Peggy K's Creator News

Google announced today that Currents, the Google Workspace-only successor to Google+, will "wind down" in early 2023.  Currents content and communites will be migrated to Spaces,  part of Google Chat.  Spaces will be getting  new community-like features and collaboration tools  before that happens. The announcement shouldn't come as a surprise, as Currents has been little mentioned by Google since its launch in 2019 in the wake of the shutdown of Google+ for consumers.  This will help consolidate Google's communication platforms.  As noted in today's announcement:  Upgrading Google Currents to Spaces removes a separate, siloed destination for users, and provides organizations with a modern, enterprise-grade experience that reflects how the world is working today. And Spaces , unlike Currents, is available to users with free personal Google accounts....

Yesterday at Google Cloud Next '19 Google announced Currents , 1  the successor to Google+. For G Suite users, all their existing Google+ Content will still be available, but there will be new features, a new design and a totally different look and feel. The new app will not have Circles , or Collections , and going by the screenshots Google has shared , the +1 button will be replaced by a Facebook-like thumbs up. New features like tags, topic streams, and detailed analytics actually look pretty sweet, 2 but it's not Google+. That is gone for good. Screen capture from Google Cloud Next '19: Day 2 Collaborate Channel Ever since the shutdown of Google+ for consumer users (like me) was announced, 3  I've been trying to figure out how best to sum up my feelings. I was a bitter ender, posting right up until the shutdown on the morning of April 2nd. I was focused on creating tutorials to help other users confused by the shutdown process, backing up my own data...

When consumer Google+ shuts down on April 2nd, consumer users running a Hangout on Air or Hangout video call from Google Calendar will almost certainly lose access to third party apps like Hangouts Toolbox and Control Room. It is not clear whether G Suite accounts will still have access to these apps. While there currently isn't any notice inside the Hangout on Air interface, I've personally confirmed that deletion of the Google+ Profile on an account makes the apps disappear and the option to add new apps is removed.. In April 2017 Google stopped supporting the  Google+ Hangouts API . This removed most Hangouts video call apps, leaving only a few business and Hangout on Air-related apps running. From the Google+ Hangouts API FAQ, regarding changes on April 25, 2017 Since 2015, these apps have only been available in Hangouts video calls launched from Google Calendar events or Hangouts on Air live broadcasts. And - notably - they require a Google+ Profile or Googl...

It just takes a few minutes to add a profile photo and customize your public Blogger profile to let your readers learn a bit more about you and your interests. When you create a Blogger Profile the only information you are required to enter is your display name. You have the option of creating adding a profile photo, and setting up public profile that will be linked from the posts you author, your comments on Blogger blogs and the Blogger Profile gadget on your blog's Layout. Profile gadget. Profile photo, name, link to profile on posted comment. Your Blogger profile is linked to all the blogs in your Blogger account. If you want to blog under more than one identity, you can create a new Blogger account on a different Google account. If you have already set up your Blogger profile, learn how to add a Profile gadget to your blog's layout. Note that if you haven't switched from a Google+ Profile to a Blogger Profile yet, jump to the end to learn how to...

Google Calendar , like many Google products, was integrated with Google+. Before consumer Google+ shuts down on April 2, 2019, the Google+ features in Google Calendar will be removed.  Google Calendar will no longer show Google+ Events Google Calendar will no longer show birthdays of people in your Google+ Circles Watch my overview : Read on for more detailed information.

When consumer Google+ shuts down on April 2, your Google+ "Photos from Posts" and "Photos of You" albums in your  Album Archive will be deleted. Google Photos is a separate product, and will NOT be shutdown. Any of your photos that are in Google Photos will NOT be deleted. Photo upload, editing and management were a major draw to Google+ from its launch in 2011. Google+ offered "Instant Uploads " to back up the photos on your phone to the cloud, Creative Kit , which let you easily edit your photos, and later " Auto Awesome" enhancements . (See the timeline at the end of the post for the highlights.) Then in 2015  Google announced that Google Photos would be a standalone product, split away from Google+.  That was a harbinger of doom: just two months later Google announced that Google+ would no longer be a social layer across Google+. The new Google+ no longer included any special photo features, and had a new design where Profiles no long...

The notification bell on the desktop Google navigation bar will disappear on March 7th. You can switch to browser notifications for Google Photos, Hangouts Chat, and Google+ for G Suite.  You will see a message with a Learn More link when you click the notification bell starting today. The notification bell on the Google navigation bar first appeared in 2011, allowing you to access your Google+ notifications anywhere you are signed in to Google. As Google+ was integrated with other Google products, you could get your notifications for Google+ comments on Blogger and YouTube and for activity on your Photos. Peak Google+ integration was in 2013. In 2015, as Google+ split away from other Google products, the notification bell was updated so that Google+, Google Photos and YouTube notifications could be managed separately. And in 2017, shortly after the shutdown of Classic Google+, the notifications under the bell got a redesign, and Mr. Jingles - the Google+ notificati...

With the  shutdown of Google+ on the near horizon , YouTube has announced the last few Google+-related features will be removed in February 2019.  While  YouTube's breakup from Google+  was mostly complete by 2016, there were a few remaining Google+-dependent features. Google+ Circles will be removed from private video shares The option to update your channel icon and cover art in the YouTube Mobile app will be removed Links to Google+ profiles and pages on your channel's About tab and header will be removed Pre-September 2016 versions of the YouTube mobile app will no longer be able to read or post comments What will NOT change: Your YouTube channel, your videos, comments and playlists will NOT be deleted Your YouTube channel's Brand Account will NOT be deleted Your verification badge from Google+ will NOT be removed See the FAQ in the official YouTube Help Forum for details . Watch the video for a quick overview.  Related posts abou...

Today Google announced a timeline for the shutdown of consumer Google+ and the removal of Google+ features from Blogger . While Google+ itself won't be entirely shut down for consumer users until April 2nd, Google+ features on Blogger will be removed beginning February 4th, less than a week from now. This includes Google+ Comments, badges and widgets and Google+ Profiles. Note that these changes only affect Google+ features. If you are using a Blogger profile and Blogger comments, and you don't have any Google+ badges and widgets in your blog's layout, you probably won't notice any difference.   Watch the video for an overview , or read on for more details. Update 5 February 2019 : All Google+ settings have been removed, and you should see a notification inside your Blogger account: Related Blogger Tutorials: Customize your Blogger Profile Related posts about the Google+ Shutdown: Create a backup of your Google+ Page Turn your Google+ followers in...

If you are using a Brand Account identity for your YouTube Channel or Google+ Page, you can - and should - use Google Takeout to download an archive of your content.  Google+ Page content needs to be downloaded before consumer Google+ shuts down on April 2, 2019 . A Brand Account lets you have a brand, business, organization identity on Google that is different than your personal Google Account identity. Brand Accounts can have multiple Owners and Managers, who sign in to their own Google Account to manage the Brand Account and any Google services on that Brand Account. Currently the only Google products that officially support a Brand Account identity are YouTube, Google+ and Google Photos. Google Takeout lets you create an archive of your content stored by Google. If your data is important to you, it's a good idea to create an archive periodically: Consumer Google+ will shut down by April 2, 2019 and all Google+ Page content will be deleted (NOTE: your Brand Account a...

YouTube just announced that automatic sharing to social sites will be turned off on January 31st. After January 31st, the ability to automatically post YouTube activity (uploads, liked videos, etc.) on Twitter and Google+ will no longer be available. We’ve found that sharing these actions with a custom message (instead of through automatically generated posts) provides a better experience for the sharer and their followers on other social networks. The option to share to Facebook was removed several years ago. You can still share your videos and playlistsp manually by using the Share button. Learn more about sharing videos and playlists in theYouTube Help Center: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/57741 If you have opted in to get updates and announcements by email, you should have also gotten this message. If not, check your email notification settings: https://www.youtube.com/account_notifications

Update March 10, 2019: The Google+ API has shut down, and buttons, badges and embedded posts no longer display. If you have code for these on your website or blog, now is the time to remove it. Update February 28: See the latest update with changes that may mitigate the effects for some developers. The Google+ API will shut down on March 7 with "intermittent failures" starting as early as January 28. The  "sunsetting" of Google+ for consumers is scheduled for April 201 9, so it will outlive the API by a few weeks . Google has updated the Google+ Platform Developer site with more details about the shutdown of the platform over the coming months. The Google+ APIs will be completely shut down and cease to function March 7, 2019. There may be "intermittent failures" as early as January 28th. This will not only affect developers, but also website owners who have added Google+ integration features to their site.  And if you use social media management...

This week there was more bad news, with the announcement that Google will speed up the shutdown of Google+. There were also some positive updates for YouTube Creators, so there’s that. This week started with the unwelcome announcement that in November a change to the Google+ API could have revealed the private information of 52.5 million users. They have subsequently decided to shut down the Google+ API within 90 days, and sunset the consumer version of Google+ in April, rather than August. Despite the accelerated shutdown Google+ unfortunately hasn’t provided us consumer users (or developers) any details about what’s going to happen exactly over the coming months.  Meanwhile Google+-friendly social media management platform Friends+Me has been actively developing a Google+ Exporter, which allows you to download your Google+ posts in a format that can be imported into WordPress or Blogger . The free version lets you download up to 3000 posts. I haven’t tried it personally, bu...

With the announcement that the consumer version of Google+ will be shut down in April 2019, some active Plussers want to be sure their Followers find them in their new home. I've seen a few questions whether there is likely to be a way to automatically convert their Followers into YouTube Subscribers. While I'd love to have an additional million subs, I think it's quite unlikely that will ever be an option. In my case, I gained a large percentage of my Google+ Followers when I was on the old Suggested User List shown to users when they created a Profile. I would bet that many of the followers I gained that way haven't used Google+ in years, if they ever did at all. And the folks who follow you on Google+ may not specifically be interested in your videos. So what can you do?  Ask your Google+ Followers to subscribe to your YouTube channel!  RELATED:  How the Google+ shutdown will - and will not - affect your YouTube channel

This was a sad week for us avid Plussers, as Google announced the consumer version of Google+ will be shut down next year. There was good news too with new Google hardware with integrated AI and Assistant, new Photos features and shiny new look and name for the Google Product Experts program. This week’s update is a bit of a monster, so I've divided it into sections. The shutdown of Google+ I am still working on a detailed write-up up my thoughts on the demise of Google+, but here’s an overview of what’s happening: on Monday, Google announced they had discovered (and fixed) a bug that may have revealed some user Google+ profile information to developers. Oh, and because of low usage and the “ significant challenges in creating and maintaining a successful Google+ product that meets consumers’ expectations ” the consumer version of Google+ will shut down by August 2019. The official Google+ Page didn’t make even a minimal announcement until the next day . There have been no d...