This was a busy week, with updates for Meet, Chat and Docs announced at the Google Cloud Next conference, more features available to YouTube Creators; a number of updates to Twitter Spaces, including a “Spark Program” for audio creators, and much more. 

If you are a live streamer, web publisher or Chromebook aficionado there’s an update for you this week!

Read this week's update on the web.

Discussing AdSense on Tinkering with Tech — www.peggyktc.com

This week I joined Michael Daniels on the Tinkering with Tech show.

Watch the recording on Youtube.

We talked about how to get help with AdSense and related topics.

Upcoming

Google’s Pixel Fall Launch is October 19, with the much-anticipated live launch of the Pixel 6 phone, and maybe more.

If you have questions about YouTube Music, Product Manager Jason Robinson will be answering questions in the official YouTube Music Help Community on October 21. Submit your questions before then, and he will answer as many as he can, AMA-style. 

The new Chrome OS Beta Community launches live on October 21. If you like living on the edge, check out the new features in Chrome OS M94 Beta.  If this is your area, you can apply to be a Chrome OS Beta Product Expert.

October 21 is also Global Encryption Day, which puts “strong encryption firmly in the spotlight around the world to help us champion a stronger Internet for all.”  Something to promote! (thanks for the tip Nina!)

Google Cloud Next

This week was Google Cloud Next ‘21, a conference aimed primarily at businesses using Google Cloud services and Google Workspace. The conference videos are available on demand. You can learn about all of the updates that were announced on the Google Cloud blog, and the Google Workspace updates in particular.

The updates I’m most interested in:

• Warnings in Google Docs when a file may contain malware, phishing, or ransomware. As a side note, Google Docs is 15 years old this month!

• Client-side encryption for Google Meet. This gives Google Workspace customers complete control over encryption keys.

• New Jira integration for Google Chat and Spaces.

• Data Loss Prevention for Google Chat. This lets organizations prevent sensitive and confidential information from being shared with outside parties. 

Google Cloud Next '21 presentations are still available to watch. Here are a few I recommend:

• Opening Keynote

• A conversation with Vint Cerf and Jim Hogan about disability in tech.

• Pathways to Tech: Why STEM access matters

• Make your meetings hybrid friendly with Google Workspace and Google Meet.

• See what’s new in Google Workspace

This week's top updates

The Discussion tab was removed from all YouTube channels on October 12. This is part of the expansion of availability of the Community tab, which is now available to channels with at least 500 subscribers.

YouTube is expanding eligibility of @mentions in video titles and descriptions to channels with at least 500 subscribers. Previously channels had to have at least 1000 subscribers to @mention another channel or be @mentioned.

The Team YouTube Support channel has been rebranded as the YouTube Viewers channel. It will be focusing on news and tutorials for video viewers, and will include tips for YouTube Premium, YouTube Music, YouTube TV and YouTube Kids.

If you use Google Calendar, a new feature is rolling out that lets you easily create a meeting notes document in Google Docs. The doc is linked to the Calendar event making it easy for all participants to find the notes.

Canva is launching a new Video Editing Suite, a free video editor available on the web, desktop and mobile. It has a “scene-based editor” and single layer timeline for easy editing. It also supports multiple audio tracks and has built-in screen recording. Canva has nice templates and is easy to use, so I’m excited to try this. 

Be sure to see the Live Audio updates listed below!

More YouTube and Video updates

One year ago YouTube Shorts launched in India. The Shorts video editor is now available to creators around the world. YouTube is also now offering the Shorts Fund bonus to creators in more than 40 countries and regions. The current goals: continue building creator tools, help viewers discover Shorts, and develop a “long-term business model”. 

The YouTube Shorts editor green screen mode, which lets you add a photo as a background for your Short, is now widely available on iOS devices. Hopefully it’s coming soon to Android.

The Wall Street Journal took a look into YouTube’s 1,000 member in-house creator partnerships team. Each team member advises 10 to 20 creators. If you don’t have Wall Street Journal access, Tubefilter has a summary.

A new study shows that YouTube’s prohibition of election conspiracy content helped decrease the spread of misinformation on Twitter and Facebook.

YouTube has made a pledge to combat antisemitism. That includes  €5 million in Google.org grants to nonprofits and government organizations, plus a promise to “tackle” content that includes hate speech targeting the Jewish community.

YouTube is partnering with the American Academy of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the American College of Physicians to bring three new series about vaccines to the platform. 

Instagram is making it easier to upload videos, with IGTV and feed videos now a single format.

Instagram will now allow creators to schedule live streams up to 90 days in advance. They will also soon be offering “Practice Mode”, which will let creators and their guests test their connection and any other needed pre-show preparation before their show goes live.

TikTok has added a setting to allow live streamers to temporarily mute individual commenters. 

Live Audio

Twitter announced the Spaces Spark Program, which offers audio Creators money, ad credits, and promotion for their Spaces programs. The application deadline is October 22.

Ticketed Twitter Spaces are now coming to Android devices.

You can now invite people more easily to your Twitter Space via DM right when the Space starts. No word on whether Twitter is working on a tool to invite people before the Space goes live.

And Twitter has added a Spaces Tab on iOS devices (Android soon) to make it easier to find Spaces to join.

Clubhouse launched a new Music Mode, which offers audio optimized for musicians and stereo sound. 

Facebook is rolling out Live Audio Rooms to public figures and creators globally. Live Audio Rooms are also available in Facebook Groups.

Social Media

Twitter is testing a new ad format in Tweet conversations. They are thinking about ways this can help reward Tweet authors and creators.

Twitter now lets you remove specific Followers without notifying them.

Facebook has updated its policies to help protect people from coordinated mass harassment. They will also be removing more types of content targeting public figures, in particular sexualized commentary and images.

Instagram has a new “Account Status” tool that lets you see what’s happening with your account at a glance.

Web Publishers

The Google Search results on mobile will now have continuous scrolling. If you don’t initially find what you are looking for you can just keep scrolling down. I think this has the potential to generate more traffic to web pages that are normally on the second or third page of results.

Google Search Console is standardizing the AMP, Mobile Friendly a Rich Results and URL Inspection Tools. Now all will include page availability to Google’s crawlers, HTTP headers, a page screenshot, and will inspect both AMP and canonical URLs.

Google Search Central notes that the Search Console Index Coverage report updates more slowly than the URL Inspection Tool, which explains why the information provided by the two tools may not match.

WordPress has updated VideoPress to make it easier for creators who want to self-host their video to create a high quality site. This is included on WordPress.com if you have a paid plan, or you can get VideoPress through Jetpack if you self-host your website.

Get highlights from the Google Web Creators Web Stories workshop last May. I attended and it was very informative.

Chromebooks

If you want to keep your Chromebook on the cutting edge, be sure to check out the new Chrome OS Beta Community.

There are a number of new accessibility features for Chromebooks. There are improved more human-sounding voices for “select-to-speak”, which reads text from your screen. There are updates to the screen magnifier. And there are new in-product tutorials for using accessibility tools.

Google has launched a free Chromebook Accessibility training program. Pass the test and you will earn a Chromebook A11Y Digital Badge.

Chrome Apps for Chrome OS were supposed to lose support in June 2022. That deadline has been extended, and Chrome apps will continue to be supported on Chrome OS until at least January 2025. That is a reprieve for developers who have not yet migrated their apps to PWAs, and for users who won’t lose access to their favorite apps (yet).

More Reading

You can now find augmented reality (AR)  Swedish endangered animals in the mobile Google App.

Meet Tsuneko Sasamoto, Japan’s first female photojournalist, still working at 107.

“The Book of Veles: How Jonas Bendiksen Hoodwinked the Photography Industry” is an interview with Jonas Bendiksen about how he created a fake news story (with manipulated photos and automatically-generated text) about real fake news production in the town of Veles, Macedonia. It’s about trust and the ease of manipulating photos and text. 

Image: A cloudy sky by Jan Kopřiva at Pexels. Free for commercial use.