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Health & Fitness

What is Google Plus? I Call It Facebook 2.0

Google Plus is a new social media service offered by Google. I'll take you through this new offering to see if it really stacks up!

There is a ton of action happening around Google these days. One of the biggest projects right now is Google+ which is Google’s answer to Facebook. The word on the street is that Google has bet the farm on this project and has been working on it for two years! Somehow they were able to keep it under wraps with very little info leaking out to the public. So how did Google do? I will break it down for you.

First, it must be understood that Google+ is not even in beta yet. Google says this project is in the field testing stages. You must receive an invite in order to obtain access and create a profile. I was able to work my contacts and came up with an invite. Upon logging in, I was presented with a very simple interface laid out on a white background. Think about the Google.com homepage but with social media navigation. Very simple and very direct. The first thing I did was create my profile. It took my photo from my Gmail account, which was great. I then filled out some basic fields: A tag line under my name, intro, bragging rights, relationship, gender, etc. I was also able to add links to my other social media sites. It’s possible to add photos and videos as well. You have total control to let these be seen in your profile or not. With that done, it was on to the Circles!

Circles are groupings that you place your friends in. Google starts you with some basic categories that you can use, or add your own. I started out with Circles for Family, Friends, Work Friends and Following. Google+ linked in to my Gmail address book and allowed me to drag names down to the appropriate Circle. Very easy. Don’t like or need a Circle? Just delete it and it rolls off the screen with a cool animation. Notice that I created a Circle called Following. In a Twitter-like fashion, you are able to follow people on Google+. This will allow you to see their posts in the Stream. Speaking of Stream, let’s go there.

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Click on the Home button, in the top navigation, to take you to your Stream. On the left the nav lists each of your Circles. Click on any Circle to see the stream of posts from friends within the Circle. I prefer to simply click on Stream in order to see all posts from all friends. Again, very easy and intuitive. Once you are looking at the Stream, you see a text box that prompts “Share what’s new.” Click inside to let the magic happen! Type your post and drag links in the text box. Maybe a YouTube video or photo. Bam. There it is. Easy. Or, alternatively, click the icon buttons in the bottom right of the text box to add links manually. Now that you have composed your post, it’s time to share it. Choose which Circle’s you would like to share this post with. Perhaps you want your Friends to see the post but not your Family? No prob. Just choose the Friends Circle. Or maybe you want everyone on Google+ to see this post? Choose Public. Also note that you may have people in your Circles that have not signed up for Google+. No problem. They will receive an email with the post you created! So it’s not necessary to be on Google+ in order to receive posts!

Now the last button on the top nav that we haven’t covered is the Photo button. This will show you photos from your Circles, your phone, photos of you and your albums. Kind of a neat way to look at photos. Let’s head back over to the Home button and view the Steams page again. There are two more features to look at. The first one is Hangouts.

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On the right hand side of the nav, you’ll see a button that allows you to start a Hangout. A Hangout is a video chat, so you’ll need a webcam to fully participate. Once you click the Hangout button you basically select which Circles you want to have access to your Hangout. Of course you could make it Public and allow anyone to join. Once it’s started, there will be a post in your stream, and in the streams of your friends, that will allow them to join in the Hangout. The cool thing is that you can have yourself and up to nine other friends join in your Hangout! Now on to the last feature, Sparks.

Sparks, located on the left hand nav, allows you to create different categories of interests. I created technology news, Google and android. When I click on one of these catagories, I see Google results for that specific interest. The results are not the standard Google results though. I see videos and news articles for the specified interest that would be appropriate for sharing within Google+. Interesting, but not a feature I use often.

The above covers what you’ll get when you go to http://plus.google.com. If you are an Android phone user, you also have access to a couple of additional features: Uploading of photos from your phone to Google+ and Huddle.

When you take a picture on your phone, if you give the Google+ app access, it will automatically upload it to the Photo section on Google+. It won’t share it, but will simply upload it. From your Android phone, you can obviously share with your Circles. Huddle is a group texting app. It allows you to communicate with other Huddle users in real time via this application. It’s basically group texting. Everyone sees the conversation and can participate. The Google+ app has already been submitted to Apple for iPhone users and should appear in the App Store soon.

I’ve been using Google+ for almost two weeks now and have to admit that I’m hooked! I like it much more than Facebook, mainly because I have total control of who I share with. This allows me to share more often and more effectively. Also, Google will continue to add features to Goolge+ as time goes on and this is what’s very exciting. I consider Google+ to be Facebook 2.0 and can’t wait to see where else Google will take this service. The big question is, can Google persuade uses to sign on to their social media service, or, better yet, ditch Facebook all together? What do you think?

Lastly, I still have a few invites for Google+ available. If you are interested, feel free to leave a comment below or Tweet me (@amccarthy01). I will need your email address. If you’re already on Google+, add me to your Circles: http://gplus.to/amccarthy.

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