Peggy K's Creator News

It’s Labor Day weekend, the unofficial end of summer. Here in the Bay Area we’ve only just started getting hot days, so I feel a bit off kilter. Or maybe it’s the times we’re in. This week there are updates for video creators on YouTube, Google Vids, Google Photos, StreamYard, and Twitch; web publishers should know about the latest updates to Google Search and Typepad, and there’s updates on social media for Threads, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and more. 📨 Subscribe to get Creator Weekly by email. Top news and updates this week YouTube Hype expands to 39 countries. You can hype 3 recent videos per week. Google Vids is now available to everyone, but free accounts don’t get the AI powered tools. And soon you can create square and vertical video. Google Vids added new AI tools: convert still images to short video clips, use an AI avatar to read your script and edit out “filler words” and “awkward pauses”. The Google Gemini “Nano Banana” image model makes it easy to edit your phot...

To celebrate 10 years of Creator Weekly, I’m sharing  tech highlights from 2015  that still resonate 10 years later. This update was for the  week of August 29, 2015. Ten years ago this week, YouTube Gaming launched, along with a slew of new live streaming features. Gaming content was eventually merged back into the main YouTube site and app, but those live streaming features (and more) remain.  A Platform for YouTube Gamers YouTube Gaming was available on multiple platforms. Image from the original announcement in June 2015. In August 2015 YouTube Gaming launched, with a YouTube Gaming app and web site, all focused around live and recorded gaming content. YouTube automatically surfaced gaming content on the platform, and people could find that content organized by game.  Some noted that this looked like it was trying to be a "Twitch Killer", and they probably weren't wrong.  Twitch is a live streaming platfor...

Hello creators! This week was the big Made by Google event. While the focus was new hardware, Google used the opportunity to announce new AI and Photos features. There are updates for YouTube, Instagram, WordPress, and more. 📨 Subscribe to get Creator Weekly by email.. Top news and updates this week YouTube Effect Maker , a tool for creating Shorts effects, is now available to many more creators. Meta AI can now automatically translate and dub Reels on Instagram and Facebook . It’s just Spanish to/from English, for now. The new Pixel 10 Pr o camera has 100x Pro Res Zoom, 4x telephoto lens and can take 50MP photos. Google Photos will let you edit your photos by describing what you want changed, Google is embracing C2PA Content Credentials . These track AI and non-AI edits to your images. This is built in to the new Pixel 10 camera and is now supported by Google Photos. The Whisk experimental image generator is now available in 55 new countries. You can even animate the images ...

To celebrate 10 years of Creator Weekly, I’m sharing  tech highlights from 2015  that still resonate 10 years later. This update was for the  week of August 22, 2015.   Ten years ago this week the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies slates dominated the Hugo science fiction award nominations. Even so, they didn't win and it seemed like there was significant pushback against diversity haters. Unfortunately anti-diversity folks are currently in power, which is bad for everyone.   Anti-Diversity Advocates Try to Dominate the Hugo Awards Headline in The Guardian, 24 August 2015 Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies were conservative anti-diversity groups that claimed that the science fiction awards were being given on the basis of race and gender, rather than “quality”. Quality, of course, being the stories they wrote or liked to read. The Hugo award nominations turned out to be pretty easy to game , if you could get a group together to all nominate the same works. But there w...

Hello creators! I hope you are enjoying the waning days of summer. This week there are updates for web publishers, YouTubers, TikTok, Edits, Facebook, Bluesky and more.  📨 Subscribe to get Creator Weekly by email.. Top news and updates this week Google age verification of teens could affect AdSense and AdMob publisher revenue. Google has been using large language model AI to fight invalid ad traffic. Publishers can ask readers to make their site a Preferred Source for Google Search Top Stories. The imminent demise of goo.gl short links will affect academic publications. YouTube Posts can now have up to 10 images (rather than five). YouTube videos with automatic dubbing in to other languages can now be edited with the auto-dubs regenerated. YouTube Promote ad campaigns now have more options for the call to action. TikTok updated its Community Guidelines. AI-generated content must be labeled, but content that misleads about “matters of public importance” or is “harmful to...

To celebrate 10 years of Creator Weekly, I’m sharing  tech highlights from 2015  that still resonate 10 years later. This update was for the  week ending August 15, 2015.   Ten years ago this week a brand new company, Alphabet, was announced, with Google as a subsidiary, along with a new CEO.  Alphabet is Born On August 10, 2015 Google announced a new corporate structure was in the works. Alphabet was a new holding company, and Google would be just one of a number of subsidiary companies. Google was founded in 1998, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The company had been lead by Eric Schmidt until 2011, when Page took over as CEO.  Over the years, Google branched out into many different technologies, moving far beyond its origins as a search company. This reorganization meant Google could be a bit more focused.  Page said at the time, “This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main internet products...