Ten years of Creator Weekly

Ten years ago this week, on January 3, 2015, I published the 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 trouble to get posts more than a few weeks old. 

Plus, I realized that it would be smart to have more content on my own site. That turned out to be a good decision.

Most of my posts were about Google products. Google+, of course, and YouTube, AdSense, Hangouts, Chrome, Android and so forth. Google used Google+ to make product announcements, so a lot of my posts reshared the announcement with my comments. 

You'll have to trust me when I say it was interesting stuff, because when Google announced Google+ would shut down in 2019, I went back through all my old posts and removed the Google+ links. All that remains from those early posts is the one sentence description of the content and a few links to non-Google+ articles.

In any case, all the original Google+ posts are long gone. It's a good reminder that you should have your own website or blog, not just social media!

An Eventful Year

2015 recap image, showing a collage of Weekly Update headers.

2015 was a big year for Google, and not just because new parent company Alphabet launched, Google changed their logo, and Sundar Pichai was promoted to CEO.

• Google+, which up until this point had been aggressively integrated across Google across Google products, relaunched with a new simpler focus on shared interests. 
• Google Photos and Hangouts were separated from Google+ early in the year, and the more complex task of separating Google+ from YouTube began. 
• YouTube launched YouTube Red (now YouTube Premium), YouTube Music and YouTube Gaming.
  
• A 2015 trend Google missed: Live streaming for the masses (especially mobile live streaming) with the launch of Periscope, Meercat, Blab, Instalively and Facebook Live. Google's Hangouts on Air did not get any new features, and YouTube was focused on gaming live streams.
• Blogger tried banning adult content, but reversed that decision after user outcry. Blogger was integrated with Google Domains, and blogs began switching over to HTTPS. They
• Google launched Project Fi (now Google Fi Wireless), with your phone number "in the cloud" and available on multiple devices, network switching and free wifi hotspots.
• Google acquired Jibe Mobile to bring RCS messaging to Android Messages. 

It was an interesting time to start regularly writing about Google's updates. 

Since then, Google spent years fully untangling Google+ from other products; there was a worldwide pandemic that pushed Google (and other tech companies) to improve their video conferencing and business tools; YouTube updated channel management, creator tools, and added Shorts and TV to the mix; TikTok showed how successful an algorithmic feed can be; NFTs were briefly a thing; Twitter became X and a slew of new competing social media platforms launched; and now "AI" is everywhere. 

And what happened to those products and features launched a decade ago?

• The Google logo is the same, the corporate structure is the same, the CEO is the same.
• Google+ shut down in 2019 amidst security concerns and low usage. 
• Hangouts finally shut down in 2022, fully replaced by Chat and Meet. Mobile-first video calling app Google Duo launched in 2016, and that has also been integrated with Meet.
• Google Photos is still one of Google's most popular services. 
• YouTube and YouTube music are going strong, with too many updates in the past decade to list here. YouTube Gaming was reincorporated into the main YouTube platform. And you can subscribe to YouTube Premium or YouTube Music Premium.
• Meercat, Blab and Instalively didn't last two years. Periscope was eventually shut down in favor of Twitter's native live streaming (now limited to X Premium subscribers). YouTube added mobile live streaming to the app in 2016 and now seem to be leaning into vertical live with previews in the Shorts feed and monetization with Gifts (powered by Jewels).
• Google Domains was sold to Squarespace in 2023, and is no longer integrated with Blogger. Blogger underwent a significant redesign in 2019, and, yes it still allows adult content.
• Google Fi is still available, even though it's not so much on the cutting edge any more. 
• And RCS may finally become the standard, with Apple iOS support available starting just a few months ago.

New Name, New Look

The first issue of what would become Creator Weekly (via the Internet Archive). It was all about the Plus.

It's pretty obvious that I am not good at naming things. 

I started out calling this my "Weekly in Review", and then "Weekly Update", which was both accurate and vague (weekly update about what?). 

I finally renamed it Creator Weekly when I moved my email list to Beehiiv in December 2022. That at least gives an idea of what the newsletter is about. 

The blog underwent a major redesign in 2017, and I changed the overall name from "YouTube-Google+ Integration" (which wasn't even a thing anymore) to "Peggy K's Tips & Tricks for Creators, Collectors and Curators".

And then in 2023, with the 10 year anniversary of the blog, I changed the name of the whole thing to "Peggy K's Creator Weekly", keeping the "News, tips and tutorials for Creators, Collectors and Curators" tagline. The weekly newsletter is my most consistent content, and my sporadic tutorials mostly fit the theme. 

Maybe it's time for another design refresh? 

Get the Newsletter in your Inbox

Creator Weekly has been available by email from the start. It's been a blessing to own my email list as platforms changed over the years.

For most of the past 10 years you could subscribe using Google's FeedBurner. But after many years of benign neglect, Google turned off the feed-to-email option in 2021. 

After some research into alternatives, I switched to the Twitter-owned Revue newsletter platform.

But under Twitter's new ownership, Revue was shut down in December 2022.

It's been hosted by Beehiiv since then, which doesn't seem likely to shut down any time soon. (I hope I haven't jinxed it). 

I was able to move my email list from platform to platform, just asking readers for consent to continue to email them.

This is far different from switching social media platforms, which have generally meant starting over from scratch each time. 

If you are interested, and haven't yet subscribed, just enter your email here or in the form below to get an email every Saturday.

Watch and Chat

As Creator Weekly has grown over the past decade, I've come to appreciate that it's a lot to read.

In April 2023 I started live streaming every Sunday with a recap of the top updates for the week. There is a YouTube link in the newsletter, and I appreciate folks joining me to chat about the week's news. 

You can add the playlist of episodes to your YouTube library.

Or, if that's even too much, get a one minute update.

Connect with me on socials

Finally, I do share a link to each week's newsletter with a very brief recap on my socials. 

Bluesky: @PeggyK

Threads: @PeggyKolm

Follow my Threads profile in the Fediverse:  @peggykolm@threads.net

X: @PeggyKTC (I am not active on X, but I do automatically post links)

Thanks for reading. Let's see if 2025 is as interesting as 2015!