Still waiting for a Google Plus invite? Google is rolling out the service in waves so this is definitely worth a try. So how do you get started with Google Plus?
Google plus makes connecting on the web more like connecting in the real world. You can Share your thoughts, links and photos; start a video chat to strike up conversations with as many as nine people at once. Get everyone on the same page with fast, simple group chat.
From the initial interface, you will see four buttons – Home, Photos, Profile and Circles.
Circles allow you to segregate people and share different information with a different set of people. There is one main stream where all your friends update show up then the option to see updates from only certain groups. Circles make it easy to put your friends from Saturday night in one circle, your parents in another, and your boss in a circle by himself, just like real life. To set your circles just click on the tab and it will bring you to a interface where all of your contacts in Gmail 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.
If you want to remove a contact from a circle all you need to do is hover over the person’s name. To take people out of a circle, hover above the circle, grab their icon and drag it back into the people plane.
If a person is in your contacts, they can be added to a circle and will get a notification that has happened (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 tracking different interests, like Twitter lists.
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 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.
Google Profile
If you have a Google account, you have a Google Profile. Your Google Profile has six tabs in your profile page – posts, about, photos, videos, +1s and Buzz.
Posting a status update is pretty simple. The basic difference from a face book share is that when you 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.
You can add photos by posting them in status updates or by uploading them through the Profile tab. you can update photos from a computer or from a phone, see photos that people in their circles have uploaded.
Search brings you updates from your circles, news from around the web and public Google+ posts, giving you instant access to the topics you are interested in.
At its core level, Google Plus is not that much different from Friendster, Friendfeed, MySpace and Facebook. Yet, there is so much more.
About Brandon Leibowitz
