Plan for success on Google Play with Reach and devices

Posted by Lauren Mytton, Product Manager, Google Play

Google Play has over 2.5B monthly active users, distributed across the world, using many different devices. How do you make the most of this opportunity?

The concept of quality reach

The foundations for your game’s (or app’s) success on Google Play are its reach and its quality:

  • Reach: Can a player access your game?
  • Quality: Does the player experience good quality when playing your game?

To unlock the opportunity for any single user on Google Play, you need both: every user must be able to access your game, AND have a good technical experience when playing it.

This is the ideal state of quality reach.

Why quality reach is foundational to your game’s success

When you have quality reach, your game development, marketing budgets, and growth strategy can be lined up to reinforce each other, because you acquire users for whom your game performs well, and your engagement and retention strategies have higher ROI for users with good experiences.

If you have poor quality reach, you can inadvertently acquire users whom you will not be able to engage and retain. Any spend to acquire these users is likely to be wasted. But the bigger problem is that poor quality reach makes it harder for you to acquire users for whom your game does perform well, since Android vitals and user ratings may affect your game’s discoverability and conversion in the Play store.

Another scenario to keep an eye on is missed reach. Unlike poor quality reach, it may not hurt your ability to acquire users who can access and enjoy your game. However it still limits your game’s scale and possibly also its ROI.

How you achieve quality reach

There are three types of decisions that determine your quality reach:

  • Devices: the device specs you build for and target
  • Geographies: the countries, languages or localization you offer
  • Testing and optimization: what you plan for and prioritize during development and pre-launch

You make these decisions when you develop and publish a game for the first time, and you continue to make them with every new release over the lifecycle of your game. You also need to think about these decisions outside your release cycle, since the Play ecosystem is constantly changing, which means your quality reach will also change over time, even if you do nothing.

However these decisions can be very hard. They require you to answer, or predict the answers to, two questions:

  1. Where are my users?
  2. Where are my issues?

These questions are challenging because of the scale and diversity of users on Google Play, both technically and geographically. Not only that, but these decisions may be made at different points in time, across both business and technical teams. How do you get them to line up?

How Reach and devices can help

We’re launching a new tool in Play Console called Reach and devices to help with these challenges. Reach and devices is a data and insights tool that helps you to plan for quality reach, by helping you understand or predict the distribution of your users and your issues across the Google Play ecosystem.

Reach and devices takes data about your app and its peers and presents it in new ways, to help you answer these questions. It also makes it easier to get all the relevant teams in your organisation on the same page.

Key features:

  • Distribution and trends of user and issue metrics, starting with install base, crash rate and ANR rate (more metrics to come)
  • Metric breakdowns by key attributes including Android version, RAM, SoC, OpenGL ES version, Vulkan version and screen metrics (with more to come)
  • Peer data so you can spot opportunities in your current game, or even plan your next game
  • Country-level filtering for more precise launch and expansion planning
  • Export all data for bespoke analysis

We’ve received great feedback during closed beta from developers who have found it useful in a variety of ways:

  • Deciding what device specs to support
  • Spotting optimization opportunities
  • Assessing the ROI of addressing issues
  • Narrowing down the root cause of technical issues

Get started

Visit g.co/play/reachanddevices for more information or go straight to Play Console to check it out.

Plan for success on Google Play with Reach and devices

Posted by Lauren Mytton, Product Manager, Google Play

Google Play has over 2.5B monthly active users, distributed across the world, using many different devices. How do you make the most of this opportunity?

The concept of quality reach

The foundations for your game’s (or app’s) success on Google Play are its reach and its quality:

  • Reach: Can a player access your game?
  • Quality: Does the player experience good quality when playing your game?

To unlock the opportunity for any single user on Google Play, you need both: every user must be able to access your game, AND have a good technical experience when playing it.

This is the ideal state of quality reach.

Why quality reach is foundational to your game’s success

When you have quality reach, your game development, marketing budgets, and growth strategy can be lined up to reinforce each other, because you acquire users for whom your game performs well, and your engagement and retention strategies have higher ROI for users with good experiences.

If you have poor quality reach, you can inadvertently acquire users whom you will not be able to engage and retain. Any spend to acquire these users is likely to be wasted. But the bigger problem is that poor quality reach makes it harder for you to acquire users for whom your game does perform well, since Android vitals and user ratings may affect your game’s discoverability and conversion in the Play store.

Another scenario to keep an eye on is missed reach. Unlike poor quality reach, it may not hurt your ability to acquire users who can access and enjoy your game. However it still limits your game’s scale and possibly also its ROI.

How you achieve quality reach

There are three types of decisions that determine your quality reach:

  • Devices: the device specs you build for and target
  • Geographies: the countries, languages or localization you offer
  • Testing and optimization: what you plan for and prioritize during development and pre-launch

You make these decisions when you develop and publish a game for the first time, and you continue to make them with every new release over the lifecycle of your game. You also need to think about these decisions outside your release cycle, since the Play ecosystem is constantly changing, which means your quality reach will also change over time, even if you do nothing.

However these decisions can be very hard. They require you to answer, or predict the answers to, two questions:

  1. Where are my users?
  2. Where are my issues?

These questions are challenging because of the scale and diversity of users on Google Play, both technically and geographically. Not only that, but these decisions may be made at different points in time, across both business and technical teams. How do you get them to line up?

How Reach and devices can help

We’re launching a new tool in Play Console called Reach and devices to help with these challenges. Reach and devices is a data and insights tool that helps you to plan for quality reach, by helping you understand or predict the distribution of your users and your issues across the Google Play ecosystem.

Reach and devices takes data about your app and its peers and presents it in new ways, to help you answer these questions. It also makes it easier to get all the relevant teams in your organisation on the same page.

Key features:

  • Distribution and trends of user and issue metrics, starting with install base, crash rate and ANR rate (more metrics to come)
  • Metric breakdowns by key attributes including Android version, RAM, SoC, OpenGL ES version, Vulkan version and screen metrics (with more to come)
  • Peer data so you can spot opportunities in your current game, or even plan your next game
  • Country-level filtering for more precise launch and expansion planning
  • Export all data for bespoke analysis

We’ve received great feedback during closed beta from developers who have found it useful in a variety of ways:

  • Deciding what device specs to support
  • Spotting optimization opportunities
  • Assessing the ROI of addressing issues
  • Narrowing down the root cause of technical issues

Get started

Visit g.co/play/reachanddevices for more information or go straight to Play Console to check it out.

Plan for success on Google Play with Reach and devices

Posted by Lauren Mytton, Product Manager, Google Play

Google Play has over 2.5B monthly active users, distributed across the world, using many different devices. How do you make the most of this opportunity?

The concept of quality reach

The foundations for your game’s (or app’s) success on Google Play are its reach and its quality:

  • Reach: Can a player access your game?
  • Quality: Does the player experience good quality when playing your game?

To unlock the opportunity for any single user on Google Play, you need both: every user must be able to access your game, AND have a good technical experience when playing it.

This is the ideal state of quality reach.

Why quality reach is foundational to your game’s success

When you have quality reach, your game development, marketing budgets, and growth strategy can be lined up to reinforce each other, because you acquire users for whom your game performs well, and your engagement and retention strategies have higher ROI for users with good experiences.

If you have poor quality reach, you can inadvertently acquire users whom you will not be able to engage and retain. Any spend to acquire these users is likely to be wasted. But the bigger problem is that poor quality reach makes it harder for you to acquire users for whom your game does perform well, since Android vitals and user ratings may affect your game’s discoverability and conversion in the Play store.

Another scenario to keep an eye on is missed reach. Unlike poor quality reach, it may not hurt your ability to acquire users who can access and enjoy your game. However it still limits your game’s scale and possibly also its ROI.

How you achieve quality reach

There are three types of decisions that determine your quality reach:

  • Devices: the device specs you build for and target
  • Geographies: the countries, languages or localization you offer
  • Testing and optimization: what you plan for and prioritize during development and pre-launch

You make these decisions when you develop and publish a game for the first time, and you continue to make them with every new release over the lifecycle of your game. You also need to think about these decisions outside your release cycle, since the Play ecosystem is constantly changing, which means your quality reach will also change over time, even if you do nothing.

However these decisions can be very hard. They require you to answer, or predict the answers to, two questions:

  1. Where are my users?
  2. Where are my issues?

These questions are challenging because of the scale and diversity of users on Google Play, both technically and geographically. Not only that, but these decisions may be made at different points in time, across both business and technical teams. How do you get them to line up?

How Reach and devices can help

We’re launching a new tool in Play Console called Reach and devices to help with these challenges. Reach and devices is a data and insights tool that helps you to plan for quality reach, by helping you understand or predict the distribution of your users and your issues across the Google Play ecosystem.

Reach and devices takes data about your app and its peers and presents it in new ways, to help you answer these questions. It also makes it easier to get all the relevant teams in your organisation on the same page.

Key features:

  • Distribution and trends of user and issue metrics, starting with install base, crash rate and ANR rate (more metrics to come)
  • Metric breakdowns by key attributes including Android version, RAM, SoC, OpenGL ES version, Vulkan version and screen metrics (with more to come)
  • Peer data so you can spot opportunities in your current game, or even plan your next game
  • Country-level filtering for more precise launch and expansion planning
  • Export all data for bespoke analysis

We’ve received great feedback during closed beta from developers who have found it useful in a variety of ways:

  • Deciding what device specs to support
  • Spotting optimization opportunities
  • Assessing the ROI of addressing issues
  • Narrowing down the root cause of technical issues

Get started

Visit g.co/play/reachanddevices for more information or go straight to Play Console to check it out.

In just a few clicks, GoDaddy merchants can show up across Google

Shoppers get the most choice when they can easily discover businesses and their unique products. And when those products get discovered, businesses can connect with more customers. We see it as a win-win, which is why we’re working hard to make commerce more open online. One way we’re doing this is by teaming up with eCommerce platforms like GoDaddy.

Starting today, we welcome GoDaddy online store customers to more easily integrate their product inventory across Google at no additional cost. This means that GoDaddy merchants can now get discovered across Search, Shopping, Image Search and YouTube in just a few clicks. With this integration, GoDaddy merchants can upload their products to Google, create free listings and ad campaigns and review performance metrics — all without leaving GoDaddy’s Online Store.

By teaming up with platforms like GoDaddy, we are able to help even more businesses make more connections with shoppers who are eager to discover new brands.

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Top questions you ask Google about privacy across our products

“Hey Google, I have some questions…” 

Privacy and security is personal. It means different things to different people, but our commitment is the same to everyone who uses our products: we will keep your personal information private, safe, and secure. We think everyone should be in the know about what data is collected, how their information is used, and most importantly, how they control the data they share with us.

Here are some of the top questions that people commonly ask us:

Q. Is Google Assistant recording everything I say?

No, it isn’t.

Google Assistant is designed to wait in standby mode until it is activated, like when you say, "Hey Google" or "Ok Google". In standby mode, it processes short snippets of audio (a few seconds) to detect an activation (such as “Ok Google”). If no activation is detected, then those audio snippets won’t be sent or saved to Google. When an activation is detected, the Assistant comes out of standby mode to fulfill your request. The status indicator on your device lets you know when the Assistant is activated. And when it’s in standby mode, the Assistant won’t send what you are saying to Google or anyone else. To help keep you in control, we're constantly working to make the Assistant better at reducing unintended activations.

To better tailor Google Assistant to your environment, you can now adjust how sensitive your Assistant is to the activation phrase (like 'Hey Google') through the Google Home app for smart speakers and smart displays. We also provide controls to turn off cameras and mics, and when they’re active we’ll provide a clear visual indicator (like flashing dots on top of your device).

Deleting your Google Assistant activity is easy, by simply using your voice. Just say something like, “Hey Google, delete this week’s activity”, or “Hey Google, delete my last conversation”, and Google Assistant will delete your Assistant activity. This will reflect on your My Activity page, and you can also use this page to review and delete activity across the Google products you use. And if you have people coming over, you can also activate a “Guest Mode” on Google Assistant – Just say, “Hey Google, turn on Guest Mode,” and your Google Assistant interactions will not be saved to your account. 

Q. How does Google decide what ads it shows me? How can I control this?

The Ads you see can be based on a number of things, such as your previous searches, the sites you visit, ads clicked, and more.

For example, you may discover that you are seeing a camera ad because you’ve searched for cameras, visited photography websites or clicked on ads for cameras before. The 'Why this ad?' feature helps you understand why you are seeing a given ad. 

Data helps us personalise ads so that they're more useful to you, but we never use the content of your emails or documents, or sensitive information like health, race, religion or sexual orientation, to tailor ads to you.

It is also easy to personalize the kinds of ads that are shown to you, or even disable ads personalization completely. Visit your Ad Settings page.

Q. Are you building a profile of my personal information across your products, for targeting ads?

We do not sell your personal information — not to advertisers, not to anyone. And we don’t use information in apps where you primarily store personal content — such as Gmail, Drive, Calendar and Photos — for advertising purposes.

We use information to improve our products and services for you and for everyone. And we use anonymous, aggregated data to do so.

A small subset of information may be used to serve you relevant ads (for things you may actually want to hear about), but only with your consent. You can always turn these settings off.

It is also important to note that you can use most of Google’s products completely anonymously, without logging in -- you can Search in incognito mode, or clear your search history; you can watch YouTube videos and use Maps. However, when you share your data with us we can create a better experience with our products based on the information shared with us.

Q. Are you reading my emails to sell ads?

We do not scan or read your Gmail messages to show you ads. 

In fact, we have a host of products like Gmail, Drive and Photos that are  designed to store your personal content, and this content is never used to show ads. When you use your personal Google account and open the promotions or social tabs in Gmail, you'll see ads that were selected to be the most useful and relevant for you. The process of selecting and showing personalized ads in Gmail is fully automated. The ads you see in Gmail are based on data associated with your Google Account such as your activity in other Google services such as YouTube or Search, which could affect the types of ads that you see in Gmail. To remember which ads you've dismissed, avoid showing you the same ads, and show you ads you may like better, we save your past ad interactions, like which ads you've clicked or dismissed. Google does not use keywords or messages in your inbox to show you ads – nobody reads your email in order to show you ads.

Also, if you have a work or school account, you will never be shown ads in Gmail.

You can adjust your ad settings anytime. Learn more about Gmail ads.

Q. Why do you need location information on Maps?

If you want to get from A to B, it’s quicker to have your phone tell us where you are, than to have you figure out your address or location. Location information helps in many other ways too, like helping us figure out how busy traffic is. If you choose to enable location sharing, your phone will send anonymous bits of information back to Google. This is combined with anonymous data from people around you to recognise traffic patterns.

This only happens for people who turn location history on. It is off by default. If you turn it on, but then change your mind, you can visit Your Data in Maps -- a single place for people to manage Google account location settings.

Q. What information does Google know about me? How do I control it?

You can see a summary of what Google services you use and the data saved in your account from your Google Dashboard. There are also powerful privacy controls like Activity Controls and Ad Settings, which allow you to switch the collection and use of data on or off to decide how all of Google can work better for you.

We’ve made it easier for you to make decisions about your data directly within the Google services you use every day. For example, without ever leaving Search, you can review and delete your recent search activity, get quick access to relevant privacy controls from your Google Account, and learn more about how Search works with your data. You can quickly access these controls in Search, Maps, and the Assistant.

Privacy features and controls have always been built into our services, and we’re continuously working to make it even easier to control and manage your privacy and security. But we know that the web is a constantly evolving space, where new threats and bad actors will unfortunately emerge. There will always be more work to be done, and safeguarding people who use our products and services every day will remain our focus. 

For more on how we keep you and your information private, safe and secure visit the Google Safety Center.

Posted by the Google India Team

YouTube Shorts arrives in Australia

Last year, we announced that we are building YouTube Shorts, a short-form video experience for anyone who wants to create short, catchy videos using nothing but their mobile phones. Since then, we’ve expanded our beta to 26 more countries and have already seen many creative, awesome Shorts from our community. 
We’re excited to share that YouTube Shorts is going global. We’re now rolling out our beta across more than 100 countries around the world where YouTube is available — including Australia. 
We plan to introduce more features as we continue to build Shorts alongside creators and artists. Here’s an update on what to expect from YouTube Shorts as it rolls out. 
Unlocking a new playground of creativity 
Creation is at the core of short-form video, and we want to make it easy and fun to create Shorts. Shorts already includes foundational creation tools like a multi-segment camera to string multiple video clips together, the ability to record with music, control speed settings, and more. As we continue to build Shorts alongside our creators and artists, we’ve added more features to try, like: 
  • Add text to specific points in your video 
  • Sample audio from other Shorts to remix into your own creation 
  • Automatically add captions to your Short 
  • Record up to 60 seconds with the Shorts camera 
  • Add clips from your phone’s gallery to add to your recordings made with the Shorts camera 
  • Add basic filters to colour correct your Shorts, with more effects to come in the future 
We’ve also been starting to roll out the ability to sample audio from videos across YouTube - which includes billions of videos worldwide - unlocking a new playground of creativity like never before. This means you can give your own creative spin on the content you love to watch on YouTube and help find it a new audience — whether it’s reacting to your favourite jokes, trying your hand at a creator’s latest recipe, or re-enacting comedic skits. Creators will be in control and will be able to opt out if they don’t want their long form video remixed. 
We’ve also worked alongside our music partners to make sure artists and creators have a large library of songs to use in their Shorts. As we expand Shorts, the library and number of partners will continue to grow. 
Stay tuned for more creation tools rolling out in the future as we continue to build Shorts. 

Delivering a seamless viewing experience across YouTube 
We know that creation is only one part of the Shorts experience. We also want to help people find Shorts to enjoy and help creators get discovered. We’ve introduced a row on the YouTube homepage especially for Shorts, have launched a new watch experience that lets you easily swipe vertically from one video to the next, and will soon add a Shorts tab on mobile that makes it easier for you to watch Shorts with a single tap. 
We’re also exploring how to deepen your connection with Shorts content, creators, and artists you’re most interested in by integrating it with the YouTube you already know and love. For instance, if you hear a snippet of a song on Shorts, you can easily find the full song, watch the music video, or learn more about the artist — all on YouTube. And it works both ways. Tap the create button right from a video to make your own Short with that audio, or check out how others are using it on Shorts. 
As more people create and watch Shorts, we expect that our systems will get even better, improving our ability to help you discover new content, trends, and creators you’ll love. 

Supporting mobile creators 
YouTube has helped an entire generation of creators turn their creativity into businesses and become the next generation media companies. Over the last three years, we’ve paid more than US$30 billion to creators, artists, and media companies. 
Shorts is a new way to watch and create on YouTube, so we’ve been taking a fresh look at what it means to monetise Shorts and reward creators for their content. We are deeply committed to supporting the next generation of mobile creators with Shorts, and are actively working on what monetisation options will look like in the future. 
As our first step in this journey, we recently introduced the YouTube Shorts Fund, a US$100M fund distributed over the course of 2021-2022. 
The Shorts beta is rolling out globally and will be available to everybody soon. We know that it will take us time to get this right, but we can't wait for you to try Shorts and help us build a first-class short-form video experience right on YouTube. 

Posted by YouTube Australia & New Zealand Team

YouTube Shorts Arrives in New Zealand


Image of YouTube homepage on mobile


Last year, we announced that we are building YouTube Shorts, a short-form video experience for anyone who wants to create short, catchy videos using nothing but their mobile phones. Since then, we’ve expanded our beta to 26 more countries and have already seen many creative, awesome Shorts from our community. 


We’re excited to share that YouTube Shorts is going global. We’re now rolling out our beta across more than 100 countries around the world where YouTube is available, including New Zealand. 


We plan to introduce more features as we continue to build Shorts alongside creators and artists. Here’s an update on what to expect from YouTube Shorts as it rolls out here. 


Unlocking a new playground of creativity


Creation is at the core of short-form video, and we want to make it easy and fun to create Shorts. Shorts already includes foundational creation tools like a multi-segment camera to string multiple video clips together, the ability to record with music, control speed settings, and more. As we continue to build Shorts alongside our creators and artists, we’ve added more features to try, like:


  • Add text to specific points in your video

  • Sample audio from other Shorts to remix into your own creation

  • Automatically add captions to your Short

  • Record up to 60 seconds with the Shorts camera

  • Add clips from your phone’s gallery to add to your recordings made with the Shorts camera

  • Add basic filters to colour correct your Shorts, with more effects to come in the future


We’ve also been starting to roll out the ability to sample audio from videos across YouTube - which includes billions of videos worldwide - unlocking a new playground of creativity like never before. This means you can give your own creative spin on the content you love to watch on YouTube and help find it a new audience — whether it’s reacting to your favourite jokes, trying your hand at a creator’s latest recipe, or re-enacting comedic skits. Creators will be in control and will be able to opt out if they don’t want their long form video remixed. 


We’ve also worked alongside our music partners to make sure artists and creators have a large library of songs to use in their Shorts. As we expand Shorts, the library and number of partners will continue to grow.


Stay tuned for more creation tools rolling out in the future as we continue to build Shorts. 



Image of YouTube Shorts on mobile


Delivering a seamless viewing experience across YouTube


We know that creation is only one part of the Shorts experience. We also want to help people find Shorts to enjoy and help creators get discovered. We’ve introduced a row on the YouTube homepage especially for Shorts, have launched a new watch experience that lets you easily swipe vertically from one video to the next, and will soon add a Shorts tab on mobile that makes it easier for you to watch Shorts with a single tap.


We’re also exploring how to deepen your connection with Shorts content, creators, and artists you’re most interested in by integrating it with the YouTube you already know and love. For instance, if you hear a snippet of a song on Shorts, you can easily find the full song, watch the music video, or learn more about the artist —all on YouTube. And it works both ways. Tap the create button right from a video to make your own Short with that audio, or check out how others are using it on Shorts.


As more people create and watch Shorts, we expect that our systems will get even better, improving our ability to help you discover new content, trends, and creators you’ll love. 


Supporting mobile creators 


YouTube has helped an entire generation of creators turn their creativity into businesses and become the next generation media companies. Over the last three years, we’ve paid more than $30 billion to creators, artists, and media companies.


Shorts is a new way to watch and create on YouTube, so we’ve been taking a fresh look at what it means to monetise Shorts and reward creators for their content. We are deeply committed to supporting the next generation of mobile creators with Shorts, and are actively working on what monetisation options will look like in the future.


As our first step in this journey, we recently introduced the YouTube Shorts Fund, a $100M fund distributed over the course of 2021-2022. 


The Shorts beta is rolling out globally and will be available to everybody soon. We know that it will take us time to get this right, but we can't wait for you to try Shorts and help us build a first-class short-form video experience right on YouTube. 


Post Content Posted by YouTube Australia and New Zealand Team.

Google Workspace Business Starter and Frontline customers can now collaborate with people who are not using a Google account in Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Sites

Quick launch summary 

We’re making visitor sharing available to Google Workspace Business Starter and Frontline customers, with a limit of five visitor shares per month, per user. 

With visitor sharing, you can share items with non-Google accounts, enabling them to view, comment on, or edit content in Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Sites using a secure pincode. 



Getting started 

  • Admins: 
    • Sharing outside of your organization to users with non-Google accounts will be ON by default if you currently allow users in your organization to send sharing invitations to people outside your organization who are not using a Google account. 
    • Sharing outside of your organization to users with non-Google accounts will be OFF by default if you currently do not allow sharing outside your organization. Use our Help Center to learn more about sharing to non-Google accounts. 
    • Visitor sharing will be controlled by new settings at Admin console > Apps > G Suite > Drive and Docs > Sharing Settings (pictured below). These settings can be controlled at the domain or OU level. 



Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Business customers 
  • Not available to G Suite Basic, Cloud Identity customers, or users with personal accounts 

Resources 

How my family watches what we love (without cable)



My family loves TV. Seriously, any one of us would be a stellar entertainment trivia partner. But we don’t watch anything over cable. Why? Because we know the best way to watch TV is over the internet — especially over internet that’s both fast and reliable (hint: no buffering, low resolution, or data overages). 

Check out each of our streaming setups.



My ad-averse mom

My mom’s movie-obsessed and commercial-averse. She doesn’t believe that critically acclaimed work should be interrupted by a 30-second plea for you to buy something. Which is why she doesn’t mind paying the extra bucks for commercial-free services like Netflix for her binge-watching ways. 

She also recently discovered the highly curated movie streaming service: The Criterion Channel — essentially her very own equivalent to striking gold. Her next mission is finding a service that delivers popcorn to couches.

 


Some other good services if you love film and TV without commercials:



 


My major league stepdad

My stepdad’s from Boston, translation: He has never missed an important baseball game in what I’m assuming is his entire life. Aside from a well-grilled quesadilla, there’s nothing he cares about more than sports. 

That’s why he’s big on services like Fubo TV and ESPN+. And even if he’s not home to catch the game, these services make it so that he can stay up on every play from his phone.

 


Some other good services if you love live, local, and sometimes not-so-local sports:



 


My money-conscious girlfriend

My partner is the financial-minded person in our relationship. She saves way more than she spends and is always looking for new ways to stay budget-friendly. That’s why she prefers free streaming services like Pluto TV. She also genuinely enjoys watching commercials … I know — I don’t get it, either.

 


Some other good services if you don’t love spending money:



 


My on-the-go bro

My brother is graduating from college this year and will likely be moving around a lot, which makes being roped into a cable bundle way less than ideal. That’s part of why he watches live TV with YouTube TV. It has every major channel he wants to watch and then some — plus, he can watch from anywhere. 

And if he’s studying for a test (which he’d better be) and has to miss a live premiere, he can record it with unlimited DVR space and watch it later.

 


Some other good services if you love live TV without forced bundles:



 


As for me, I like a lot of different things

From horror, to drag competitions, to documentaries, I like it all. That’s why I go with a few low-cost, channel-specific streaming services like Shudder, World of Wonder Presents Plus, and HBO Max. And since they’re all month-to-month services, I can always cancel if I want a different mix of streaming services for the month.

 


Some other good services if you love to mix it up:



 




Oh, and I didn’t forget about my little snack stealer

My dog Vero (a very fluffy Bernedoodle) doesn’t care what’s on TV as long as there’s a spot for him on the couch. Which there always is. There’s usually a few pieces of popcorn for him, too. 


 


Posted by Talia Bootz, Creative and Social Content Manager. When she’s not streaming her faves, she’s likely kayaking, skating around town, or cooking up some vegetarian food.





~~~~~

author: Talia Bootz

title: Creative and Social Content Manager

category: meet_the_team

Slash commands and dialogs now available for Google Chat bots

Quick launch summary

Google Chat bots can be a great way to help users streamline workflows, accomplish tasks, and get information and notifications in real time, without switching contexts away from Chat. We’re adding two new Chat bot features that make it easier to find and use Chat bots:
  • Slash Commands for Google Chat bots: Slash commands enable users to simply type “/” in the message line to reveal a list of functions offered by available bots. This makes it much easier to discover and use Chat bot functions that are available to you.
  • Dialogs for Google Chat bots: Dialogs allow developers to build user interfaces to create visual interfaces to gather inputs from users in a structured format. By guiding users to enter information in the right format, developers can be more confident of getting the specific data in the right formats to make their bots as useful as possible.




Slash commands make it easier to discover Chat bot functions



Dialogs help users input structured information to make Chat bots more useful




Getting started


Rollout pace

  • Available now for all users.

Availability


  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

Resources