A guide to Google+: Social media 2.0

Last week Google launched its’ long awaited social media project: Google+. I know I’m late with the post, but I need to clear this from my mind. I was one of the lucky guys to receive an invitation. Why? Well, the network has a few rough edges and therefore it’s not yet possible to invite others.

Google+ is different compared to other social media around the web. It does a few things in a new and better way. Privacy is a good example of this. It’s the user that’s in control, you can control who sees what!

Google+ consists of different components. You should watch the YouTube videos on the Google+ Project, it’ll make more sense after watching them! Check them out here.

About Privacy

Like I stated above, you are the one that controls what gets shared publicly, with friends or family. Just type your message and choose or type the name of your circle (will get into that in a sec). The post will be only visible for the people within that circle. When typing a new post, Google+ remembers your last setting and will offer it to you!

This is good! If you only want to post to the friends circle, then you only need to set it once. Of course it’s possible to change the circles or make a post public. Keep in mind though that Google+ will remember that next time.

The settings, which are available through the gear icon > Google+ Settings, are very clear and simple. Everything is explained in an understanding manner, nice job! It’s even possible to download your data to your computer.

Circles

Okay, I mentioned circles above. What are Circles exactly? Well it sounds fancy but basically it’s groups of people. There are already some common circles (like the Following circle) but it’s also possible to create your own circles.

After importing your Yahoo or Hotmail contacts, you can easily drag and drop them on the circle you want! It’s also possible to select multiple contacts and drag them towards a circle. All the contacts from your Google products are already available to you!

So now you’ll have your circles, but what can you do with them? Well, when posting in Google+ you can choose to do it public, to all your circles, to extended circles (your and your followers circles) or to a specific circle or user.

This means that every circle can feature it’s own posts and only be viewable by people within that circle. So it’s possible to talk with your real-life friends only, not your whole followers list. Another situation could be to post something about Photography to your designers circle and something about your friends to the family circle, anything is possible!

The cool thing is that you can filter posts from each circle in your stream. This makes it easier to read your stream, especially when you’re looking for something specific.

Another feature I really like is the Incoming link which is also located on your stream page. This shows messages from people that shared something with you who aren’t in any of your circles! Never miss someone interesting again.

Sparks

So what are sparks exactly? In the most simple explanation possible: your interests. Well, a feed for them. Sparks allows a user to add their interests. When adding an interest it gives results from Google that match it, somewhat like search results. These results include a share button that will post it to your stream.

Sparks are only visible for you, nobody within your circles will have the possibility too take a look. So don’t worry about adding that corny origami interest .

Personally I’m already using this to search the latest on my interests (mostly design and photography stuff) and keep up to date! Although I think it’s a great function, I also think some people will find it obsolete which is probably always the case.

Hang out & Chat

I’ll just keep this short. Chat is Google Talk that’s also implemented in Gmail and iGoogle. Works like it always has: easy and fast. On mobile there’s something similar to Talk, it’s called Huddle. Huddle basically is Talk 2.0 with group conversations and a cleaner look and feel.

Hangout is a different beast. Hangout is a video chat module which also supports group chats…..cool! The cool thing about this is the fact that it doesn’t go online immediately, it lets you make sure you are set up properly and looking like a hotty before starting the video chat =).

Hangout also offers text chat during the time you…hang out. Another cool feature is the possibility to connect to Youtube and watch movies together.That’s just freaking Uber!

Photos, or should I say Picasa

The photos section of Google+ is available to the top navigation, second icon. It will show you a page with different photos and video’s uploaded by your circle members. You also have the ability to take a look at your own photos and the photos you’ve created on your phone. Those last photos will be viewable there when Instant upload is enabled in the mobile app.

All these photos are stored in your Picasa account! It’s basically Picasa 2.0, like more services that made it to Google+.

Your profile

Of course Google+ offers profile pages for every user. Without it, it wouldn’t be social media in my opinion. These profiles are basically the earlier released Google Profiles with more functionality and tabs. New tabs that are present are the posts tab (your posts), a video tab and a buzz tab.

What I like about the profiles is the way you can edit it. Just press edit and everything, well almost everything will be editable. By clicking on a module you can set the options immediately and with personal information you can set to whom it’s visible. This is a good thing! Easier setup than this isn’t available anywhere right now.

The mobile App

The Google+ mobile application for Android (didn’t get to try it on iPhone) is basically the online webapp in your pocket. Share things with your circles, edit circles or add people to them, edit your profile etc. etc. It really runs very smooth and usage is simple!

Like I stated above, it also features Huddle, a (group) chat application within Google+. With Huddle it’s possible to quickly contact your circles or specific members to ask something for example. Basically it’s a simple feature that packs a punch!

The mobile app also features something that’s called Instant Upload. When enabled it’ll upload the video’s and photos you create immediately to the cloud. By visiting the web version of Google+ you can watch and download them through the photos section. Again one of things I really like about Google+.

Integration throughout Google products

Than there’s another great thing, at least in my opinion. The Google+ integration into the menu bar (Google bar) at the top of all Google products. It features the gear icon we know already, but it also features a share option to post something to the circles you want.

It also has a notification area through which you can see alerts on latest comments and more. And now for the fun part: The Google+ notification window gives you the ability to directly comment from that same window….in Google+ and in all Google products that feature the new bar. For me, that’s a big plus! I don’t need to switch between tabs anymore

Points for improvement

Not everything is glory of course. I think there are a few things missing or could be better. The list isn’t that long, but I want to share it anyway.

First I think it’s sad the stream isn’t similar to Google Buzz. Buzz works similarly, but gets added in your profile now instead of it being merged to your stream. Personally I would like to see more Buzz features merged to Google+, things like connected sites, post through email and stuff like that.

Moving on to Google Music…..okay, Music just got launched recently. Integration of that service will come for sure, probably next to the photos icon in the top menu.

I’m also missing YouTube. Why isn’t the biggest video site in the world being connected or merged? Wouldn’t it be easy to upload or show video’s on your photos page by using YouTube? Another thing, to me less important, is Google Voice. I think it would be cool to have the ability to call someone, straight from Google+…just like Gmail already offers with chat.

So this gives me mixed feelings. On the other hand, these sort of functions will surely be added in the near future…..just like apps and games….yikes!! Luckily we got a some clear and simple setting controls.

Okay, this is Google+. Glad I’ve got this out of my head, hope you’ll see the same power Google+ can offer to users as I do. For all uninvited people, please be patient! It’ll be worth it.