What is Google+ all about?
31 AUGUST 11
Google+ is Google’s latest foray into the medium of social networking. It has tried this twice before with Google Wave and Google Buzz, with dismal results. This incarnation seems to have struck a chord as having something different to what is already available. It had 10 million users within 3 weeks, and is now up to over 25 million. There are currently 1 billion pieces of content shared daily on Google+. So what is it that Google+ does differently to its competition?
CIRCLES
CIRCLES
Possibly the most important part of Google+ is the model that they use for the organisation of contacts, namely, “Circles”. Google+ lets you put people into “Circles” e.g. Friends, Family, Business associates, Acquaintances etc.
People can be placed into more than one Circle. You can then choose what content you choose to share with that circle.
Facebook makes everyone your “friend”. This means that you share your information with a great many people, and should you become “friends” with your mother/grandma/boss/manager, you then get to spend a reasonable amount of time untagging yourself from inappropriate photos, censoring your updates, making sure your privacy settings are right or sifting through anything that may be put on your wall that you don’t want EVERYONE to know about.
The ability to separate streams of content both into and out of their respective social or business circles means that users get to keep their personal and professional lives as separate as they want to.
SPARKS
This is a “content recommendation engine”, which allows you to search for a subject and then populates a whole stream feed relating to that subject. Links to blogs, videos, pictures and news all appear in front of you at the blink of an eye. These can then be pinned to the Sparks menu for ease of access at a later time.
This is a little like using the Google search engine, but it integrates a range of media options into the one feed.
PRIVACY
Despite the fact that Google+ profiles cannot themselves be private (you can search for people on Google and find their profile), the Google+ users have said that the privacy settings that are a great deal more convenient to use than other social networking sites. Because you place your contacts into different Circles, you simply need to alter which of your circles see which parts of your content. When you make a post, or create an album, or start a Hangout, you choose which of your contacts can see it. In the “Profile” tab there’s a text box called “View profile as…” which lets you type in a name and see your profile as they would view it.
HANGOUTS
Google+ lets users create a group video chat at the press of a button, and has also integrated it into YouTube, allowing you to video chat with your friends while watching YouTube videos. You can start a Hangout in the main feed, and choose what Circles you allow to see it, or invite people manually. You can then have a maximum of 10 users in the hangout at once, but this doesn’t become cumbersome, as the main viewport transitions to whoever is speaking at the time.
PHOTOS
Not a new concept, but done well with a couple of extra options added in. In addition to what you would expect there is a tab that has all of the photos that you’ve been tagged in (so you can approve or reject them), sharing albums with selected circles (they remain private until shared), and some basic editing of your images (rotating and some colour options).
NO ADS
Google+ currently has no advertising presence on any of its pages, unlike other social networking mediums. Many users have commented on the user interface in Google+, noting that there is considerably less clutter than other social networking sites, so nothing to distract from the content itself.
GAMING
For those that have friends that constantly post their Farmville or Mafia Wars updates, Google+ have added games to their own tab, keeping them nice and separate from the post streams.
INTEGRATED WITH GOOGLE'S OTHER PRODUCTS
At the moment, Gmail and Google Calendars are integrated with Google+, but with so many other products associated with Google (YouTube, Google Scholar, Google Reader, Google Docs, Google Talk etc.), there is a huge amount of room to continue integrating all of these very popular services into a one-stop-shop of media and communication.
GOOGLE FOR BUSINESS?
A point of note for businesses is that at present, Google+ does not allow business profiles. They are currently working on a tweaked version, that has more sophisticated settings especially for commercial use. They also won’t be creating a tool for companies to transition profiles from the current Google+ to the business version, so it’s probably best to wait until the release date, which they have scheduled for somewhere in Q4 2011. You can still keep tabs on trends and products through sparks, you just can’t track companies yet.
See these related articles to find out more about Circles and how to create a Google+ account.
Facebook makes everyone your “friend”. This means that you share your information with a great many people, and should you become “friends” with your mother/grandma/boss/manager, you then get to spend a reasonable amount of time untagging yourself from inappropriate photos, censoring your updates, making sure your privacy settings are right or sifting through anything that may be put on your wall that you don’t want EVERYONE to know about.
The ability to separate streams of content both into and out of their respective social or business circles means that users get to keep their personal and professional lives as separate as they want to.
SPARKS
This is a “content recommendation engine”, which allows you to search for a subject and then populates a whole stream feed relating to that subject. Links to blogs, videos, pictures and news all appear in front of you at the blink of an eye. These can then be pinned to the Sparks menu for ease of access at a later time.
This is a little like using the Google search engine, but it integrates a range of media options into the one feed.
PRIVACY
Despite the fact that Google+ profiles cannot themselves be private (you can search for people on Google and find their profile), the Google+ users have said that the privacy settings that are a great deal more convenient to use than other social networking sites. Because you place your contacts into different Circles, you simply need to alter which of your circles see which parts of your content. When you make a post, or create an album, or start a Hangout, you choose which of your contacts can see it. In the “Profile” tab there’s a text box called “View profile as…” which lets you type in a name and see your profile as they would view it.
HANGOUTS
Google+ lets users create a group video chat at the press of a button, and has also integrated it into YouTube, allowing you to video chat with your friends while watching YouTube videos. You can start a Hangout in the main feed, and choose what Circles you allow to see it, or invite people manually. You can then have a maximum of 10 users in the hangout at once, but this doesn’t become cumbersome, as the main viewport transitions to whoever is speaking at the time.
PHOTOS
Not a new concept, but done well with a couple of extra options added in. In addition to what you would expect there is a tab that has all of the photos that you’ve been tagged in (so you can approve or reject them), sharing albums with selected circles (they remain private until shared), and some basic editing of your images (rotating and some colour options).
NO ADS
Google+ currently has no advertising presence on any of its pages, unlike other social networking mediums. Many users have commented on the user interface in Google+, noting that there is considerably less clutter than other social networking sites, so nothing to distract from the content itself.
GAMING
For those that have friends that constantly post their Farmville or Mafia Wars updates, Google+ have added games to their own tab, keeping them nice and separate from the post streams.
INTEGRATED WITH GOOGLE'S OTHER PRODUCTS
At the moment, Gmail and Google Calendars are integrated with Google+, but with so many other products associated with Google (YouTube, Google Scholar, Google Reader, Google Docs, Google Talk etc.), there is a huge amount of room to continue integrating all of these very popular services into a one-stop-shop of media and communication.
GOOGLE FOR BUSINESS?
A point of note for businesses is that at present, Google+ does not allow business profiles. They are currently working on a tweaked version, that has more sophisticated settings especially for commercial use. They also won’t be creating a tool for companies to transition profiles from the current Google+ to the business version, so it’s probably best to wait until the release date, which they have scheduled for somewhere in Q4 2011. You can still keep tabs on trends and products through sparks, you just can’t track companies yet.
See these related articles to find out more about Circles and how to create a Google+ account.
