Google on Monday began rolling out a new version of Google Reader which provides a brand-new design with deep Google+ integration.
Taking ques from their recently designed Gmail and Google Calendar makeovers the Google Reader app features a sparse design that highlighted Google+ sharing functionality while still retaining an interface Google Reader fans will find familiar.
The Google +1 button has replaced where the “Like” button use to stand. Google Reader users who are signed in and members of Google+ can also choose which of their Google+ circles to share articles to using Google+ snippets. read more
Google on Wednesday announced that the Google+ social network wants to be like Twitter, more specifically the company rolled out hashtag support which provides access to Google searches. The company also announced that real-time searches can now be conducted through the Google+ platform.
Vic Gundotra, Google’s SVP of social, explained in a post:
“Now when you search in Google+, you’ll see a message about new posts the instant they’re available,” while adding, “If you click on this message, or select ‘Most recent,’ then relevant posts will start appearing in real-time.”
When hashtags are used they automatically link to search results for the terms which might make “Imhavingareallybaddaytoday” seem irrelevant while popular terms such as #iPHone4S will yield the type of results people want. Thankfully Google is capable of breaking up strings of characters into search terms which means #iPhone4STroubleshooting” displays on Google.com search results as “iPhone 4S Troubleshooting” without users having to break up strings into separate words. read more
For the last three months users who wanted to test Google+ needed to be invited by a friend or through a special Google invite and now the company has opened their network to eveyone.
Google’s Vic Gundotra writes on the official Google Blog:
“We’re ready to move from field trial to beta, and introduce our 100th feature: open signups.”
The move comes with some nice new features including the ability to add Google+ Hangouts using Android 2.3 devices and higher. Google+ users will also find an updated search feature which provides Google+ and Google search results from around the web. read more
Having a hard time communicating with your international followers on Google+? Have no fear a new Chrome extension has been released for the social network which provides automatic post and comments translation.
Release on Monday Google Translate for Google+ is capable of translating 50 languages and can easily be installed using standard Google Chrome extension downloading.
According to Google Translate front-end and mobile development lead Josh Estelle:
“We’ve heard from a lot of Google+ users wanting an easier way to understand posts written in other languages. I’m an engineer on Google Translate and thought we could do something about that.” read more
Google+ is trying to make it much easier for their 25+ million users to invite their friends over to the social network and to accomplish that goal they have rolled out a new link sharing system.
The new social network update allows users to create a unique link which can be shared with up to 150 friends, as a user clicks on that link and signs up for Google+ they are automatically added to their friends Google+ account, ensuring a quick connection.
Users still have the option to invite friends by email, however the new link could allow users to also invite Twitter and other social network friends over to their Google+ accounts by simply offering a quick cut and paste solution. read more
In an upcoming and expected move, some hours ago Google+ proceded to close a majority of business profiles. We discussed the issue business owners face, due to the lack of profiles for businesses on Google+, recently.
One of the things I said was that Google+ would have to take a clear stand and when, also enforce it:
I do hope you will collaborate and when users do report profiles of brands, no matter how big the brand or website and how popular the page, these profiles will subsequently be deactivated until the pages option for businesses is available.
And exactly that has happened: Christian Oestlien, announced that the Google+ team has deactivated multiple business accounts (also those of Mashable, Sesame Street and many more).
But the story took a rather ridiculous twist and SEO Google spammer par excellence, Pete Cashmore, A.K.A. as CEO and Founder of Mashable, quickly changed the Mashable News account to his personal name and also changed the profile picture, the latter similar to the Mashable Twitter account. read more
One of the much hyped features of Google+ are the privacy settings, which are not new compared to Facebook, but easier to configure and actually use. While it is unlikely that we’ll soon get any insight in the user numbers. The number known so far is that more than 10 million users signed up to the service within its first three weeks. If, we can expect more official numbers it will probably be at Google’s next earnings call.
While it is too early to call Google+ a success, more and more we see very interesting numbers emerge, combined with the fact that the immediate reception and hype around the service did push Google’s stock (GOOG) with 13%.
Hitwise estimated Google+ at around 300,00 daily US based visits after two weeks, comScore said on Wednesday that the site had reached 20 million page views already in only three weeks, Paul Allen estimates there’s 18 million users already and Alexa ranks the G+ subdomain at almost 2% of the entire traffic to Google properties.
In an interview with The Mercury News, Vic Gundotra – Google+ Project Lead, disclosed another interesting statistic: around 2/3 or more of the updates posted to Google+ are ‘Limited’ and shared only with a select number of people. Women are also likely to share more content privately than men and early statistics of a low number of female users (less than 15%) are wrong. read more
After little more than 2 weeks of wait, the Apple App Store crew has finally approved the Google+ app for iOS.
Sadly for many users it does seem that the app only runs on the iPhone, and not on iPod touches (even not latest generation). So far no iPad specific app has been released either and the app does not run on iPads. Rumors around the internet confirm that the Google+ app for iPhone only runs on iPhone 3, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4.
Where very often the iOS apps the more polished ones are, Foursquare being the best example, the Google+ app for iPhone does not belong in that category and it seems that the app was developed by developers without any eye to particular design. While both apps are very similar, the Android Google+ app is the clear winner when it comes to polish, design and interface. The iPhone app just doesn’t feel as finished.
At least WordPress fans will love the design of user profiles in Google+ for iPhone. read more
Just like many new platforms the Google+ interface is not optimal and every user might want to customize their G+ experience.
Luckily the online community is fast and several Google Chrome browser extensions for Google+ have already found their way to the Chrome Store.
Many users have already mentioned that they wished they could share better or organize their stream better, others wished that G+ had additional features or even a more colorful design. We found 15 Google+ extensions for the Chrome web browser, which can improve your G+ experience.
Neither of them is an extension to -1. ;) read more
In a rather unsurprising move, more and more companies have started to develop online Google+ analytics and tracking platforms, adding to their stable of social analytics. Even before any form of Google+ API has been released so far, and with mixed results.
Only days after Google+ was opened to a select group of people, FindPeopleonPlus was released, tracking 1 million Google+ users. Since the service received its 5 minutes of fame the number of people tracked hasn’t grown anymore and statistics haven’t been updated either, even though Google+ has grown to rather large numbers in less than a month already.
The newest kid in town, Plusalyzer by the German BuzzRank team, now tries to deliver the user a more in-depth level of statistics for their contributions to the social network. read more
