Peggy K's Creator Weekly: YouTube @ VidCon, Reddit Collectable Avatars, Meta Accounts

I hope you are all enjoying your summer!

This week’s newsletter is arriving in your inbox late because Revue - Twitter’s newsletter platform - had an outage that started yesterday and was only resolved about an hour ago. Hopefully that was a one-time issue.

There are few updates this week, but if you need something to keep you entertained at the beach, you can watch YouTube’s sessions at VidCon, learn about Reddit’s “Collectable Avatars” on the blockchain (yes, NFTs), or set up a new Meta account to disconnect Facebook from your VR headset. And there’s news for YouTube, social media, web publishing and productivity. 

Or maybe just read a good book!

You can read this week’s issue on the web here.

On Wednesday, July 13, I’ll be joining a panel of my fellow Google Product Experts on the Tinkering with Tech show. If you are interested in the Google Product Experts program or just want to join in a chat with current PEs, be sure to join live! 

In a related note, I made a 60 second highlight reel of my recent trip to NYC and the Google PE Program Americas Summit. Watch the Short here.

Are you trying to access your Hangouts conversations on mobile and being directed to Chat? Don’t panic!

Are you wondering why I’m creating Shorts videos? YouTube is pushing them hard. At least some creators have seen an increase in their long-form video views by publishing Shorts, so it seems worth it. And they are mobile friendly. 

Try creating a Short - video that’s vertical and under 60 seconds - if you haven’t done so already.

In June there was an update to YouTube’s external links policy. Now only creators with access to advanced features (if available in your country) can add clickable links in the video description. That requires phone verification, and then either build a clean channel history (for 2 months or so) or complete ID or video verification. 

YouTube was at VidCon, and you can watch video of the sessions they hosted:

This year VidCon was sponsored by TikTok, which is a bit of the changing of the guard.

YouTube has redesigned their Artist site for songwriters, with resources, content strategies, success stories and more.

Creator Insider does some “mythbusting” about how YouTube Community Guidelines appeals work. Yes, there is a human reviewer!

Learn how to gift and get YouTube channel Memberships (YouTube Viewers video)

Twitch is using machine learning to review custom Emotes. That means many are approved automatically, and fewer need human review.

Google now publishes a list of Google Search ranking updates that are “relevant to website owners”. 

There is a new Telegram bot that lets you easily follow WordPress.com blogs.

In a totally unsurprising move, Elon Musk is trying to get out of his purchase of Twitter. This will likely end up as a court battle. 

Twitter is testing co-authored Tweets. This is currently available to “select accounts” in the US, Canada and Korea. 

Reddit is introducing “Collectible Avatars on the blockchain”. If that sounds like NFTs, it’s because they are NFTs. A bit oddly,blockchain involvement is buried in the announcement, and NFTs aren’t mentioned at all, suggesting Reddit is aware that many users are critical of NFTs. It is on the Polygon blockchain, which claims to be ecologically friendly (but probably is not). It feels a lot like Reddit is launching this 6 months too late, as cryptocurrencies and NFTs have been rapidly losing value. (Although the collectible Snoos are cuter than other NFT “collectibles”).

Meta no longer requires a Facebook account to create a virtual reality (VR) profile for their Oculus headsets. The new Meta account can optionally be linked to your Facebook and Instagram profiles in the Meta Accounts Center. You can also use your Meta account to create a Meta Horizon profile, with your current Oculus friends becoming your followers. Your Meta Horizon profile can be private, but will always have a public profile picture, avatar, username, display name, follower count and following count.

For Google Workspace organizations using Google Chat: Space Managers can change access to spaces by making them “restricted” or “discoverable” for groups of people in their organization. This is not available for personal Google accounts.

In November 2021 Gmail started updating the “To”, “Cc” and “Bcc” fields to make it easier to view contact information and note when messaging someone outside your Google Workspace organization. That roll-out was paused November 16 in order to “improve performance”.  Those changes are now rolling out once again.

This year’s “Doodle for Google” contest had K-12 entrants from 54 US States and Territories. This year’s theme “I care for myself by …”. Google is also honoring 2022 contestant Alithia Haven Ramirez and all of the victims of the Uvalde, TX mass shooting. View Alithia’s Doodle. You can vote for your favorites among the Finalists through July 12.

Julie Nolke is once again explaining the pandemic (and other news) to her past self. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry.  

Image: Photo by Tobias Baur: Beach toys on the sand @ Pexels. Free for commercial use.