Posted by Camilla Ibrahim, Communications & Public Affairs Manager, Google Australia & New Zealand Read More

January 26 holds different meanings and memories for Australians. You might be solemnly reflecting on our history, firing up the barbie – or perhaps, it’s just an ordinary day.

Whatever your walk of life, what binds all Australians is our love of our nature. Our bush, our parks, oceans and wildlife have shaped us – both physically and culturally.

Last year, our Doodle celebrated our big blue backyard, the Great Barrier Reef. Today, we’re continuing our Street View journey to Port Campbell National Park and Twelve Apostles Marine National Park.  With guidance from Parks Victoria, today’s Doodle celebrates the unique terrain, flora and fauna of these precious parks.

Located along the southwest coast of Victoria, the park’s cliffside viewpoints overlook its most iconic sight: seven pillars of stacked limestone, battered by wind and waves, that rise above the crashing surf. Below the surface is a seascape of canyons, caves, arches, and fissures – which are home to marine life such as sea urchins, lobsters, and abalone.  On the beach, visitors may spot the rare hooded plover at the water’s edge – one of many endemic species found only in Australia. Today’s Doodle depicts a trio of hooded dotterels and is framed by the vibrant, endemic purple clover glycine.

However you choose to spend today, we invite you to click on the link below today’s Google Doodle to explore the trails, cliffs and vistas of Port Campbell National Park and Twelve Apostles Marine National Park on Street View.

Posted by Camilla Ibrahim, Communications & Public Affairs Manager, Google Australia & New Zealand

Since launching YouTube Creators for Change in September 2016, we’ve partnered with 39 inspiring creators from around the world, helping amplify their voices to counter hate and promote tolerance. Over the last year they’ve released dozens of ...Read More

Since launching YouTube Creators for Change in September 2016, we’ve partnered with 39 inspiring creators from around the world, helping amplify their voices to counter hate and promote tolerance. Over the last year they’ve released dozens of thought-provoking videos that show the power of video to encourage empathy and understanding around the world.

Today, over a hundred YouTube creators are gathered in London for the annual Creators for Change Summit. The summit celebrates last year’s progress and fosters collaboration between leading advocates of social change for the year ahead. These creators include:

• L-FRESH the LION, an Australian rapper of Sikh descent, who created a two-part track to challenge racism. 
• Dina Tokio, a beauty vlogger from the U.K. who was recently named as one of Vogue’s “New Suffragettes,” uses her interview series #YourAverageMuslim to challenge perceptions about Muslim women including meeting with a hip-hop dancer, a powerlifter and a prison community development worker. 
• Rosianna Rojas who, in partnership with the UN Refugee Agency, travelled to a remote part of Colombia to help refugees learn about the power of YouTube to document their stories and share them with the world. 

A look back at 2017 
In 2017, global audiences viewed Creators for Change videos tens of millions of times, spending hundreds of thousands of hours watching this content.

Creators for Change collaborated with social impact organizations and experts in Australia, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, France and Belgium. One example of this is the Indonesian chapter campaign #1Indonesia where YouTube creators Cameo Project teamed up with the Maarif Institute, a local NGO, on a cross-country project to encourage over 2,000 high school students from ten cities to create videos for positive change on topics that affect their communities. Topics included tolerance for ethnic and religious minorities, and digital literacy around online hoaxes.

Through Creators for Change, we’ve educated over 15,000 young people in over 200 locations through local grassroots efforts, including workshops and school programs. In fact, students surveyed in Germany and the United Kingdom reported a significant increase in confidence in their ability to identify and counter hate speech online as a result of the workshops. And we’re just getting started … 

Increasing our investment in 2018 
In 2018, we are continuing to invest in Creators for Change, including providing production and marketing support with a value of over $5M to diverse voices harnessing the power and scale of YouTube in groundbreaking, positive ways.

We will engage more creators in the program, arm the wider YouTube community with new tools and education on how to create change, and empower more young people to use their voices to encourage positive social messages.

In the coming months, we’ll announce the global recipients of the production grants we’re making available through this renewed investment.

Video is a powerful medium to open minds to new perspectives and shared experiences. Creators prove that to us every single day. And we think Creators for Change in 2018 will reach and inspire even bigger audiences.

Posted by Juniper Downs, Head of YouTube Public Policy

“Read more.” Every year it’s one of the more popular New Year’s resolutions. But with all the time spent battling traffic, working out, or picking up groceries, there often doesn’t seem to be a minute to simply sit down with a book.

With audiobooks on Google Play, rolling out today in Australia and around the world in nine languages, you can get stuck into a page-turner without lifting a finger.

Find your next great read at an affordable price, and enjoy it across devices that include the Google Assistant – like Google Home and many others – as well as Android, iOS and the web with Google Play Books. Here’s what you need to know:

Enjoy your audiobook with your Google Assistant

Just say “Ok Google, read my book” to listen to your favorite audiobook hands free with the Google Assistant on your Google Home device, smartphone or speaker. Try “Ok Google, who is the author?” if you need a refresher, or “Ok Google, stop playing in 20 minutes” to set a timer for bedtime reading. The Google Assistant integration with audiobooks is available on Android and smart speakers in Australia.

Listen without a subscription

On Google Play, you can buy a single audiobook at an affordable price, with no commitments. You can also get a free preview of the book to make sure you’re hooked by the story and enjoy listening to the narrator’s voice.

Weave reading into your day across multiple devices

Start your morning by listening to “Ready Player One” with the Assistant on Google Home, and continue listening with the Google Play Books app on your Pixel. You can pick up where you left off no matter what device you're using, with the Assistant or the Google Play Books app—on Android, iOS, Chromecast, Android Wear, Android Auto or even your laptop. And share your favorite audiobook with everyone in the family through Family Library for no additional fee—even if they’re using a different device.

Read More

“Read more.” Every year it’s one of the more popular New Year’s resolutions. But with all the time spent battling traffic, working out, or picking up groceries, there often doesn’t seem to be a minute to simply sit down with a book.

With audiobooks on Google Play, rolling out today in Australia and around the world in nine languages, you can get stuck into a page-turner without lifting a finger.

Find your next great read at an affordable price, and enjoy it across devices that include the Google Assistant – like Google Home and many others – as well as Android, iOS and the web with Google Play Books. Here’s what you need to know:

Enjoy your audiobook with your Google Assistant

Just say “Ok Google, read my book” to listen to your favorite audiobook hands free with the Google Assistant on your Google Home device, smartphone or speaker. Try “Ok Google, who is the author?” if you need a refresher, or “Ok Google, stop playing in 20 minutes” to set a timer for bedtime reading. The Google Assistant integration with audiobooks is available on Android and smart speakers in Australia.

Listen without a subscription

On Google Play, you can buy a single audiobook at an affordable price, with no commitments. You can also get a free preview of the book to make sure you’re hooked by the story and enjoy listening to the narrator’s voice.

Weave reading into your day across multiple devices

Start your morning by listening to “Ready Player One” with the Assistant on Google Home, and continue listening with the Google Play Books app on your Pixel. You can pick up where you left off no matter what device you're using, with the Assistant or the Google Play Books app—on Android, iOS, Chromecast, Android Wear, Android Auto or even your laptop. And share your favorite audiobook with everyone in the family through Family Library for no additional fee—even if they’re using a different device.

Now, when you want to curl up to Australian classics like May Gibbs’ Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, learn Astrophysics For People In A Hurry from Neil Degrasse Tyson or spend a Sunday with Love your Sister by Samuel and Connie Johnson, all you have to do is say “Ok Google, read me my book….” to settle into the sounds of your new favorite audiobook.

Posted by Greg Hartrell, Group Product Manager, Google Play Books 

Posted by Julia Donnan, Head of Hardware Marketing, Australia & New Zealand Read More

Google Home had a huge holiday season in 2017. Whether you were cooking, casting or caroling, it gave you a helping hand, turning on the Christmas tree lights – and filling many, many stockings.

In fact, the number of Aussies regularly using Google Home and Google Home Mini nearly tripled in the month of December. And around the world, we sold more than one Google Home device per second since Google Home Mini started shipping in October.

Since we first introduced you to the Google Assistant on Google Home in 2017, we’ve added loads of features and apps.

One of the most popular features is broadcast; where it hopefully helped you gather the family for holiday fun. If you haven’t used it yet, it’s simple to use. Just say “Ok Google, broadcast sausage sangas are served!” to round up the family for a BBQ. Another popular one is step-by-step recipes, which give you voice-activated cooking instructions so you can free up your hands, lessen the mess and stay focused on making that perfect pavlova.

Everyone was excited about the first ever true blue Aussie smart speaker, and we’ve kept that spirit alive with Google Assistant features across a range of local brands and services across news, entertainment, banking, retail, transportation and more. You can catch the latest headlines with leading Aussie news publications, follow the footy with AFL (by Telstra), play Triple J via TuneIn, binge watch Aussie shows on Stan, plan a night out with Concrete Playground and more.

All in all, today there are more than a million Actions that your Assistant can help you do. Actions including everything from first party features to third party features — all the ways your Assistant can help. Plus, the Assistant can also help you control more than 1,500 compatible smart home devices from over 225 brands. With these integrations, millions of new smart home devices are being connected to the Assistant every month, so you can stay in control, whether you want to cool down the house or make sure you locked the back door.

We’ve sold tens of millions of all our Google devices for the home over the last year around the world, and look forward to bringing hands-free help to even more Aussie households in 2018. Whether you are planning your commute, kneading dough or chilling out after a long day, Google Home is here to help you make the most of the new year.

Posted by Julia Donnan, Head of Hardware Marketing, Australia & New Zealand

There’s no denying 2017 was a difficult year, with several issues affecting our community and our advertising partners. We are passionate about protecting our users, advertisers and creators and making sure YouTube is not a place that can be co-opted by bad actors. While we took several steps last year to protect advertisers from inappropriate content, we know we need to do more to ensure that their ads run alongside content that reflects their values. As we mentioned ...Read More

There’s no denying 2017 was a difficult year, with several issues affecting our community and our advertising partners. We are passionate about protecting our users, advertisers and creators and making sure YouTube is not a place that can be co-opted by bad actors. While we took several steps last year to protect advertisers from inappropriate content, we know we need to do more to ensure that their ads run alongside content that reflects their values. As we mentioned in December, we needed a fresh approach to advertising on YouTube. Today, we are announcing three significant changes.

Stricter criteria for monetisation on YouTube 
After careful consideration and extended conversations with advertisers and creators, we’re making big changes to the process that determines which channels can run ads on YouTube. Previously, channels had to reach 10,000 total views to be eligible for the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). It’s been clear over the last few months that we need the right requirements and better signals to identify the channels that have earned the right to run ads. Instead of basing acceptance purely on views, we want to take channel size, audience engagement, and creator behavior into consideration to determine eligibility for ads.

That’s why starting today, new channels will need to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time within the past 12 months to be eligible for ads. We will begin enforcing these new requirements for existing channels in YPP beginning February 20th, 2018.

Of course, size alone is not enough to determine whether a channel is suitable for advertising. We will closely monitor signals like community strikes, spam, and other abuse flags to ensure they comply with our policies. Both new and existing YPP channels will be automatically evaluated under this strict criteria and if we find a channel repeatedly or egregiously violates our community guidelines, we will remove that channel from YPP. As always, if the account has been issued three community guidelines strikes, we will remove that user’s accounts and channels from YouTube.

This combination of hard-to-game user signals and improved abuse indicators will help us reward the creators who make engaging content while preventing bad actors and spammers from gaming the system in order to monetise unsuitable content. While this new approach will affect a significant number of channels eligible to run ads, the creators who will remain part of YPP represent more than 95% of YouTube's reach for advertisers.

Those of you who want more details, can find additional information in our Help Centre.

Manually reviewing Google Preferred 
We’re changing Google Preferred so that it not only offers the most popular content on YouTube, but also the most vetted. We created Google Preferred to surface YouTube's most engaging channels and to help our customers easily reach our most passionate audiences. Moving forward, the channels included in Google Preferred will be manually reviewed and ads will only run on videos that have been verified to meet our ad-friendly guidelines. We expect to complete manual reviews of Google Preferred channels and videos by mid-February in the U.S. and by the end of March in all other markets where Google Preferred is offered.

Greater transparency and simpler controls over where ads appear 
We know advertisers want simpler and more transparent controls. In the coming months, we will introduce a three-tier suitability system that allows advertisers to reflect their view of appropriate placements for their brand, while understanding potential reach trade offs.

We also know we need to offer advertisers transparency regarding where their ads run. We’ve begun working with trusted vendors to provide third-party brand safety reporting on YouTube. We're currently in a beta with Integral Ad Science (IAS) and we're planning to launch a beta with DoubleVerify soon. We are also exploring partnerships with OpenSlate, comScore and Moat and look forward to scaling our third-party measurement offerings over the course of the year. The challenges we faced in 2017 have helped us make tough but necessary changes in 2018. These changes will help us better fulfill the promise YouTube holds for advertisers: the chance to reach over 1.5 billion people around the world who are truly engaged with content they love. We value the partnership and patience of all our advertisers to date and look forward to strengthening those ties throughout 2018.
Posted by Paul Muret, VP, Display, Video & Analytics