Peggy K's Creator Weekly: Passkeys, YouTube Partner Program, NewFronts, Reddit

This week there are important updates for your Google Account’s security, the YouTube Partner Program and upcoming changes to the channel layout, better sharing from Reddit, new ads from NewFronts, and more.

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Creator Weekly Live

Join me live on Sunday for a recap of this week’s top updates! It’s live at 10:30AM Pacific time (5:30 UTC). Set a reminder or join on YouTube here.

Sign up for Google I/O and the Google Workspace Summit

Google I/O is more than just a developer summit. The keynote address, in particular, is an overview of the direction Google is taking over the coming year (this year it’s likely to be AI everywhere). This year’s event is May 10th. You can watch live on YouTube (here), but signing up for free lets you set an agenda and engage with other developers.

Note: I’m saving this week’s AI-related content to discuss next week, since I expect there will be a number of new AI things announced.

The Google Workspace Summit is May 17. The sessions will cover Google’s plans for generative AI in its work apps, along with a focus on hybrid work tools. It’s also free to attend virtually.

Security: Passkeys to eventually replace passwords

Google launched account passkeys this week. Instead of using a password to sign in, you can use a passkey that is secured by the screen lock on your mobile device.

Currently a passkey can be added to your Google account, in addition to the current password. However, this will not remove the password (which will still be around for a while).

Learn more about how to use passkeys. You can try it by going to g.co/passkeys on an eligible device.

A few more details:

• Current Android devices automatically create passkeys when you sign into your Google account.

• If you create a passkey on an Android phone it can sync to all your apple devices that are signed into the same iCloud account.

• You can sign in to your account on another device by chosing the “use a passkey from another device” option to sign in by accessing the passkey on your current device (like your phone).

• If you lose a device with a passkey, you can revoke access to your account at g.co/passkeys

Technical requirements:

• Supported device:

  • Laptop or desktop running at least Windows 10 or macOS Ventura

  • A mobile device running at least iOS16 or Android 9

  • Hardware security key that supports FIDO2

• Supported browser:

  • Chrome 109 or higher

  • Safari 16 or higher

  • Edge 109 or higher

• Settings

  • It must be a device that only you control or have access to

  • Screen lock

  • Bluetooth (if you want to use a passkey on your phone to sign n to another device)

It’s early days and I’m still trying to get my head around how it works.

Learn more:

Google Account help: Sign in with a passkey instead of a password
Google Security Blog: So long passwords, thanks for all the phish

YouTube Increases the wait to reapply for the YouTube Partner Program

Starting June 5, you may need to wait longer to reapply for the YouTube Partner Program.

The first time your application is disapproved, you need to wait 30 days to reapply. That isn’t changing.

If your application is disapproved again, then you must wait 90 days to reapply a second time.

Get all the details here. Or watch a Short video recap.

Upcoming YouTube Channel Redesign

The Creator Insider channel gave a sneak peek at an upcoming more personalized YouTube channel redesign:

• There will be a new “For You” panel, where visitors to your channel will see recommended videos based on their preferences

• Unused tabs on a channel will be hidden (for example “Live” if you have no live streams). This makes space for new content tabs: Music Artist channels will have a “Releases” tab and “Courses”.

• Information on the About tab will be shown on the channel’s description.

• The option to sort a channel’s videos by oldest first will be added back.

• Feature a link on your channel header on mobile

These changes should be implemented later this year.

NewFronts

NewFronts is the annual conference for digital content platforms (think YouTube or Meta or streaming TV) and advertising agencies.

It’s an opportunity for platforms to promote their (advertiser-friendly) content and to announce new ad formats or advertising opportunities.

Even if you aren’t an advertiser, it’s worth taking a look at what platforms are saying about their content and their plans for monetization. And if you are monetizing your content with ads, this is a chance to see how platforms are trying to increase their revenue.

Here are some highlights:

YouTube suggests brands connect with Gen Z with their new “Gen Z Music Package” for long form videos and audio. It uses “AI-powered signals” to identify music trending with the 18-24 year-old crowd. They will also soon offer “Trending Music on Shorts” to advertisers.

YouTube is offering Video Reach Campaigns (using AI to “serve the best combination of ads”), and YouTube Select on Shorts (ads placed around the most popular content on YouTube in a “brand-suitable environment”).

Instagram is offering “new ways for brands and creators to partner together on ads”. Branded Content Ads were renamed Partnership Ads, along with more ways for advertisers to boost a creator’s organic content. Creators can control which posts an advertiser can promote in their settings.

Meta announced augmented reality Reels Ads and Facebook Stories. AR ads are already available in the Instagram and Facebook Feeds and Instagram Stories.

Snapchat is adding ads to “Spotlight”, its short-form vertical video hub and offering a premium package for brands that want their ads to appear first in Stories.

TikTok is offering advertisers “Pulse Premiere”, which places ads next to “premium publisher content” like Major League Soccer and NBCUniversal.

Video

Meta is making it easier to find and view Reels on Facebook. Reels are now part of the main navigation on Facebook Watch, and you can scroll endlessly through a feed with both Reels and longer videos. Facebook is also adding labels that indicate why you were shown a particular label, and you can choose to “Show More” or “Show Less” of that content.

Twitter is looking to make video more central to the platform. They have been touting their standing as a “video powerhouse”, and have shared stats on the video-watching habits of Twitter users in Australia and Southeast Asia. And they are apparently working on better display of videos on profiles, and maybe video feeds.

TikTok has opened up their Creativity Program Beta to more creators. Now US creators with at least 10,000 followers and 100,000 “authentic” video views that publish “high quality” content are eligible. Program members have monetization opportunities and analytics.

Forbes gained access to part of TikTok’s list of keywords they monitor and sometimes block.

Web Publishing

Get Blogging! Is a simple site by long-time Ben Werdmuller that has a brief review of blogging platforms, writing tools and RSS feed readers.

If you want to try Blogger as your blogging platform, Blogger Product Expert Adam has an overview of what settings to configure when you are getting started (plus other beginner tutorials).

WordPress.com launched staging sites. This lets you test changes to your site without affecting your live site. Staging sites are available with a Business or Commerce plan

If you use the WordPress Jetpack Social plugin to automatically share your posts to your social profiles, be aware that Twitter has been removed as a sharing option (due to the massively increased price of Twitter API access). It still offers automatic sharing to Facebook, Tumblr and LinkedIn, and soon will offer sharing to Instagram and Mastodon.

Social Media

Reddit is making it easier to share content on mobile with an updated shared post design, the ability to share screenshots with a link back to the original post and the ability to share directly to Instagram Stories.

Reddit is also making it easier to embed content on third party sites. You can create a Reddit embed at publish.reddit.com. See the web version of this article for an example.

Discord is updating usernames and profiles so that everyone has a unique handle. Usernames are losing their numerical discriminators and Display Names are being added. The numbers let people have the same name (so I could be PeggyK#1234 and someone else could be PeggyK#5678), but that’s difficult to remember and confusing. With this change, there can only be one @peggyk. This will take months to roll out, giving you lots of time to think up potential handles.

It’s now easier to sign up for Mastodon. Since it can be confusing to have to select an instance to join, mastodon.social is now the default option. Users can always later switch to a different instance.

Mozilla’s Mastodon instance, mozilla.social, is now in private beta. Their plan for moderation is “rooted in the goals and values expressed in our Mozilla Manifesto — human dignity, inclusion, security, individual expression and collaboration.”

Twitter is reinstating API access to verified government or publicly owned services for tweeting alerts, transit updates and emergency notifications. It isn’t clear whether the transit agencies and other organizations that have left Twitter will come back.

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri has a quick tip that shows how to add music to your photo posts. He also answered questions about “The Algorithm”.

More

In the news: Sam Gutelle at Tubefilter wonders whether the Writers Guild of America (radio, television and movie writers) strike will result in a “creative surge”. The last WGA strike in 2007-8 shifted viewing towards online content, including the hit miniseries “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”.

A look at how the backgrounds work on Google Meet.

Chrome will be replacing the lock icon in the address bar with a filter/tuning icon. The icon does not imply a site is trustworthy (the way the lock does) and is commonly associated with settings. It will be released in Chrome 117, likely in September.

Header image background: Micro circuit main board by sasirin pamai on Canva. Free for commercial use.