Individual Sections:

• What Are Google+ Circles
• What Advantages Do Google+ Circles Provide?
• Contact Organization in Google Plus Circles
• Privacy Control Using Google+ Circles
• Creating a Custom Circle in Google+
• Adding a Contact to a Google+ Circle

What Are Google+ Circles?

One of the most innovative features in Google+ is the ability to group your contacts into different “circles“.
You have the option of using the default circles provided by Google+ or creating your own, customized circles. Every time you post a stream update, you have the option of choosing which circles can see that update.
This means that you can have a circle for each of the following:

• Acquaintances
• Co-workers
• Family
• Famous People
• Friends
• Fraternity Brothers

The list could go on forever!

What Advantages Do Google+ Circles Provide?

1. Provide a great way to organize contacts.
2. Allow the user complete privacy control.

Contact Organization in Google Plus Circles

As mentioned earlier, a user can create as many circles as he or she wishes. The user can then add contacts to the different circles. A contact can be in multiple circles at once.
Just because you have added someone to one of your circles, doesn’t mean that they have added you to one of their circles.
In short, Google+ allows for one-way relationships (like Twitter, unlike Facebook).

Privacy Control Using Google+ Circles

The privacy control options that Google+ Circles allow are incredible. When a user posts a stream update they can choose to send the update to:

• Public- Anyone who has included you in one of their circles or anyone who views your profile, even if they haven’t added you to any circles
• Your Circles- Everyone who is in at least one of your circles.
• Extended Circles- Everyone who is in a circle of someone in one of your circles (try going over that one in your head a few times!).
• Specific Circles- Choose specifically which circles can see the post and which ones can’t.
• Specific Contacts- By mentioning someone with the @ symbol and then their username or email address, you can post to specific people or even one specific person (personal message).

I personally think that the ability to have complete control over who see what posts in Google+ is the most beneficial feature of the new social media network. You no longer have to hesitate before adding your Mom as a contact. Just add her to the family group and be cautious of what you post to them!

Creating a Custom Circle in Google+

1. Click on the “circles” tab.

2. Move your cursor over the circle that says “Drop here to create a new circle“.

3. Click “Create circle.“.

4. In the window that pops up, give the circle a name of your choosing.
5. Add as many people as you would like to your new circle.
6. Click the “Create circle” button in the popup window.

Adding a Contact to a Google+ Circle

1. Click on the “circles” tab.

2. Click on “People in your circles” or “Find and invite“.

3. Click in the “Add a new person” box.

4. Enter the email address and the name of the person you would like to add.

5. Choose which circle you would like to add the contact to.

Once the contact is in at least one circle, you can find them by looking through the “People in your circles” area. You can then click and drag them to any additional circles that you would like that person to be a part of.

http://ansonalex.com/tutorials/managing-circles-in-google-plus/

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With the launch of “+1″ Google seems to have made another step in the revealing of their social layers. This one without a doubt is one of the bigger changes so far. We wrote about it this morning, but we also asked several experts in the industry to shine their light on the matter.
We asked Rand Fishkin, Kelvin Newman, Joost de Valk, Peter Young, Mikkel de Mib Svendsen, Andy Atkins-Krüger, Kristján Már Hauksson, Ciarán Norris and Liana Evans the question “What do you think the Google +1 feature will mean for Google’s social efforts, will they now succeed?”. As you will see, the opinions differ!

Rand Fishkin – SeoMoz

“Google’s hunger for social signals and the participation/votes of their searchers has long been a goal. I think +1 is the feature that might finally take them there. It’s far more simple and useful than SearchWiki, SideWiki, Buzz, Orkut or Wave and it has enough integration with signals that show authenticity to make manipulation/spam at least as challenging as they are for the link graph (see Tom Critchlow’s post).
I don’t know how truly “social” this feature is or can be, but I think it’s a win for search, and it fits with Google’s castle/moat mentality.”

Kelvin Newman – Sitevisibility

“I think the challenge for Google is they can’t launch anything ‘quietly’ and as soon as they announce anything the pressure is on for it to be a success straight away. That pressure I think will prevent +1 from changing the world but even without widespread adoption it’s going to give Google some useful data. Whether it takes off or not I’ve got to admit it’s the best named new product from Google in years.”

Joost de Valk – Yoast.com

“I think this will help Google get a bigger grip on social search and even on better search (results) in general, as it gives them another ranking factor that is a bit harder to game. It’ll of course also provide them with a ridiculous amount of data because I don’t doubt for a moment those +1 buttons soon to appear on websites will gather statistics. What I’m in doubt about is whether this will actually help them surface new content: because the +1 buttons are in the SERPs already, you’ll have an example if you’re ranking there now, as you’ll find it easier to gather +1′s.

This will help Google find pages that don’t add much value to the user though, not too many thin affiliate sites will be getting a lot of +1′s, after all, unless they’re faked, which is why they’re connected to your Google Profile. I’ll be interested to see how this goes along ”

Peter Young – Holistic Search / Brilliant Media

“I still think the incentive for Joe Bloggs (ie the average consumer) to sign up and utilise such results is still very limited. Its a very different beast from Facebook, where such functionality is a natural extension of an engaged and social community – however it still feels to me like Google are trying to force a community without actively giving them a reason to be part of that community.
In my opinion, Google need to actively look at building a community which may mean looking beyond their core battleground. Whether this means we see Google buying social communities as part of that strategy is open to debate – but I personally can’t help thinking there still isn’t enough incentive to develop your social circle which ultimately is crucial to uptake of the +1 option.
As a sidenote – this could have a significant effect on both paid and organic search for those even without the social circle. Certainly I would expect to see significant uplifts in paid search click through rates where sites have high +1 counts – similarly with organic search as Google take greater learnings from +1 user behaviour.”

Mikkel de Mib Svendsen – DeMib.com

“Google have tried similar things before – getting user feedback and users involved in the “Google community”. So far they failed. The main problem is that Google is NOT a community. It’s just a thing you go and search in. People don’t go to Google to interact with others. In fact, if you look at the obscure searches people do its quite obvious that they don’t think anyone “see them”.
If the Internet is one big community – Google is the rest room you go to when you want to do something in private :J. Most people are not even aware that they are logged into Google, when they are. This is actually one of the most common reasons I see for why many webmasters think they rank better than they do – they forget to log-out, because they (even webmasters and wanna-be SEO’s) don’t realize that they are logged in to begin with.
Google say they will show if anyone in your network has +1’d a listing. But who is in my network? When did I choose my friends? I don’t remember that … And how can I reject them? How can I have a network I don’t know about? A secret on transparent network … Hmm, that doesn’t sound very social to me :J. It looks like Google is building +1 on previous failed attempts of being a community.
One thing is for sure – if this catches on we will very soon see a huge “+1 business” thrive. To me it looks like +1 will be even easier to spam than links. A new (African or Icelandic) currency has been born :J. A funny thing about the name “+1” is that you can’t actually search for it in Google”.

Andy Atkins-Krüger – Multilingual Search

“They are a late in bringing this out. It made sense to do this months or years ago – but Facebook is now so far ahead, it’s difficult to see how it can have a huge impact. Just like “Buzz” they are having to assemble connections that weren’t created for this purpose and whilst this is more innocuous, Facebook doesn’t have to “fake” it. Come on Google, this is distracting from some of the more original things they are doing – like video in Adwords. I would suggest that Google should try and re-invent search – create the search engine of tomorrow not the SERPS of yesterday.”

Kristján Már Hauksson – Nordic E-Marketing

“This seems to be Google’s answer to the LIKE function at Facebook and I think if implemented right should bring an extra value to those searching, the companies marketing and us marketers. When I say “implemented right” it has the potential to be misused so Google needs to be very careful how they allow people to use this.”

Ciarán Norris – Emerging Media, Mindshare

“Predicting definite success is a mug’s game, but what I think we can say is that this could have a significant impact. It’s a continuation of a trend that saw its inception, in Google’s case at least, with the introduction of TrueView on YouTube, where users can skip ads, thereby highlighting their viral nature, and rewarding advertisers for producing relevant & engaging ads.

The fact that the +1 will be rolled out not just in search ads, but across Google’s AdSense network means that they now have a global ad product with built in social context (which Nielsen have suggested boosts purchase intent). At the moment, Facebook only offer this on their site, though many advertisers would be very happy if it was released across the Open Graph. Predicting who will win this ongoing battle is almost impossible, but certainly, for the first time in a while, Google seem to have stolen a march on Facebook.”

Liana Evans – Libeckim

“I’ve got a post going up on our LiBeckIM blog later this afternoon just after 2 EST. Basically I believe it’s s gold mind for exploitation. Honestly, watching Google attempt to do social Yet Again, is pretty painful.
There’s no building of community or network w/ +1, it’s all about an individual and that’s what Google keeps missing. Facebook is about connecting w: a community or your network and sharing w/ them. Search I’d an individual thing that most people don’t share.”

Kate Morris – Distilled US

“I’m not sure this is going to help or hinder Google’s social efforts, but it will impact SEO and more importantly PPC. There will be tests to run on how effective this is and how much impact it has on natural and paid traffic. No matter what, it is yet another step in the direction of getting data straight from users. It brings the focus on CRO and good marketing more into focus.”

Author: Bas van den Beld

Bas van den Beld (@basvandenbeld) is a speaker, trainer, online marketing strategist and well-respected blogger. Bas is well informed about what's going on in the world of Internet and search marketing worldwide and especially Europe. Bas is the owner of Stateofsearch.com and host of the radioshow. More articles and bio from Bas van den Beld

 

http://www.stateofsearch.com/google-1-will-it-succeed-the-experts-dont-agree/ 

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Google + has arrived and pretty much every SEO I know are already on it. Yesterday was probably a complete waste of a day for most SEOs as pretty much everyone was busy playing with Google +. I was no exception. In the words of Matt Cutts: “It’s like crack, but in a good way”.

So I’ve spent some time going through the current key features to give you a “crash course” in Google +:
Circles
This is the major functionality that although initially looks just like facebook friends, differ in one important area; categorisation! Basically, circles is a way of categorising your Google + contacts into groups. For example below I’ve added circles such as “SEO Peeps” which has every SEO contact I have added, but then I have also added a separate circle for “UK SEOs” to further categories. In addition I have separate circles for my “Friends” (you know those people you see in person) and “Family”. To me this is a very good way of social networking as I have a lot of digital content (whether it’s blogposts, videos or even images) that I want to share with one group but not necessarily with another. On facebook my mum and dad are forever asking (and worse; commenting) on my SEO related content I share. It’s just not really relevant to them.  Equally, having recently (ok so 8 months ago) had another baby and I’m sure a lot of my SEO colleagues are getting sick and tired of seeing loads of baby pictures. Most importantly the categorisation in Google + is EASY to do, you can add as many circles as you like and you can have one person in several circles. The only potential issue is for those of us that resembles Monica (in Friends) and over-organise. I still to this day can’t understand my original “filing system” of del.icio.us tags.

Photos
Functionality of uploading photos works pretty much the same way as facebook, but I have a sneaky feeling it will expand and have added functionality in no time at all. I bet you photos in Google + will rank VERY highly in Google Image search before you know it.
When you upload photos you get asked to create a new album or add to an existing album. After you have uploaded the photos you can go into each photo and “add tag” just like facebook. Any pictures you have been tagged in will then also appear on your profile and as “pictures of you” within the photo section (again just like facebook). The only thing I’m missing from a “tagging level” is the opportunity to do the tagging on upload level so I don’t need to go into each image. There are also some nice additional functionalities at this level such as: edit the picture, text and also adding comments which comes up at the right of the picture as a speech bubble.

The one thing the photo section has that facebook don’t have (as far as I know) is the ability to share with specific circles only (see below). This is a nice function as thereare some photos you might only want your friends to see and some that are solely work related.

Hangouts
I had my Google + hangout virginity taken yesterday when I “hung out” with Sam Murray over Google +, whilst he was sitting next to me I might add, ehm yeah that’s slightly lame but we just wanted to see what it was like. So what is the “hangout” all about? It’s basically a way of hanging out with loads of people at the same time using video chat. You can add one or even several of your circles to your “hang out”.

When you have invited people to join your “hang out” a post will appear in their stream. If there are less than 25 people in a hang out they will also get a notification that they are invited to a hangout. And as we discovered if I start a hangout but a hangout is already going on I get notified and can join the current one instead. The most interesting thing about a hangout though is that it’s not “closed”, since anyone in the hangout can invite anyone else, people you don’t know may know and can join the hang out.

Instant Photo Upload from Mobile
Now this is pretty cool, it automatically puts all photos you take on your phone to a private album on your Google +, you can then decide whether you want to share them with any circles. BUT it can only be done if you have an Android phone, booo!
Sparks
This is basically a personalised content feed into your stream, you tell “Sparks” what  you are “in to” and they will send you stuff (videos, content etc) that’s relevant to you. To be perfectly honest I wouldn’t use this as it would just fill up my stream with crap that I haven’t got time to read. But for the mainstream this I suppose could be useful(ish). To be honest you have RSS, Google Desktop and other stuff to do this. For me sparks is not so sparky, but I have already seen loads of people raving that they really like it.
Huddle
Huddle is basically a “group chat”, allows you to chat with several people at once over your mobile. Basically text messaging on steroids. But as it stand I STILL haven’t been able to figure out how to “huddle” as there are no obvious links or mention of it. I’ve just been told that you can only “huddle” if you have an Android fun which is a bit rubbish.
Is Google + just another facebook?
I have already seen loads of people blogging and tweeting about Google Plus saying that it’s just like facebook, heck someone has already done a blogpost about how to make it look EXACTLY like facebook (which is just weird). But the BIG difference between facebook and Google + is that you can categorise your sharing. For me this is a BIG plus (haha get it? Plus), as I have a lot of things that I want to share with my SEO friends and colleagues but that I don’t necessarily want to share with my family and friends . This is a simple, yet genius difference between the two. Google + profile and posts are also public, the profiles can be seen by everyone, and each “post” has its own unique URL making Google + a contender with Twitter for indexable shared content. Lastly and maybe most importantly to us SEO and Social Media specialists, this initiative from Google proves they are taking social seriously. Merging Google properties into Google + and integrating it with the SERPs WILL have an impact. Let’s just hope it’s not too easy to game from a spam point of view . All in all, my initial thoughts are that this could definitely work, Google’s big challenge will be tidying up the bugs and usability kinks fast enough for the actual launch. And that launch need to be pretty sharpish, it would be such a shame to lose out on the “buzz” (pardon the pun) that all the early adopter (aka geeks) are making. Lastly I think it will be of utmost importance to get Apps (for iPhone and Blackberry) launched ASAP, it would be such a mistake of Google if they launched it without mobile apps.
Lastly here are some Google + shortcuts that might be handy:
J = scroll down
K= scroll up
Enter =  Start commenting
@Username = links to the user so that they can see it in their profile/stream
“text” = makes the text inside the brackets bold
_text_ = makes the text italics
For more information on Google + check out these links:
Google’s official guide to using Google +
Google + Help Section
Google’s introduction blogpost to Google +
Would be great to hear your thoughts for those of you that are on Google + already, plus and minus and so on. See you in the SEO circle

Author: Lisa Myers

Lisa Myers is co-founder of State of Search and runs her own SEO & Social Media Agency; Verve Search based in London (UK). She is also founder of the SEO blog; SEO-Chicks.com. Lisa is a well known speaker at Search & Social Media conferences worldwide including SES, SMX and A4U. She has authored several Best Practise SEO Guides and Whitepapers and contributes regularly to the press on and offline. 

 

http://www.stateofsearch.com/how-to-use-google-a-quick-guide-and-thoughts-on-google-plus/

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The ink is still fresh, only a few actually have access, but there is no denying it: Google + is here. Tons of articles and posts already being published, some think its a big succes, others think Google just launched their newest social failure. We’ve asked several experts in the industry about their first thoughts, we asked them if they thought it will be succesful. Find them below, and when you are done: give us your opinion!
Barry Schwartz, SERoundtable

“Successful in that it would overtake Facebook within a year or two? My answer is no.
Successful in that Google will keep Google + around for a year or two? My answer is yes. “

Tom Critchlow, Distilled

“I truly believe this will succeed, fundamentally because the product is something I desperately WANT to use. It’s not just shiny and new but it’s something that has been missing in the way I interact with my friends and my contacts. Google is rolling it out in an intelligent way and I think this might be a big success for them”

Kelvin Newman, Sitevisibility

“Google launching another social product, are we doing this again? I suppose if they throw enough mud at the wall, at some point it will stick. Will this one be the one? I know they cartainly hope so. But as a geek if I struggle to get my head around how it’s going to work that doesn’t bode well for mass adoption.”

Samuel Crocker, OMD

“My honest opinion is that it is addressing a problem that I’ve long held with social media in that, effectively I use Facebook for friends and family and Twitter for business related sharing and conversation but it’s a bit like maintaining split-personalities to a certain degree, it’s a huge time-suck and it’s a bit of a pain. Whilst I don’t have a lot of faith given a great deal of Google’s recent product launches (certainly within the social space) I think that if they can get a critical mass and get over the growing pains this could be wildly successful. With that said, I think they’ll struggle and to be successful (i.e. genuinely begin to reclaim traffic from Facebook) I think it is moderately unlikely – chance of success: 35% chance I’d say.”

Although I don’t have a lot of faith in Google on this one, I think if hey can avoid the whole “fail fast” mentality this definitely seems to fit a need in this space or a true gap in the market rather than a perceived one – so this time it is more about execution rather than trying to re-invent the wheel.
Li Evans, LiBeckim

“I think we are going to have to wait to see how Google develops Google+, on the surface without actually seeing how it’s being used and only reading what Google’s serving out to the media services, this is definitely not a “Facebook Killer”. As with +1, Google’s other social media property, there’s no incentive for people to be honest and share, like there is with Facebook . If Google can show the definite value of utilizing Google+ in the ways Facebook does, then we have an entirely different ballgame – right now, Google’s not even in the same ballpark as Facebook.”

Eduard Blacquiere, Orange Valley

“I think Google+ is the company’s best social bet so far. Its success might be that the user interface shows enough familiarities with known social platforms (especially Facebook), which previous social initiatives lacked. Although I think that things like selective sharing (through Circles) and a Skype competitor (Hangouts) are of added value, I do not expect many people to permanently switch from their trusted current social environment to Google+.”

Dixon Jones, Receptional

“I think this time Google+ WILL be highly successful. I think if you use Google (and who doesn’t) it will get quickly very unusable without opting into plus.”

Andrew Girdwood, BigMouthMedia

“It’s early days but Google+ feels like a winner. My reaction, my gut feeling, is that I want to be out of the queue and in the project. I don’t think this will be like Google Wave which left you looking for contacts or like Google Buzz which was too much too soon. This feels more like Gmail – which was perfect.

Google+ feels like a platform for +1. This might well be the effort Google needs to help close the “circle” between search and social, or at least narrow the gap.”

Will Critchlow, Distilled

“I want it to be successful. I hope it will be. I think there is a lot of benefit to bringing social and search closer together. A lot will depend on the execution, but I’m more bullish about this than any previous Google social tool.”

Annabel Hodges, OMD

“I think the success of Google+ will partly depend on the amount of time and effort gone into it. Consider how long Google Mail was in ‘Beta’ compared to the haphazard roll out of the Google Wave flop. Can it ‘replace’ Facebook? I do think people will need a good reason to increase the noise in their already hectic social signals – we are being swamped and are much less interested in yet more options.

Having said that, from what we’ve seen Google do seem to be going about this in the right way – giving tasters, increasing appetite and pimping out crucial popular areas like ‘Sparks’ and ‘Hangouts’. Additionally with the toolbar it will be ever present, far beyond its own platform, thereby pulling in a huge pre-existing audience.”

Kevin Gibbon, SEOptimise

“Like all new Google social product launches, I think you have to be sceptical over whether or not Google+ will be successful. To date they’ve just had too many failed attempts at making social work that it’s clearly a huge challenge to shift the way users currently interact on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

That doesn’t mean they can’t do it though – and it’s obviously a key focus for Google to move into. Having looked at the announcement and demos, the features such as Sparks and Huddle all sound like great ideas once you’re signed up – but I think the challenge is getting people signed up in the first place. On it’s own maybe that’s not quite enough yet.

But having said that, one thing which could be significant is Google circles. Personally I’ve found Facebook to have become a bit of a balancing act between friends and professional contacts (and those which are both). Yes, you can setup groups with different permissions in Facebook – but it’s not the best system and who really has the time for that? It’s far too fiddly and really not that good!

Having spoken to people in a similar situation, I’m clearly not the only one thinking like this and many have either removed or are contemplating removing their profiles as a result. So if people are now getting towards the point of leaving Facebook, and if Google+ can get the things right where Facebook are seemingly going wrong, then there could be a great opportunity to capitalise on these users and start building a wave (not that one!) of new users in the same way that Facebook and Twitter did in the early days.

But I think it’s important not to get carried just yet, it is still in beta at the moment – and there’s a huge amount of work involved if they’re going to get anywhere near that tipping point of users for it to really take off and challenge Facebook and Twitter. It will certainly be interesting to watch how this develops over the coming weeks though!”

UPDATE: We have some more expert opinions joining us. Find below the opinions of Marcus Tandler, Ciaran Norris and Rand Fishkin
Marcus Tandler – Mediadonis

“I think Google+ is here to stay, because it will be so well integrated into your search experience, that you probably just won´t be able to look away. I don´t really see Google+ as a product, but more as the final approach from Google to become more social. And since Google´s social success is now a new multiplier to staff bonuses, you can be sure, that every single employee will be on his toes to make Google+ a success story.”

Ciarán Norris, Head of Digital, Mindshare Ireland

“It’s always hard to predict whether a service will succeed or not, particularly without having used it extensively. However the signs are that this is Google’s best attempt yet, and certainly looks to have a brigher future than Buzz or Wave. Allowing people to segment their lives into different Circles is, I think a smart one, but potentially confusing. If they can get over that, there’s no reason that this won’t work.”

Rand Fishkin – SEOMoz

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say that + will be Google’s most successful foray into social yet, and possibly even good enough to reach tens of millions of active users over the next 2 years. I won’t go as far as saying it will get to Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn size usage (150million+) anytime soon, but I see real value in the “Circles” concept and in Google’s power to leverage search as a marketing channel for + (something they were unwilling to do with Wave/Buzz/Orkut/etc).”

So, what do you think?

Author: Bas van den Beld

Bas van den Beld (@basvandenbeld) is a speaker, trainer, online marketing strategist and well-respected blogger. Bas is well informed about what's going on in the world of Internet and search marketing worldwide and especially Europe. Bas is the owner of Stateofsearch.com and host of the radioshow. More articles and bio from Bas van den Beld

 

http://www.stateofsearch.com/google-the-first-responses-from-the-expert-marketeers/ 

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Google made a huge announcement today, launching Google +, or Google Plus, its long-awaited version of a social network to rival Facebook.

Waiting for a Google Plus invite? Google is rolling out the service in waves and you can expect it to become a ubiquitous social option in the coming months. We have been playing with the service since getting invites yesterday and there are a lot of things to like about Google’s new social initiative.
Unlike Google’s last big invite-only rollout of a social initiative – Google Wave – users will not be confounded on just what the heck you are supposed to with the service when signing up for the first time. From Friendster, Friendfeed, MySpace and Facebook, users are familiar with how a social platform is theoretically supposed to look. At its core level, Plus is not that much different. Yet, there is so much more. How do you get started with Google Plus? Let’s break down the nuts and bolts.

Create Your Circles

Imagine the ability to break down Facebook into its various constituent parts and keep them separate from each other as opposed to one giant feed. That is what Google has done with Plus. There is one main stream where all your friends updates show up then the option to see updates from only certain groups like “Work,” “Friends” or “Family.” This is the essence of Circles.
From the initial interface, you will see four buttons – Home, Photos, Profile and Circles.

The first thing you are going to want to do is set up your circles. Click on the tab and it will bring you to a interface where all of your contacts in Gmail (not just Gmail addresses, but all of your contacts) are listed in a panel on top of the screen. Below is a panel that has your various circles. To add a contact to a circle, drag from the top of the list to the appropriate group. Contacts can be added to multiple circles.

One of the initial problems I had from the circles interface was that I added a couple of “Friends” into my “Work” circle and could not figure out how to get them out. You can do this from the user streams by hovering over the person’s name and hovering over “Add to circles” and clicking the appropriate boxes. Yet, from the circles interface, that was not readily apparent. To take people out of a circle, hover above the circle, grab their icon and drag it back into the people plane.
One of the great differentiators between Twitter and Facebook is the “unbalanced” or “balanced” follow. Facebook was initially a two-way follow paradigm – I friend you, you friend me and we see each other’s updates. This has been changed with the ability to “like” groups, brands and pages without them following you back. Twitter has always been a one-way follow – I follow you and you do not necessarily have to follow me back.
This line has been blurred in circles. If a person is in your contacts, they can be added to a circle and will get a notification that has happend (but not what circle they have actually been added to). There is also a “follow” circle. Just like Twitter, you can follow people and see their updates without them having to follow you back. As your circles evolve this could allow to track different interests, like Twitter lists.

The Stream and “Bumping”

Once you have set up your circles, go back to the Home screen to see the results. Below the profile picture you will see the choices of stream. You can view your entire stream at once (à la Facebook) or by particular circle.

There are two other options below your circles – Incoming and Notifications. Clicking incoming will bring you to messages that have been sent by people outside of your circles. Notifications will show you when people in your circles have commented on something you have posted, or something you have commented on.
Below the circles and notifications there is a tab dubbed “Sparks.” More on that below.
One of the killer features of Gmail, or any Google product, is Chat. It has made its way into Plus and sits in the familiar left-hand, bottom-right portion of the screen that it is found in Gmail. Users with a lot of Circle and Chat contacts will like the ability to enable chat for particular groups. Want to surface friends and family but not acquaintances? Plus will let you do that.
If you are using Plus in a Chrome browser, desktop notifications do not pop up when someone sends you a message like it would in Gmail.
Posting a status update in Plus is not like sending a Tweet or updating Facebook. The core functions of an update are present – photos, links, video and location – but when you hit “share” it doesn’t automatically post your message to everybody in your circles. You have the option to decide which circles your update is posted to, from individual groups to all circles, to extended circles, or just a single person.

An interesting feature in the user stream is that conversations will surface back to the top of the feed when subsequent comments are made on a thread. This, according to Google developer Jean-Baptiste Queru, is called “bumping.” Google Buzz has this same capability and it was also a feature of FriendFeed.

Photos

Photos in Plus are relatively self-explanatory. Users can update photos from their computers or from their phones, see photos that people in their circles have uploaded. With the Android app, there is a way to upload any photo that you take with your phone straight to Plus, an interesting if slightly disconcerting feature.
When you add a photo, it will prompt you to create an album. Once that album is created it will ask which of your circles you would like to share it with. This is a prime differentiator from Facebook where all of your photos are visible to all of your friends by default (you can change who can view certain photos in Facebook preferences). You can also pick an individual to share photos with instead of an entire circle.
Photo uploading is easy within Plus. Just like adding a picture or an attachment to a Gmail document, you can drag-and-drop from your desktop or click the on the upload button and browse your computer for pictures.

Users can also add photos by posting them in status updates or by uploading them through the Profile tab.

Profile

If you use any Google products and have a Google account, you have a Google Profile. Profiles are unknown to most of the Internet because, until now, it was relatively useless to anyone but Google.
Your Google Profile is now the hub of you Plus experience, the backbone that everything else is built upon. There are six tabs in your profile page – posts, about, photos, videos, +1s and Buzz.

A significant change to your profile page is that there is now a location where your +1s live. Until now, when you clicked +1 on content on the Web, nothing happened. The information was sent to Google and integrated into some type of esoteric search algorithm. Users can now see what people have +1ed through their Google Profile. Unlike the Facebook share/like/recommend buttons, it does not go straight into your stream but rather to the profile page.

Sparks and Hangouts

Hangouts is a new feature rolled out with Plus. Essentially it is an area where your circles or a select group of friends can video chat all on one screen. To start a Hangout, go to the “Welcome” button in the home tab. It will prompt you to start a hangout and invite individuals or entire circles. Up to 10 people can be in a hangout at once and it will be seen in that circle or users’ stream.

Sparks is the part of Plus where you can find content on the Web that you are interested in. In the “Field Trial” version of Plus, it looks like Sparks is a randomized version of content and news generated through Google News. Sparks can be a dashboard for things you are interested in on the Web. When you do a search in Sparks, it will predict what you are searching for with a drop down menu (like old Google search, not quite like Google Instant). You can pin particular topics you search for to the Sparks dashboard for quick access.
You can share articles found in Sparks with a share button on the bottom of every article that surfaces in a search. Like everything else in Plus, it can be shared with a specific person, circle, group of circles or the general public.

Source : readwriteweb.com

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Google made a huge announcement today, launching Google +, or Google Plus, its long-awaited version of a social network to rival Facebook.

Google’s been trying to crack the social market for years, running into false starts with content-sharing services Wave and Buzz. (The former fizzled and the latter set off a privacy complaints that ended with a lawsuit and an FTC settlement.) Many have been waiting for Google’s big push into social since it rolled out its +1 button in March, especially as Facebook gets cozywith its search rival, Microsoft.
And then, today, Google announced +. The site bears a striking resemblance to Facebook, with streaming feeds and specialized groups of friends. In fact, Google + gathers many of the features of existing social networks.
The network has five basic components: Circles, Sparks, Hangouts, Instant Uploads and Huddle. It also requires a Google profile, meaning you’ll need to provide Google, at minimum, with a name and a photo.

Circles lets you group your contacts — e.g. friends, work, family. Like Facebook, this features lets you share information with groups of contacts instead of hitting everyone with your latest update at once. Sparks acts like an RSS reader or Facebook news feed, letting you input things you’re interested in and pushing relevant content to you. Hangouts features live group video chats, aiming to foster spontaneous meetings with up to 10 people. You can also alert certain groups of friends when you’re hanging out.
Instant Uploads takes care of the increasingly important mobile aspect of social networking, automatically posting users’ phone pictures and videos to a private album. From there, users can decide if and with whom they want to share their media. You also have the option to add location data to every Google + post.
And Huddle is a group texting feature — similar to Beluga, which Facebook acquired in March — that lets you have a group chat through your phone.
Some analysts are asking whether Google expansion into the social media sphere is a bad move. TechCruch guest contributor Semil Shah asked the same question:
Today’s soft-launch of Google’s new social galaxy, Google+, raises one interesting question: Can Google, a massive, multinational, cash-rich, consumer technology company with multiple successful productivity applications and services, take its dough out of the oven and bake a social network into their bread?
Over the past year, Google has undergone some big changes. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt stepped down. Co-founder Larry Page stepped in, reshuffling the deck and tying employee bonuses to creating a successful social experience. The result seems to be a slick-looking yet potentially Wave-like confusing constellation of social “circles,” “huddles,” “hangouts,” and  ”sparks” that could, theoretically, lay the foundation for new, more nuanced social networks to form. In the middle of all the reactions to today’s release, I believe it’s important to step back and ponder whether Google is focusing its efforts on the wrong problem, and in doing so, to investigate a potentially better fit that coincides with the company’s own DNA.

Source : washingtonpost.com

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