.png)
Monday was the 10th World Emoji Day, and to celebrate, Emojipedia shared their top 10 viral emoji moments (🫡🅿♻🪑👏👁👄👁✨🥺✊🏿) and gave awards to their favorites (🩷🤣🫠). To celebrate, share your favorites in your Tweets, emails and chats. Why not? 🤷
There are also updates for video creators on YouTube and Instagram, bloggers and more.
Creator Weekly In Your Inbox:
Subscribe to get the Creator Weekly by email.
Creator Weekly Live:
Which emoji sums up your summer? What are your favorite updates this week?
Join the live Creator Weekly on Sunday, 10:30AM Pacific time. Join me live or watch the recording.
#OnEBoardChat
Following Creator Weekly Live, I’m hosting the OnEBoard Twitter chat on Sunday, July 23 at 11AM Pacific time. The topic is “collaboration tools”, and if you have experience or interest in collaboration online or off, it would be great if you joined the conversation.
Follow me on Twitter (@PeggyKTC) or keep an eye on the #OnEBoardChat hashtag.
Play Along with the FIFA Women’s World Cup
- Google Search has a cute multiplayer online game that lets you play as one of the World Cup teams. You can also get the latest scores and other news and information.
- Snapchat has special fan AR filters, stickers, team outfits for Bitmoji, special content and more.
- TikTok has an official partnership with FIFA, and is promoting official team channels, bringing creators to matches, and encouraging use of hashtags ( #FIFAWorldCup, #FIFAWomensWorldCup, and #FIFAWWC ).
Quiz Posts on YouTube
If your YouTube channel has access to Community Posts, you can now post quizzes.When you select “Quiz” as the post type, you write a question and then add up to 4 answers people can select from. When you set the correct answer, you can also write a brief description about why it is correct.
Test your knowledge of Google products in this quiz Post on my YouTube channel.
Learn more about all the types of Community Posts in the YouTube Help Center.
YouTube Channel Managers and Editors Can Now Act on YouTube Proper
YouTube’s Channel Permissions allows designated Managers and Editors to access the channel’s YouTube Studio to view data, respond to channel comments, upload videos, manage live streams and more. But those actions were always limited to YouTube Studio.With the latest update, channel Managers, Editors and Editors (Limited) can now act as the channel on YouTube.com and in the YouTube app. That includes commenting on other channels and uploading Reels.
Watch this video from Creator Insider for more details.
TikTok has a new partnership with Warner Music Group. That may mean more opportunities for Warner’s music artists and more music licensed through TikTok Music.
TikTok’s new “Elevate” program showcases and promotes emerging music artists.
You can now sign in to the StreamYard live streaming platform with your Google Account.
StreamYard also has a new option to reduce background noise. This is managed on your device, and can increase CPU usage.
Google has made it easier to add alt text to images in Google Slides, Drawings, Sheets and Docs. Alt text makes the image accessible to screen readers for viewers with vision impairments. If the documents are posted publicly on the web, it also makes it easier for search bots to understand the images.
WordPress 6.3 will be available August 8. You can watch the live demo to learn more about new features including the new Command Palette navigation tool, the ability to browse and edit pages in the Site Editor, Synced Patterns (replacing reusable blocks), new blocks for footnotes and details and more.
Social Media
Reddit re-launched r/place, a collaborative project that lets Redditors add to a community image, one pixel at a time. With the ongoing protests (yes, still), this has been received with some skepticism, with users assuming this is to artificially boost user activity, distract from the loss of third party apps, or both. This being Reddit, people have used their creative skills to share their feelings about Reddit CEO u/spez as you can see in the screenshot of a closeup of the image (as of Friday night).
Twitter is limiting the number of DMs that can be sent each day by non-Twitter Blue subscribers. What’s the limit? Twitter isn’t saying. Social Media Today has the details. This follows last week’s update that switched the default for DMs to only allow messages from your followers and Twitter Blue subscribers (you can change that in your settings). Twitter says this has reduced DM spam 70%. For people who legitimately use Twitter DMs a lot, such as journalists, this is going to be a hard push to pay for Twitter Blue.
Meta announced Llama2 their “next generation open source large language model”, which is free for research and commercial use. You can download the model here. Microsoft is partnering with Meta to make Llama2 available to Azure customers and Windows developers. You can play with an implementation of Llama2 at labs.perplexity.ai .
Microsoft’s Bing Chat has added Visual Search, which lets you add an image to your prompt and ask questions about it. This sounds similar to Google Bard, which uses Google Lens to respond to prompts about images.
Google has a Red Team trying to attack Google’s AI systems to make them better. They have shared examples of some of the kinds of attacks (pdf) they are worried about.
Philosopher Harry Frankfurt also died this week. He was the author of “On Bullshit” and he is interviewed about bullshit (who and how and why) here.
Just for fun: Google partnered with Japanese game company Taito to create an augmented reality version of Space Invaders.”Space Invaders spawn from buildings and rooftops, hide behind structures and hover in the sky.” (In fact, you can only play it outside, near buildings) Learn more and download the app.
Gamer Alyssa Mercante writes for Kotaku: “Despite advancements, games still aren’t doing enough to prevent toxic voice chat.”
Haje Jan Kramps, reporter @ TechCrunch “spent $800 to try to get a scammer to post an article on TechCrunch for me”. He dives into the scammers who promise to get articles published in major online publications.
Google Chat now supports up to 50,000 members in a Space (at least for Google Workspace accounts), and has added member search to help you find fellow Space members.
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 the July 16 edition here.
---
Header image background: Emoji by Kiwa Studio on Canva. Free for commercial use.
Watch this video from Creator Insider for more details.
More Video Tools From Meta
Meta is adding more video creation and discovery tools to Facebook and Instagram.- Facebook is bringing the Reels video editor to videos uploaded to your Feed. That includes editing audio, music and text, and adding effects to video clips.
- You can now upload HDR videos to Reels, and the video can play back in full HDR.
- The redesigned Facebook Watch tab (now the Videos tab) lets you explore all types of videos, including Reels, Live video, and long form video content. And you can visit the Explore tab to find recommended videos by topic and hashtag.
- Now you can not only watch Instagram Reels on Facebook, but you can also engage with them by leaving comments. No need to switch apps.
- Instagram has a new Reels Template Browser that lets you find recommended and trending templates, and access templates you have saved. When you use a template, you use the audio, number of clips, duration of the clips, and AR effects in your own Reel, and soon also text and transitions from the original. That is all customizable in the Reels editor.
More Video Updates
If you are interested in finding sponsorships, Ground News (which has sponsored nearly 1000 creators) participated in an AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) in the r/PartneredYouTube subReddit. Read the Q&A.TikTok has a new partnership with Warner Music Group. That may mean more opportunities for Warner’s music artists and more music licensed through TikTok Music.
TikTok’s new “Elevate” program showcases and promotes emerging music artists.
You can now sign in to the StreamYard live streaming platform with your Google Account.
StreamYard also has a new option to reduce background noise. This is managed on your device, and can increase CPU usage.
Web Publishers
Medium is updating their Partner Program to try to incentivize original quality writing. They are removing the requirement for 100 followers, but instead requiring that Partners become paid Medium Members. Earnings will be based on more engagement signals (claps, highlights, replies, follows), and will require the reader to view the post for at least 30 seconds. Plus reads and engagement from followers will earn more. It’s a big change that may have some Medium writers scrambling for more followers.Google has made it easier to add alt text to images in Google Slides, Drawings, Sheets and Docs. Alt text makes the image accessible to screen readers for viewers with vision impairments. If the documents are posted publicly on the web, it also makes it easier for search bots to understand the images.
WordPress 6.3 will be available August 8. You can watch the live demo to learn more about new features including the new Command Palette navigation tool, the ability to browse and edit pages in the Site Editor, Synced Patterns (replacing reusable blocks), new blocks for footnotes and details and more.
Social Media
Reddit re-launched r/place, a collaborative project that lets Redditors add to a community image, one pixel at a time. With the ongoing protests (yes, still), this has been received with some skepticism, with users assuming this is to artificially boost user activity, distract from the loss of third party apps, or both. This being Reddit, people have used their creative skills to share their feelings about Reddit CEO u/spez as you can see in the screenshot of a closeup of the image (as of Friday night). 
Twitter is limiting the number of DMs that can be sent each day by non-Twitter Blue subscribers. What’s the limit? Twitter isn’t saying. Social Media Today has the details. This follows last week’s update that switched the default for DMs to only allow messages from your followers and Twitter Blue subscribers (you can change that in your settings). Twitter says this has reduced DM spam 70%. For people who legitimately use Twitter DMs a lot, such as journalists, this is going to be a hard push to pay for Twitter Blue.
AI Updates
Seven “leading AI companies” (Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI) have voluntarily committed to adhere to principles for “safe, secure and transparent development of AI technology” proposed by the US Biden-Harris administration.Meta announced Llama2 their “next generation open source large language model”, which is free for research and commercial use. You can download the model here. Microsoft is partnering with Meta to make Llama2 available to Azure customers and Windows developers. You can play with an implementation of Llama2 at labs.perplexity.ai .
Microsoft’s Bing Chat has added Visual Search, which lets you add an image to your prompt and ask questions about it. This sounds similar to Google Bard, which uses Google Lens to respond to prompts about images.
Google has a Red Team trying to attack Google’s AI systems to make them better. They have shared examples of some of the kinds of attacks (pdf) they are worried about.
More
Singer Tony Bennett (YouTube) died this week, aged 96. Dave Kindy at the Washington Post writes “Tony Bennett saw racism and horror in WWII. It changed him.” Read this! About how the racism he observed in the US Army affected him: “The memories led him to become a civil rights activist. In 1965, his friend and singer Harry Belafonte asked him to walk in a civil rights march planned by King in Selma. Bennett accepted without hesitation.” I’m sad I’m only learning this now, after he’s gone.Philosopher Harry Frankfurt also died this week. He was the author of “On Bullshit” and he is interviewed about bullshit (who and how and why) here.
Just for fun: Google partnered with Japanese game company Taito to create an augmented reality version of Space Invaders.”Space Invaders spawn from buildings and rooftops, hide behind structures and hover in the sky.” (In fact, you can only play it outside, near buildings) Learn more and download the app.
Gamer Alyssa Mercante writes for Kotaku: “Despite advancements, games still aren’t doing enough to prevent toxic voice chat.”
Haje Jan Kramps, reporter @ TechCrunch “spent $800 to try to get a scammer to post an article on TechCrunch for me”. He dives into the scammers who promise to get articles published in major online publications.
Google Chat now supports up to 50,000 members in a Space (at least for Google Workspace accounts), and has added member search to help you find fellow Space members.
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 the July 16 edition here.
---
Header image background: Emoji by Kiwa Studio on Canva. Free for commercial use.
Comments
Post a Comment
Spam and personal attacks are not allowed. Any comment may be removed at my own discretion ~ Peggy