EZPZ Guide to Understanding Google+. (Who with the what now?)

Google+ has arrived. It’s the latest in a long line of fun social sharing web apps, it’s in beta, and it’s blowing up your RSS feeds. Well, mine at least. Maybe everyone on Twitter or Facebook is chatting about it, and you’re looking around like “What? Who? When did Google start with the social media?”

There were a couple of leaked stories that Google was planning yet another launch (despite previous failures) into the social sharing space, but they were just that – rumors, hardly based in fact, and blatantly denied by Google execs and developers. Then, WHAMMO. Google+ is launched on June 28th. On July 12th, just two weeks later, the Washington Post reported that Google+ could hit 10 million users later that day — and the project is still in the beta, invite-only stage.

We’re no strangers to social media, sharing and over-sharing here at Aiming Low. In fact, some of us have day jobs that revolve around it! So it’s no surprise that most of us have now somehow acquired an invite to the elusive Google+. Some of us after whining and bitching and moaning to anyone who would listen (but I did say thank you. Yay manners!).  Aiming Low is also nothing if not a great representative sample of the general internet population; today we experience an email thread that can be summarized in a few bullet points:

• We haz Google+! Yay!
• What the frick do we do now?
• What’s Google+   O_o

What is Google+?

Wondering what the name is all about? Mashable covered that the other day. Google+ wants to be with you everywhere on the web – your “plus one.”  It’s apparent in the new toolbar that follows you around Google’s domain, making it easy to interact with Google+ while answering emails, searching, blogging, checking out – whatever.

Google+ is still in its infancy; right now, it’s all the best things about Facebook and Twitter mashed together, with a fantastic, intuitive user interface and privacy management.

Google+ is focused around the concept that we have different relationships with different people – and that we want to share different pieces of information with those people.  If you’re a blogger who doesn’t want to share her latest blog post with her family on Facebook, then you know exactly what I’m talking about – and Google+ just might be the tool for you.

Not only that, but a reciprocal relationship isn’t required, like on Facebook. In this regard, Google+ is more like Twitter – except with the ability to broadcast your updates to specified lists of people.  Use Google+’s Circles concept to create a digital representation of your online relationships. You might create one for Business, Friends, People Who Care About My Toenails - whatever. It doesn’t matter if you create a circle for Annoying People I want to Irritate, because your Circle names are private. So go ahead and create an Annoying People Circle, and then send out messages about clipping your toenails.  Send those messages just to Annoying People - and maybe the People Who Care About My Toenails circle, too. Two birds, one stone, baby!

Privacy Management

You can manage all of your privacy settings easily from the “cog” on the top right of the Google+ homepage. From the Edit Settings screen, you can export all of your data (!!), change notification preferences, add links to external social media accounts, and modify a host of privacy settings including your network visibility, who can share posts with you and who you share posts with (i.e Circles), and whether photos are automatically uploaded to a private – just for your eyes until you share it – photo album on Picasa. Oh, and you get unlimited photo storage on Picasa with your Google+ account. 

Your Google+ profile is very customizable with regards to privacy. You have the option to choose which areas of your profile are displayed to which circles. So on my profile, I have an area with links to my other online social media accounts and my websites. I don’t want my family or coworkers to see that area, though; so it’s only shared with my Bloggy Friends and Web Design peeps. I also don’t allow who is in my circles to be displayed on my profile. You can do the same for any part of the profile – your photos, circles, links, etc. Editing who can see what is easy to do, unlike with Facebook, and you can quickly see how your profile looks to an individual or to the public using the “View Profile As” option.

A Fresh Start

Our social media accounts get cluttered with people we met once, people we found interesting at some point, and people who, we swear, just sort of appeared - how did they even get in there?! Google+ is a fresh start for everyone, and it gives us a chance to get it right the first time.  It just might give you a renewed sense of energy and love for social media. I’m a social media whore, but even I find I’m excited to see what’s happening on Google+ – far more than any other social network online.

That feeling may fade as time goes on; or, perhaps, Google has gotten it right with Google+, and this honeymoon phase will last as long as my connections are generating interesting content and I can use Circles, Spark and everything else to organize & interact with my online life.

Now that you mention it… what are Circles?

Circles are the Twitter Lists or Facebook Groups of Google+; but it’s also much more than that.  Circles are the best of both worlds; not o

nly do Circles help me keep content relevant and it allows me to view relevant content based on Circles. What makes them so awesome? Ah, let me count the ways:

• Choose a Circle from the left navigation to see the updates stream for that group of people.
• Add individuals to more than one Circle with ease
• Post updates to a certain Circle, any number of Circles, as Public, or to individuals or a list of individuals
• Add individuals to Circles by selecting one or more and dragging to Circles – or creating a new Circle, or hover over an individual in your stream or as they are recommended in your sidebar and choose Circles – no need to even leave the page.
• View relevant content by choosing a Circle from the left-hand navigation and view only the stream for that Circle.
• Choose not to add individuals who add you into a Circle – or even block them from seeing anything but your public updates.

What are Sparks?

You may be on Google+ and not even noticed Sparks. I knew they were there, but hadn’t looked at them

until I’d been on Google+ for almost a week. The Sparks link is on the left, below the list of Circle streams.  Click that and enter a whole new world of possibilities.

Sparks is a concept that attempts to deliver relevant new content to you based on your interests. You can use some of the suggested interest groups, or search for something of your own. I tried searching for WordPress. I immediately found interesting content – and Google+ makes the Sparks easy to share on my own stream – and I can “pin” the interest to my sidebar so that I can check it

regularly. Sparks doesn’t search for other user status updates the way a Twitter search does – Sparkssearches the web for interesting content related to your search. It’s a mini, Google+ optimized search engine, just for you.

Google+ Status Updates: How to & what’s cool about it?

Google+ is all about sharing – and status updates are the way to do it. Google+ asks “Share what’s new…” Type anything you want, and optionally use the small icons on the bottom right to add a link (Facebook-style), recent photos uploaded from a mobile device, photos or videos you upload, or your location.  Use this handy Google+ formatting guide to add strikeout, bold text, italics and more to your status updates.

Only your public status updates are displayed on your Google+ profile. When you do post an update as anything other than Public, your status update notes the privacy level of the post (“limited” for posting to certain Circles or individuals), and if anyone who can see the limited update wants to Share that post on their stream, they get hit with a warning first asking them to acknowledge the fact that the original poster wanted this to be a limited update. It won’t prevent some jackwagon from Sharing a post you wanted to be more private, but it should prevent accidental Sharing of a more private post – and the ability to arrange your Circles into groups of trusted friends helps minimize the possibility of oversharing from the start.

What’s the +1 Button? How is that different from the Share link?

+1 is to Google+ as Like is to Facebook. Share is to Google+ as Retweet is to Twitter. (I feel like I’m back in English class at high school.)

Basically, +1 let’s the poster know that you liked what they had to say, but maybe you didn’t have a specific comment. When you +1 a post in your stream on Google+, it doesn’t get added to your official Google +1 page on your profile; when you +1 a page of a website on the web, it does. Accidentally +1 something? You can click the +1 button again to “un-plus” it. Or maybe “Minus” it? “Zero” it? Math isn’t my strong suit, y’all.

When you Share a post, Google+ lets you add a comment and displays the original post, with credit, below your own.  If you share a post that someone else shared, the absolute original author is credited, not the person who shared their post.

What is Hangout? Isn’t it just like Skype or Facebook chat?

Yes, but now with more awesome. Hangouts let you create what is essentially the video version of a chat room. The interface is smooth, it’s fast (as long as you have a solid internet connection) and it’s free. Hear that, Skype? Multi-user video chat is FREE. Oh, and Facebook? More than one person can chat at a time.

In fact, Google is working on making Hangouts more friendly for the deaf and hearing-impaired communities as well.

Start a Hangout using the Hangouts button on the right sidebar. A new window pops up asking you to install the plugin needed. It should automatically detect your webcam; then you can choose a circle and get started! Add circles, or people, to hang out with & go. Your hangout will show up in the stream of the folks/circles you’ve invited.

Hangouts will attempt to show the person currently speaking as the largest picture – so try not to talk over one another! :)

I can’t let go. Can I bring Twitter & Facebook with me?

If you’d like to incorporate your Twitter and Facebook accounts into Google+, there isn’t a lot of support for it – yet. For now, what you can do, is add a tab to your Google+ homepage that allows you to view & post to your Facebook and Twitter streams from within Google+. So far, I haven’t seen anything that auto-posts your tweets or Facebook updates to Google+ or vice versa.  You can use this hack to post your Google+ updates to Facebook, but it’s not really an integrated solution.

• Add Twitter Tab to Google+
• Add Facebook Tab to Google+

What’s that new toolbar?

Google offers a ton of services that a lot of us use every day, and the new toolbar makes it easy to share what we are doing on those services with the world. I’d bitch and moan about it, but the fact is that the toolbar is pretty darn slick, well designed, and generally awesome – so much so that I don’t mind the little bit of screen real estate it takes up. It’s probably my favorite part of the entire Google+ experience. I’m hoping that it will be available to bring with me across the web soon, and not just on Google domains.

How Do I Get an Invite?

Head over to Google+ and sign up to be included in the next wave of invites – or let me know in the comments. I have a few invites to hand out.