryWomen tag for their streams.
- Pinterest is promoting “Midlife and Menopause Magic” . Host Stacy London interviews the women founders of wellness companies, including Omisade Burney-Scott, Founder of Black Girls Guide to Menopause, Gwen Floyd, CEO of Wile, Alicia Jackson, CEO of Evernow, Dr. Somi Javid, founder of HERmd, Barb Dehn of Peppy Health, and Caire Beauty Co-Founders Lorrie King & Celeste Lee. Watch the recording here.
- TikTok is featuring “Women Who Will”, #WomenOfTiktok and #WomenInMusic online and IRL.
- The Google Play Store is featuring books (both fiction and non-fiction) with fierce female voices, apps created by women and that are empowering.
- Google Developers features Women Techmakers in this month’s Developer Journey profiles.
- Google Arts & Culture highlights women artists, scientists and community builders.
Updates for YouTube Partners
There were two big YouTube announcements this week for creators monetizing their channel.Goodbye Overlay Ads (Good Riddance!)
The first update is that overlay ads (rectangular ads that appear on top of a video on desktop) are being retired. YouTube notes that they aren’t a great user experience. If you are not sure how that may affect your revenue, I have a brief tutorial on how to check your Analytics by ad type and how to update your channel’s ad defaults.
Relaxed “Inappropriate Language” policy
The second update is that YouTube is relaxing its policies around profanity in monetized videos. Now you can have moderate profanity throughout your video and still monetize. If you are a swearer, it’s still better to keep the “inappropriate language” out of the first seven seconds of your video, the title and description. This is much more lenient that the previous policy that didn’t allow monetization for videos with any profanity.
Video
Next month Twitch is launching a revamped Ads Incentive Program for creators. The program will be more flexible, with streamers able to pick a new ads run recommendation or take a break at any time. Partners will get personalized revenue estimates for their channel.Social Media Today reports that Meta is pausing its Reels Play Bonus Program on Instagram and Facebook. Meta is working on ad revenue sharing and will expand virtual gifting.
Reddit has updated their mobile app to add a dedicated “watch” feed so you can view only videos if you want.
TikTok creators can no longer link to app stores or use Linktree links in their profile. Business accounts can add a “Download app” button at no cost.
TikTok is launching Series, a new way for creators to share premium paid content. Series can have up to 80 videos, which can be up to 20 minutes long. Creators can also set the price.
Spotify is also getting into the short vertical video game with “Clips”. These allow artists to promote themselves and their music from their artist profile, tracks and albums.
Spotify launched a new “Spotify for Podcasters” platform, absorbing the Anchor podcast hosting and management service. That will offer creators new features like video podcasting. To promote video podcasts, Spotify has partnerships with YouTuber Markiplier and video podcasters from other platforms.
Web Publishing
Last October, Google started displaying website names and favicons in search results on mobile devices. This new design is now rolling out on desktop.Social Media
Reddit is shutting down Reddit Talk, their social audio feature. Andrew Hutchinson at Social Media Today puts that change into context.Facebook currently has 2 billion daily active users (!). In their look to the future, Facebook is working on AI-powered content discovery, ads on Reels, and more integration of messaging features.
Wired reports that some researchers have been quoted prices starting at $42,000 per month (half a million dollars per year) to use the Twitter API to access only 0.3% of Tweets. That is far outside the reach of most academic budgets. Previously free access to the Twitter API included access to 1% of Tweets.
The BBC analyzed the content from accounts restored in Twitter’s “general amnesty” for suspended accounts and found hundreds spreading abuse and misinformation. And an insider told them that Twitter “is no longer able to protect users from trolling, state-co-ordinated disinformation and child sexual exploitation” due to severely reduced staffing. The anonymous employee noted: "When you look at [Twitter] from the outside the façade looks fine, but I can see that nothing is working. All the plumbing is broken, all the faucets, everything."
The Fediverse
If you want to schedule posts to your Mastodon account, dlvr.it and Buffer now offer that feature.Deepsekhar Choudhury and Vikas SN at MoneyControl report that Meta is working on a standalone text-based content app (code-named P92) that supports ActivityPub. That means it would be interoperable with other platforms with ActivtyPub like Mastodon. The app would use Instagram login credentials, and Meta has confirmed they are exploring “a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.”
Flipboard is making it easy to link your Mastodon profile to your Flipboard account. And the Flipboard team has created a curated magazine with Fediverse news.
Productivity
Nina Trankova has an overview of how to record Google Meet meetings with some helpful tips.You can now translate the text in images using Google Translate on the web (translate.google.com).
If you enjoy exploring data, check out the newly redesigned Google Trends (trends.google.com). You can view real-time trends that include links to more information, so you can understand why it’s trending.
Google is updating the design of Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive, with a simplified interface. No functionality will be removed, but the various settings have been moved around. Learn more here.
Google One subscriptions now include a VPN and scans of the dark web for your personal information, in addition to extra storage and other features.
You can now add closed captions to PowerPoint presentations. Those captions can optionally display when the presentation is shared with PowerPoint Live in a Microsoft Teams meeting.
More Reading
Ron Amadeo @ Ars Technica: Google dusts off the failed Google+ playbook to fight ChatGPT. I hope it doesn’t turn out this way. I loved Google+, the social network. I didn’t love all the integrations of Google+ into various Google products, some of which were poorly implemented or widely hated (like the Google+-YouTube integration). The only good thing is that it will likely be easier to disentangle various “AI” features if they aren’t a hit that it was to unlink Google+ across Google’s services.You can now register for Google I/O, which will be on May 10th. There will be a limited in-person audience, and free virtual participation for the rest of us. The keynote and individual sessions will be available on-demand.
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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.
Header image background: Photo by damesophie from Pixabay. Free for commercial use. Source: pixabay.com/photos/clover-leaves-green-plants-foliage-1225988/
For me, as a user, Twitter is getting better every day.
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