This week there is a new way to control what ads you see in Google Search and YouTube, updates for video creators on TikTok and YouTube, new features in Google Meet and Chat, AI tools for image creation and video editing, tips for web developers and more.

#OnEBoardChat: Internet Identities

I am hosting this week’s #OnEBoardChat, and the discussion topic is online identities.

Are you just one person on the internet? Or do you have multiple personas? Is your profile the same everywhere or customized? How did you select your profile photo and handle?

It’s Sunday at 11AM Pacific, 6PM UTC. Follow me on Twitter or watch the #OnEBoardChat hashtag to join the discussion.

My Ad Center

Google is replacing the current account Ads Settings with the new My Ads Center (myadscenter.google.com). This will let you control the kinds of ads you see in Google Search, YouTube and Discover. You can access this from the ad itself or in your Google account settings. You will be able to turn off or on personalization, disable sensitive categories of ads, indicate the kinds of ads you’re interested in and control whether YouTube history contributes to personalization of the ads you see.

Image Creator from Microsoft Bing

If you are interested in using AI-generated images for your website or social media posts, and you use the Edge browser, Image Creator may be the tool you are looking for. It’s powered by DALL∙E 2 by OpenAI, with additional tweaks to try to prevent “problematic” or offensive queries from generating images. It will be available in the Edge sidebar for easy access, in addition to its own site (www.bing.com/create). It’s coming soon to select regions.

YouTube, TikTok and Video

Are you a Taylor Swift fan? The latest YouTube Shorts challenge (#TSAntiHeroChallenge) is set to Swift’s new song “Anti-Hero”. Learn more.

There’s an improved Playlists report in YouTube Analytics. (More info from Creator Insider)

YouTube is now the second most popular site for listening to podcasts. Their new audio ads are now available globally, and I expect to be hearing more about podcasts over the next year.

TikTok Multi-Guest now lets creators go LIVE with up to 5 guests. While live the host can add stickers, filter comments and add moderators. They are also updating the comment keyword filtering tool with reminders and suggestions on keywords to add.

TikTok is adding restrictions on what teens can do. The minimum age for live streaming is increasing from 16 to 18 years old. Teens must be at least 16 to use direct messaging, and 18 to send virtual gifts or monetize. Plus they will soon be adding the option for live streamers to restrict their content to 18+.

TikTok launched its creator monetization program called Pulse. This is available to creators with at least 100,000 followers and have posted at least 5 videos in the past 30 days. Creators get 50% of ad revenue on ads “adjacent to their videos”, but there is a catch: ads are only shown on the top 4% of videos on any given day.

TikTok Made Me Play It is a global gaming event hosted by TikTok, aimed at businesses, brands and gamers. Registration for the livestream is free.

Adobe announced Project Blink, “AI-powered video editing on the web”. It lets you cut, paste, and delete text in video transcripts to edit your video. You can remove pauses, ums and ers, and easily find key moments with AI-powered search. Visit the official site to request access.

Web Publishers

The Google Search Console blog has a “deep dive into Search Console performance data filtering and limits.”

The Chrome team and YouTube design team shared the lessons learned as YouTube built a faster web experience. This involved redesigning video watch pages and the video player. The result is more page URLs on YouTube pass the Core Web Vitals test. Is it worth it? “Improvements to the performance of YouTube web over the last year have also improved business metrics, including watch time and daily active users.”

Social Media

Meta is being forced to sell Giphy, which it acquired in 2020. Giphy is integrated into Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, TikTok, Slack, iMessage, and many other internet platforms for easy GIF search. Google isn’t likely to be a buyer (even if that would be allowed by regulators), as it acquired Tenor, another GIF search platform, in 2018. That is currently in use in the Gboard mobile keyboard and Google Chat.

Bitstrips, parent company of Bitmoji, is 15 years old. It was acquired by Snapchat in 2016, which is hosting a birthday celebration.

Instagram officially launched its creator marketplace. US businesses can register interest in joining, giving those businesses opportunities to connect to creators.

Instagram is making blocking better. On Instagram you can not only block someone, but also block any new accounts that person may create, as well as any additional accounts they already have. Plus the “Hidden Words” filter now supports more languages, can spot intentional misspellings, adds new terms to filter spams and scams, and is available for Story replies. And if you write a comment or DM that might be hateful, Instagram will give you a nudge to be nicer.

All Facebook and Instagram Reels creators who comply with Meta’s Partner Monetization and Branded Content policies will be able to use Meta’s Branded Content tag tool. The idea is that if your post” features or is influenced by a brand or product for an exchange of value” (including money or gifts), you must tag that business. The brand partner can then see some metrics about the tagged post, and can turn the post into an ad.

Pinterest has partnered with Warner Music Group to allow the addition of popular and trending songs to Idea Pins. Idea Pins are similar to web stories, with up to 20 “pages” of images, video or text. They can be used for tutorials, shopping suggestions, or asking questions.

Productivity

There is improved search in the Gmail mobile app, including suggestions based on your Google Chat search history, searching messages under a particular label, and related results for searches with no results.

Menus in Google Slides and Google Drawings have been updated for more intuitive feature location, shortened menus and more prominent icons.

In Google Docs you can split table cells into a specific number of rows and columns.

If you use third party tools with Google Docs, Drive, Calendar, Sheets or other Google Workspace services, there are new and improved filters in Google Workspace Marketplace to help you find compatible tools. Looking for a free video editor that works in Google Drive? Now that’s easier to find.

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Image: Pink dahlia photo by me. All rights reserved.