Google+

There is a new social media outlet, Google+, that will surely be very popular. Google+ is still in Beta, but has pretty much opened the door to anyone with a will to join. They are still adding new features every day, and working out the kinks with existing features. Google has quite a following, is the number one all-time search engine, and every smart phone purchased these days gets set up with a free Gmail account. Google has the resources to reach a large number of people very quickly. The real question is will people feel compelled to switch to Google+.

Google has a “stream,” of information, much like the news feed on Facebook, to share information with your friends. However on Google+ you can only post on your own stream. If a friend makes a post, you can then comment on it. Happy Birthdays, and random posts of affection or appreciation are commonplace on Facebook “walls,” but at least for now, you won’t see them on Google+.

You can tag your friends in posts you make with Google+ by starting their name with an @ sign similar to Twitter’s method.

The reason Google+ does not have messaging and other services is most likely because they want to integrate their other products, such as Gmail, with it so they have more to share in other areas as well.

You can download all your contacts on Google+. You can also download your “profile” and “photos” and other information Google collects on all its applications. Facebook has a similar feature but does not collect as much information on you since it is just the social network aspect of it.

You can download contacts into your GMail account simply by clicking “contacts”. It’s also very easy to download your other data by going to any Google Page with the “Google+ bar.” (This is the new black bar at the top of the page.) Next, you need to click your name “John Smith,” then “Account Settings,” and then “Data Liberation.”

(Source: Skynet Solutions)

By Ryan Williams