Peggy K's Creator News

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 June 6, 2015. In 2015 Google launched an account hub where you could "control, protect, and secure your account, all  in one place." My "My Account" page in 2015 (yes, I keep screenshots of everything) Ten years ago this week Google launched the "My Account" site at myaccount.google.com . This was a central hub for your account settings, history, privacy tools and security tools. As Google put it, "My Account gives you quick access to the settings and tools that let you safeguard your data, protect your privacy, and decide how your information can make Google tools and services work better for you." Privacy Checkup   Security Checkup Manage your history for Sea...

You can now easily create a YouTube channel identity that is different from your Google account identity without having to use a Brand Account.  You can use your real name and serious photo for your Google profile, which is used across Google products like Gmail, Chat, Meet and Drive. Then on the same account use a different name and icon exclusively for your YouTube channel.  If you have had your YouTube channel for more than a decade, you will recall this was how YouTube identity worked before Google+ integration . Linking to  Google+ Pages (now Brand Accounts) were introduced as way to have a YouTube identity separate from your main Google account identity. But Brand Accounts work similarly to Google accounts. An important note:  if your channel has a verification check mark, changing the channel name will remove the badge. You would then need to reapply under the current eligibility criteria, which requires at least 100,00...

This week’s updates include new Google Search Profile Cards, updates to Google Meet for education, and changes to AdSense payment options.Plus there are updates for video creators, bloggers, business owners and more. Stay cool everyone! Show who you are  Google has introduced People Cards in the Google Search results . The idea is that someone searching for your name will see a “virtual visiting card” with information about you, including your Google profile photo, links to your website and social media profiles, and contact information. Google search will show multiple Cards in the results if there are multiple people with the same name. Currently this is only available to users in India with their language set to English. Learn more . Instagram will start “ asking people to confirm who’s behind an account when [they] see a pattern of potential inauthentic behavior”. Th...

If you have a work or school Google account, the option to set a different profile photo for Gmail is being removed. You can choose to use your Gmail profile photo, current Google profile photo, or upload a new profile photo in your account's " About Me " settings. By default, Gmail uses your Google account profile photo. G Suite accounts for work or school also had the option to use a different profile photo for Gmail than the rest of their Google account. These Gmail "My Picture" settings are going away. Note that if you have a consumer Google account with a @gmail.com email address, Gmail is already using your Google account picture. Update August 27, 2020: users with two separate profile photos were migrated to a single phot o, your Google Account photo. You can find all previous profile photos in your Album Archive . Select a Profile Photo for your G Suite Google Account You can set a profile photo in your Google account's About Me setting...

If you have a business, organization, band or brand you can use Google's products to post content and interact with your customers, colleagues, members and fans. Currently you can use a Brand Account identity on YouTube and if you have an older Brand Account, for Google Photos. Update May 2023: Before you decide to use a Brand Account, note the updates since this article was originally published in 2018. The signs are that Google is likely moving away from using Brand Accounts for brand and business identities. Brand Accounts are currently useful for managing multiple YouTube channels with a single Google account, but not really anything else. Update September 2022: Brand Accounts with direct sign-in using Hangouts will not be able to use Google Chat, so will lose access to conversations when Chat completely replaces Hangouts on November 1, 2022.  Update July 2022: Business Groups will no longer be able to own or manage Brand Accounts as of August 1, 2022. Members of the Bus...

Mostly no problem anyway- read on for details Google will be shutting down Google+ for consumer accounts on April 2, 2019 .  All personal Google+ Profiles and Google+ Pages will be deleted, along with Google+ posts, photos and videos uploaded to Google+. Any photos in Google Photos will remain there. This will NOT shut down your other Google products like Gmail, Google Drive or YouTube. Google+ features on Blogger   and YouTube will be  will be removed in February 2019. Back up your Google+ photos and  Google+ Page data before April 2nd ! Here is the bottom line, as of November 2018: Your Google+ Profile is required for: Google+ posting and commenting Posting comments on Blogger (or other sites) with Google+ comments enabled If you use Google+ comments on your Blogger blog, managing those comments  Using apps in the old Hangouts video calls interface and in Hangouts on Air (note: most of these apps were retired April 25, 2017 ) Managing ...