What is Google Plus and how do I use it?

7 comments, 13/07/2011, by , in Google

The Big G has finally unveiled its answer to social networking and it is hopeful that users will find it a viable rival for Facebook.

Plus ManGoogle+ is a social network at heart but one into which Google has invested much time and effort. The Google navigation bar will offer Google+ features consisting of Circles, Hangouts, Home, Sparks, Profile and Photos. The Google+ Stream is a content sharing similar in nature to the Facebook News Feed.

 

“Circles” is Google+ method of a friends list. You can use it to select and deselect friends from different social circles that you define such as work, clubs and other groups. A neat feature is the HTML5 animations – when you move or delete a friend for example a puff of smoke appears!

“Hangouts” is one of the best new features. This is basically a group chat feature based on group socializing. As a user you click on “start a hangout” and you are then placed into a video chat room. A message is sent to all your defined friends in your social circles telling them that you are there and Google has found that people respond very positively to this and join quickly, hanging out with you. There is a maximum number of people allowed in a hangout although it is possible to queue and wait for a vacant position when someone leaves.

“Sparks” is a method of content discovery which allows user to recommend content. The content itself is grouped by interest topic and actually relies on information from a number of sources including what is being shared by clicking on the Google+1 button. The whole idea is to enable groups of people to share common interests

“Photos” is a neat area for viewing multimedia files and sharing them with friends. It allows not only sharing but also includes a photo editor and privacy options to restrict specific multimedia sharing to chosen circles only. It looks pretty easy and a definite march on Facebook who seem to have made the process of uploading media more difficult than it needs to be.

Google have clearly spent a lot of time and effort in developing Google+ and it’s a huge leap forward from its previous foray into social networking with the ill fated “Buzz”.

 






7 comments

  1. July 13th, 2011 15:08

    Thank you for the Pingler.

    Reply

  2. July 13th, 2011 19:54

    Wow!. There’s always something new happening. It’s hard to keep up. 🙂

    Reply

  3. July 17th, 2011 8:03

    Pingler is one of my best sites.Can’t do without it.

    Reply

  4. July 20th, 2011 14:06

    It is much easier to import contacts from Yahoomail to Google Plus.

    Reply

  5. July 22nd, 2011 12:40

    Any one does not need to learn Google plus from experts. Google plus Demo at http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/demo/ is enough to learn Google Plus.

    Reply

  6. August 11th, 2011 3:24

    Now I have some know about GG +Plus, I will try to use it.

    Reply

  7. July 27th, 2012 7:05

    That is merely best! Thank you

    Reply

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