Peggy K's Creator News

Ten years ago this week, on January 3, 2015, I published t he first issue  of the Creator Weekly.  My original focus was Google products, and it's meant I've had a front row seat for all the changes over the past decade.  Since its humble beginnings as a roundup of my Google+ posts, it's expanded to include updates and news for video creators, bloggers, website owners and social media across platforms. As I noted last week , there is a core group of readers who at least open almost every newsletter email. I'm so grateful! I hope you all find this look back over the past decade interesting. Beginnings on Google+ Back in the twenty-teens, my main platform was Google+ , and my weekly news recap was a roundup of my Google+ posts from the previous week.  At the time, there wasn't an easy way to browse posts on Google+. You could scroll through someone's profile, but I posted a fair amount, and it was a lot of tr...

2024 is finally coming to a close, and 2025 promises to be an interesting year. The tech companies are (mostly) quiet this week, and so I wanted to use this opportunity to share my 2024 highlights and then take a look at trends from 2024 that I think will continue through 2025. You can find my personal 2024 recap here . Here are the things I’ve been noodling on: 2004 was "the beginning of the future", will 2024 stand out 20 years from now? AI in everything, but at whose expense? Fan support: Paid subscriptions and communities The open social web versus walled gardens Creating videos for the little screen (phones) and big screen (TVs) I plan a more traditional “here’s what happened” recap for next week. What will we remember in 20 years? 2004 was an exciting year in tech. We didn’t know it at the time, but huge chunks of the internet we use today were launched 20 years ago. Facebook , Gmail , and Firefox all launched that year. You coul...

Here's a quick look back at my 2024, with a few stats, this year's top tutorials and achievements. Note: You can find my post about Creator Trends in 2024 here. Milestones Creator Weekly blog and newsletter turn 10 on January 5, 2025. Creator Weekly Live on YouTube turned one in April. I started using Blogger 20 years ago ! I reflected on my social media 5 years after the demise of Google+. And yes, that makes me feel old.  Thank you for reading, watching, commenting and chatting! A special thank you to my regular readers and viewers. It means a lot to me, and I appreciate every comment and tip. Newsletter Readers A special shout-out to my top 25 subscribers who opened up more than 92% of my emails. I assume you are reading this, so thank you! Having regular readers makes writing worthwhile. Some of you reached out by email and I appreciate that too!   Blog Commenters Constructive comments, observations and questions are always we...

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Joyous Holidays to all who celebrate! This is the last Creator Weekly for 2024. Next week’s edition will have a recap of the year and a look towards 2025. This week there are updates for YouTube, AdSense, Threads, Bluesky, the Fediverse, Google’s AI and more, as companies push out their final updates for the year. 📨  Subscribe  to get Creator Weekly by email. Tracking Santa A long-standing tradition is tracking Santa as he delivers gifts around the world, and not, you know, shooting him down as an unidentified incursion into US airspace. NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) has updated its Santa tracker site with an AI-powered multilingual “Radar the Elf” chatbot from Microsoft Bing. (I find the AI-generated “Radar the Elf” image on that page rather disturbing). Google has its own Santa Tracker with kid-friendly games. And no chatbots that I can see. Top news and updates this week Your YouTube 2024 Creator recap. Opt ...

Updated Google Publisher Policies go into effect on February 16, 2025. The updated policy requires publishers to clearly disclose data collection, sharing and usage in connection with the use of "Google services", taking into account current privacy-enhancing technologies and range of devices where ads may display. If you use AdSense for Content, AdMob or Google Ad Manager, you will have to agree to and abide by the updated terms. You should have received an email from AdSense with the subject line "Update to Google Platforms program policies" with the new policy information.  Google explains: The changes reflect advances in privacy-enhancing technologies (such as on-device processing, Trusted Execution Environments, and secure multi-party computation) and the broader range of surfaces on which ads are served (such as Connected TVs and gaming consoles). They also maintain the obligation on partners to provide transparenc...