Google's social networking service Google Plus is so new that it currently lacks a verification system for user accounts. This isn't a big deal for most users, of course, but it can be an issue when someone famous signs up, be it Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg or a Hollywood celebrity. Currently, there is not a Google-supported way for them to prove it's actually them.
But as early adopter Alyssa Milano found out, there's always Twitter. Milano has been tweeting her thoughts about Google Plus (cooler than Facebook, not as cool as Twitter), and even tweeted a direct link to her profile page. That will work for now, but it's clear that an official process will be needed soon, especially considering the number of "celebrity" accounts we've uncovered lately.
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No Verification System Yet
Earlier this week, Google Plus ads lead Christian Oestlien replied to my question about whether it was the "real" Alyssa Milano or a clever fake, saying that her account was legit. But when asked what the process was for the confirmation, he replied that there wasn't one yet.
This isn't the first time that we've run into the problem, despite the social network's extremely young age. (It's barely more than a week old!)
While it's understandable that a verification system was not at the forefront of Google's mind when preparing to launch the network, it looks like one is desperately needed now. We want to be able to tell the real stars from the fakes, so we're not wasting our time. Or even better - maybe there should be a way for the fakes to never exist in the first place.
Have you found any questionable celebs on Google Plus? Let us know in the comments.
With the new social networking service Google+, Google introduced the concept of Circles to allow users more control over what content is shared with whom. Baby pictures? Family Circle. Thoughts about Google Plus? Well, everyone. But the idea that only some content is (or should be) public is foreign to me. The only thing I've ever cared about is being able to filter the stream on the receiving end. From Twitter lists to Facebook Groups, I've traditionally organized people in ways that make sense to me: Apple bloggers, analysts, VCs, locals, extended family, school friends, neighbors, etc.
With Google Plus, Google now has an interesting opportunity to make similar organizational choices for me, without any manual effort on my part. In other words, I'm ready for automatic Circles. Are you?
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Automatic Circles Wanted
What do I mean by "automatic Circles?"
Just think of how many signals Google could borrow to make intelligent choices about surfacing content, auto-creating Circles or recommending users. There are the people I email with, the things I star or share in Google Reader, the (Blogger) blogs I've commented on, read, or followed, the +1'ed items from Google Search, my friends on Picasa, the videos I liked or shared on YouTube, the places I've searched in Maps, the music I stream on Android, the people I chat with, the people who phone me on Google Voice (and those I ignore) and so on.
Google, if you think about it, knows a heck of a lot about you.
And I'd be willing to opt in to sharing data from one part of Google with another, especially if it meant making my life easier. That wouldn't be creepy - it would be amazing.
You may disagree, of course.
The Circle Management Burden: Not Just for Power Users
Google Plus is the first social network that actually encourages you to follow more people, not less, because of its categorization capabilities. 200 "friends" in a Circle called "Favorite Bloggers?" Not a problem. A hundred more who share gorgeous photos? Sure, why not? The beauty of Google Circles is that you can keep the streams separate, sharing with the appropriate ones at the appropriate times, and consuming this stream or that one, as you like.
As the network grows, you won't be duplicating your Facebook experience here - that is, to friend or not to friend - you will be creating a more layered network of your relationships. It's why something like (the still bare-bones) news reader Sparks even exists within Google Plus. It's to facilitate and inspire sharing based on interests. This, proclaims Google, is the future of socializing.
Ideally, the end result of all this categorization is a network where you don't have to be as choosy about friendships because of concerns over cluttered streams or News Feeds. However, it's also a network where taking the time to develop and manage the Circles that could enable that vision becomes too time-consuming and cumbersome to manage on a day-to-day basis.
Circles Google Builds for You
The obvious fix: automatically, algorithmically created Circle suggestions...based on all the other stuff about you Google knows. These would be opt-in, of course, as invasive dives into your personal data always should be.
Automatically suggested Circles would be like Twitter's recommended users, but better. It would be more like recommended lists, and yet, even better than that. Unlike public Twitter lists, these Circles could be used as starting points for customization, or merged with other Circles, as need be. Oh yes, Twitter should be very scared.
Will Google develop such a feature: these intelligently created, highly personalized Circles which I crave? Will it take the step of burrowing deeper into our data to make a next-generation Facebook built on top of both interests and interactions? I hope it will. I think it should.
Update: I discovered the first automatic Circle creation tonight - a Circle dubbed "Latitude Friends." Read more about it here on Google Plus.
Singapore-based developer Ridzuan Ashim spotted NFC support for tag reading in the Android application for Google Plus, the new social networking service launched into private beta only days ago. NFC, short for near field communication, is a wireless technology that enables data exchanges over short distances. The technology is currently present in a small subset of phones, including some Nokia devices, Google's own Samsung-built Nexus S, variants of the Samsung Galaxy S II and others.
But what is NFC doing in the Google Plus app?
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Video Demo of NFC in Google Plus
In the video posted by Ashim, he demonstrates how NFC makes sharing easy within the social networking service. Using a Nexus S, he scans an NFC tag containing the "text" record type, which is one of the four specific RTD's (Record Type Definitions) defined by the non-profit industry association NFC Forum. This specification describes how text content can be stored within an NFC tag.
When scanned, the text stored in the tag automatically populates the "Share your thoughts" screen in the Google Plus Android app, which is typically used to post personal status updates to Google Plus.
What's the benefit of such a thing, besides being a clever little trick? For now, that's all it is, but it indicates that NFC will likely grow to become an important part of the Google Plus social network in the future. More practical uses for the technology, when more widely supported by handset makers, would be for tasks like performing check-ins (i.e., registering your arrival at a location), sharing contact info with others, "friending" Google Plus users and navigating to particular pages.
Google Plus Features that Could be NFC-Enabled
A couple of these features are already in the works, as it turns out. The blog AboutFoursquare.com recently found that the Android application offers a feature called "Google Check-ins," accessed by tapping the checkmark icon on the "Stream" page of the Android app. This feature is built on top of Google's location-based service Latitude, which introduced check-ins in February, but lacks the Latitude branding, it seems. Users who check in by way of this service can post that check in directly to their stream on Google Plus, limiting its visibility by Circles (groups), if desired. Google Check-ins would be Google's direct counterpart to Facebook's Places, and could easily be NFC-enabled in the future.
Business pages, the Google equivalent to Facebook Pages, have also been promised in Google Plus, reports Mike Blumenthal, referring to a comment left by Google VP of Local and Commerce on Blumenthal's blog:
"...yes, we will have (SMB) business profile page on Google Plus. I can't announce a launch date yet, but we want to make them great, and we're coding as fast as we can."
Putting it all together, it becomes clear that the current NFC support discovered in the Google Plus Android app is only the beginning. Future updates to the app could expand the support to enable things like NFC-based check-ins, or NFC smart posters that link to business pages. Oh wait, Google already has those. It makes sense that this could then be tied into the Google Plus service, like so:
Tap a poster, visit the Google Place page, check in at the business, share to Google Plus.
It looks as though the efforts to bring together Google's services under the "Plus" umbrella might involve rebranding two of Google's longstanding products: Blogger and Picasa. Mashable's Ben Parr reports that the Blogger and Picasa names - not the products - will go away, as early as the end of the month. That timing will coincide with, according to Parr, the opening of Google Plus to the public.
As Parr points out, this won't be the first time that Google has rebranded products, particularly following acquisitions. The VOIP company GrandCentral, for example, became Google Voice after Google acquired it. Both Picasa and Blogger are acquisitions, although it's been almost a decade since they were bought by Google.
So why rebrand these two products now?
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To help rebrand Google, in turn, as a social network.
Parr's reports, if accurate (Google has not responded to my request for a comment), are hardly surprising. The massive push around Google Plus seems to bring all the company's social elements under one site: mobile and video messaging (Huddle and Hangouts), relationship management (Circles), and photo-sharing (Picasa, soon to be Google Photos).
Bye Bye Blogger? Or Better Blog Integration?
Renaming Picasa clarifies the product's purpose; renaming Blogger, less so. Indeed, the report from Mashable seems to have set off quite a stir of nostalgia (in my Google Plus stream at least), as many of us have fond memories of the blogging platform from the earliest days of blogging's existence - whether we still use Google's blogging platform or not. Although many of us have moved on to other blogging tools - Tumblr or WordPress, for example - Blogger does remain one of the most-trafficked sites on the Web. For its part Google has been in the process of refreshing and updating the look to Blogger this year. However, removal of the Blogger brand would be a much bigger change than simply new templates.
Hopefully that change would also include integrating Blogger more fully into the Google Plus site, linking Blogger profiles with Google profiles and giving blog updates a prominent position. But that integration isn't something folks would like to see just with Blogger. Many early users of Google Plus are calling for the platform's integration with Google Docs and of course Google Apps accounts as well.
Rebranding Google
Those products, however, already fall into the Google naming convention. The other outlier, of course, when it comes to branding is YouTube. Parr says that Google has no plans to rebrand YouTube to Google Video (a good thing considering the fate of the actual Google Video earlier this year).
Bringing all the products into alignment with the same sort naming convention does help solidify the Google brand - search "plus" all these social, communication, and collaboration components. Whether or not this adds more fuel to the fire about supposed antitrust violations remains to be seen.
Over the weekend, the keen eyes at Search Engine Land noticed that Google's Realtime Search had gone missing. The website returns a 404 error, the option no longer appears in the left-hand sidebar and search results for news no longer include real-time links.
A Google spokesperson confirmed the closure, but called it a temporary one. According to Google, Realtime Search has been shuttered as a 2009 agreement between Twitter and Google had expired, making what was one of the key element of that real-time content - Tweets - no longer available.
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Tweets weren't the only part of Google Realtime Search, to be sure. Other content included Google Buzz, Google News, MySpace posts and FriendFeed updates. Although that list of services is just a partial one, it makes the centrality of Twitter to this search pretty clear. With the launch last week of Google+, the inability for Twitter and Google to renew their Realtime Search agreement suggests an interesting road ahead for social and real-time search. Tweets do still show up in Bing social searches, it's worth noting.
Google Plus and Realtime Search
Google may move to incorporate the new Google Plus posts into a revised real-time search, but that hardly addresses the problem of searching for Tweets. As Danny Sullivan points out, Twitter has "largely outsourced the service of Twitter search longer than a few days to Google." Although Google will still have access to Twitter data by crawling the Web, it won't be the same, and the recurring complaints about the difficulties surrounding Twitter search and archives are likely to resurface.
Social Signals in Search
It's easy to read the falling out between Twitter and Google as being connected to the newly launched Google Plus, but it's far too early to make any sweeping pronouncements about Google no longer needing Twitter to beef up its social search now that it has what appears to be a successful social component on its hands. Google has managed just fine without having Facebook integration, of course. But the value of Twitter in real-time searches seems to go beyond just "the social." Add to that, Google+ still a nascent network, one that may be, at least according to journalism professor Jeff Jarvis, somewhat less useful of a tool for breaking news coverage and by extension, less useful for real-time search.
With the launch of Google Plus, there may be some confusion as to how the photos uploaded to the social network (Google+) integrate with Google's online photo-sharing service (Picasa), especially in terms of storage limits. The answer provides some great news for Google Plus users - nearly everything you upload to Google Plus won't count towards your storage limits on Picasa, with the only exception being videos longer than 15 minutes.
And there's another nifty feature involving photo-tagging, too - your Google+ friends can now tag your Picasa photos.
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Unlimited Storage on Picasa
According to a FAQ on Picasa's support site, the photo-sharing service provides up to 1 GB of free storage for photos and videos to its users. But since Google+ actively encourages storing and sharing photos - its Android app even offers an "instant upload" option - there may have been some concern about storage limits among Picasa users.
As it turns out, there's nothing to worry about. If you're signed up for Google+, photos up to 2048x2048 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes long won't count towards this free storage limit. And Google will automatically resize photos for you when you upload them to Google+, so they stay under the free size limit.
That means only photos uploaded directly to Picasa Web Albums over the 2048x2048 size will count towards the 1 GB of free storage, explains Google. And when that limit is reached, photos will be automatically resized.
Meanwhile, for non-Google+ users, there are slightly stricter rules: photos up to 800x800 and videos up to 15 minutes won't count towards free storage. Again, when the 1 GB limit is reached, larger photos will be resized down.
Simply put, this means that whether you're on Google+ or not, Picasa offers unlimited free storage for photos and videos (under 15 minutes). The difference is that Google+ users can upload higher resolution photos to Plus/Picasa without being penalized.
Photo Tagging, Too!
There are a few other integrations between Google Plus and Picasa to take note of as well, for example, photo tagging.
This very Facebook-like feature lets anyone in your extended network in Google+ tag people in your public photos. The person tagged is given the option to view the album and share it. If you've been tagged by someone in your Circles, the tag is automatically approved. You can remove tags on the photos homepage in Google+ or the Photos tab on your Google Profile. And if you would rather have more control, you can adjust this setting to enable manual approval of tags.
For those who were already using tagging in Picasa previously, all existing name tags in Picasa remain when you join Google+.
Additional source, re: storage - Ryo Cook, via Google Plus, of course; Above photo - it's never too early to be tagged, right Josie?
How do we know that Google Plus has really made it? It has its own Facebook page! On this new page, called "Google Plus Help, Tips and Tricks," liked by a whopping 36 people so far, you can discover links to blog posts and other "tips" shared by Google Plus fans.
But mostly, it's being used to beg for invites.
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Thanks, Linda Lawrey, Google Plus user extraordinaire, for re-sharing this somewhat hilarious new resource (via Amit Mehta's original post), but, so far, we think the best tips are being shared right on Google Plus itself.
And re-shared by you, come to think of it. Nice job.
• _?italic text?_ ? italic text • *?bold text?* ? bold text • -?strikethrough text?- ? strikethrough text •@Alex Quinn or +Alex Quinn ? +Alex Quinn (press @ or + to link to a person in a post or comment) • After you post, click the little dropdown arrow (?) in the upper right of the post to disable comments or disable resharing (i.e., for things you don't want to spread beyond your specified audience). • Press "k" or "j" to move up or down in the stream. • Press Tab then Enter after writing a comment on a post to quickly submit it. (faster than clicking the Post Comment button every time)
Via Matt Cutts (Misc. Tips - be sure to check the comments for more)
A few Google Plus tips: - You can click on profile pictures to rotate through them. Nice find by +MG Siegler on that one. - In the stream, you can click 'j' to navigate down to the next item or 'k' to navigate up. I think it's the same keys that Gmail uses, which is probably in turn because +Paul Buchheit uses vi and created Gmail. :) - If you're sharing a post with a small circle of people, you can prevent resharing. Click the arrow at the top-right of the post and choose "Disable reshare." - If you're looking for more fun things in your stream, the "Incoming" stream is stuff from people who are sharing with you, but who you haven't added to a circle. - One great one from +Frederic Lardinois is that "there is some basic text formatting, too: (*)bold(*), (_)italics(_) and (-)strike-through(-) are the ones I've noticed so far."
There are two main ways: 1.) +-reply them in the post itself (type "+" and their name) 2.) click "Add more people" at the bottom of the share box and type the individual's name. Remember: "+ Add more people" works for circles and individual people!
For those of you unlucky folks like me, who cannot download the Android Google Plus app in the country where you live, you can download the APK file from there!! :-) You don't even need root access to do this. Just make sure you have "Unknown Sources" allowed in Settings/Applications.
- While still editing your profile, whenever you edit the individual fields on your profile, you can choose who can see it. I chose only to share my phone number with family for example.
- When sharing a post, choose specific circles. And don't feel like you have to do "Your circles" -- pick specific circles.
- Use "View Profile As" (after editing) to view the profile as someone else to see what they see.
There are now over 3,000 people in a circle I've dubbed "work friends." That may be nothing compared to the likes of Robert Scoble, but at the current rate of friending occurring on Google's new social network, I'm well on my way to seeing friend counts that rival Twitter, a network where I'm hovering around 12,000 followers. And this is during Google Plus' private trial period!
The beauty of Google's Circles is that it does allow for this sort of public relationship with people in your industry - in my case, fellow tech enthusiasts. But at some point, I'm concerned the "put people into boxes" model may break down. Relationships aren't binary (friend or not), but they're also not static (e.g. "Friend A in Circle X"). Relationships change. How will Circles adapt to change with them?
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2 Examples of Changing Relationships
Here's one simple example to illustrate the problem with Circles: you change jobs. Let's say you go to work for a competitor. Now, everyone in the circle called "Work" need to be put into a circle with less access to your daily thoughts and posts, assuming you were using Google Plus to talk about projects you're working on or you were talking to others in your same industry. Those conversations may need to remain private.
Even if privacy is not a concern, for organizational purposes alone, the title "Work" is no longer accurate.
Here's another example: you become friends with someone - real friends, not "Internet friends." Thanks more public social networks like Twitter or even niche communities like "People You Follow" on Google Reader, there's now an opportunity to know of someone, even chat casually with them in a safe, public, space. With Circles, you can easily dump all these same folks into one big Circle. From my initial foray into Google Plus, that's precisely what many of the early adopters have done. They're using Google Plus the way they used Google Buzz, or FriendFeed before that. Friend everyone, and engage in public chats - mostly about Google Plus, of course.
But what about when one of those people becomes a real-world friend? Maybe you first run into them at a conference, putting a face to a name. They're now an "Acquaintance." Later, you spend a night out on the town with them, and realize you have a lot in common. You make plans to see each other again, at a non-work event, perhaps. This person has become a "Friend." Depending on how your Google Circles are set up, you may have had to drag-and-drop them into multiple different circles over time, as this relationship changes.
Be Prepared: Circle Management Overhead Coming Soon
No big deal, you say - it's just one person. But are you prepared to do that with all your relationships, from this point forward? Is that a sustainable system? How much of your time with Google Plus will be spent organizing and quantifying your degrees of closeness with your contacts? And if you choose not to, deciding to just friend only your "real" friends, or "return friend" everyone, then how exactly would Google Plus's system be any different from Facebook or Twitter (respectively) for you, in terms of relationship management?
These are some of my initial concerns with the Circles model of managing relationships. It's not a system I personally mind, to be fair - I'm a geek too, and I like organizing things. But what about the mainstream user, arriving from Facebook? Circles are a lot like Facebook's friend lists, a feature which Facebook has shown less support for and interest in over time. Maybe regular folks don't think it's useful to put people in lists? Maybe regular folks find it easier to live in public, and post things for everyone to see, even if "everyone" now includes mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, and that random friend from high school who wanted to catch up?
What Can Google Do?
To continually differentiate itself from Facebook, and keep Circles from becoming an organizational overhead nightmare, Google Plus needs to get smarter, quickly. Google should use its engineering brilliance to build algorithms that do relationship management for you. It should know when you change jobs (you update LinkedIn, for example) and suggest or enact a Circles change to reflect that. It could monitor the frequency of your conversations with fellow friends and suggest they're moved into a more personal circle - all you have to do is click "Accept." Or it could even auto-create Circles for you based on those interactions, or based on keywords in Google Profiles, or based on whether or not you were friends on other networks, and so on.
But should Google intervene? Or would that cross the "creepy line" it so likes to toe? And if it does not intervene, will Circles become end up being too much work to keep up with, thereby destroying the entire value proposition of Why Google Plus and Not Facebook?
What do you think? Do you share this concern, or find me overly pessimistic? Let me know your thoughts via comments, Twitter, or heck, Google Plus.
For users who weren't entirely sure what Google's +1 button was all about when it first launched, the picture is getting clearer, especially with this week's launch of Google Plus. And now site owners can see the button's effect for themselves, thanks to new metrics available in Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools.
Most significantly, a new report in Google Analytics called Social Engagement demonstrates the impact made on your site traffic by not only +1's, but also tweets and Facebook likes. The report shows the correlation between things like +1 button clicks and the amount of time users spend on the site, for example.
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Another report called Social Actions gives a centralized total of all social button clicks, whether they be +1's, likes or tweets. A third report, called Social Pages, "allows you to compare the pages on your site to see which are driving the highest the number of social actions," according to a post on the official Google Analytics blog.
Historically, Google's analytics product has shown how much traffic came from referring sites like Twitter and Facebook, but never included this level of social analysis.
The +1 button data will be rolled out to Analytics users automatically, but to get data from other social sources, you'll need to follow their instructions for enabling social tracking.
Google has also included new social-related metrics in their Webmaster Tools product. With it, site owners can see for themselves how the +1 button impacts organic search traffic to their sites. It also shows how many +1 button clicks your site has gotten as well as some geographic and demographic data about the users doing it.
Google Plus is a very impressive product, but in order to test it and not over-hype it, the company offered very few invites to the service when it launched yesterday. Press and a few others were allowed to enter up to 15 email adresses before noon yesterday and all of those people got Plus accounts by mid-afternoon. Accounts did not come with any allocated invitations, though, so it's been widely reported that there are no Plus invites.
Apparently that's not the case. All you need to do to invite someone to the service is to paste their raw email adress (I've only tested this with Gmail emails) into the "who to share" box and then send them something. A certain number of people per hour can get in from each current account holder. Thanks to Jennifer 8. Lee for pointing this out on Plus. Want an account? Add your email to the form below and we'll send out as many invites as we can right now. And remember: who scooped the story of Google Circles 3 months ago at SXSW? Oh yeah! Here's our review last night after a few hours of testing it: it's pretty awesome.Sorry, having Doc edit problems, I put a form below.
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Update 1: It appears that I have run out of invites for the time being, just invited 500+ people within 20 minutes. But anyone who has an account can now invite some more people and I should be able to send more invites soon.
Update 2: Google has announced that invites are closed for the evening.
Google's social networking service Google Plus is so new that it currently lacks a verification system for user accounts. This isn't a big deal for most users, of course, but it can be an issue when someone famous signs up, be it Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg or a Hollywood celebrity. Currently, there is not a Google-supported way for them to prove it's actually them.
Singapore-based developer 
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