One month and more than 10 million users later, Google+ continues to ride a wave of hype as the newest and coolest kid on the block when it comes to online social networking.
A friend sent me an invite to use Google’s new social network shortly after it launched at the end of last month, and it was good timing. I was sick of Facebook, having grown tired of sorting through all the “noise” in my account. Keeping up with people seemed like a chore, having to sift through a mess of rants, mundane musings and posts from random “friends” I barely knew.
And that’s why Google+ felt like a breath of fresh air. From the start, I liked “Circles,” Google+’s way of organizing your contacts. This approach tries to mirror real life — not everyone is your “Friend,” as they are on Facebook. You create Circles according to the way you want to view other people’s posts or share information. By default, Google+ starts you off with the categories “Friends,” “Acquaintances,” “Family,” and people you’re “Following,” but you can make as many Circles as you want, and give them any name you want.
Photo: David Chen, Taipei Times
In practice, it’s great. On your Google+ page, your Circles are listed in the left hand column. Click on Friends, you see only what your friends post. Click on Family, just posts from your family. (I liked not experiencing the sensory overload I tend to get on Facebook, where random circles of friends and family seem to collide together in one long, never-ending column.)
Every time you post, you can decide who sees what with a simple click. Don’t want to bother your friends who don’t share your obsession with creme brulee? Make a creme brulee Circle and share your posts and photos only with them. Don’t want your Mom or boss to know about your wild antics last Saturday night? Address your post to your “Party People Only” Circle.
Right off the bat, I felt more in control of my privacy with Google+. And surely, I thought, the rest of my Facebook friends would feel the same way.
Photo: David Chen, Taipei Times
But one month later, here I am, using Facebook more than ever.
It turns out that the rest of my friends on Facebook aren’t as jazzed as I am with Google+’s design and layout, cool video chat feature (more on that below) and that shiny new social network smell.
Comments like “I spend enough time on Facebook,” and “Everyone’s already on Facebook,” seem to sum up their responses. And what about Google+’s super-cool Circles? “It’s like you can add Circles but everyone I know on here so far is a friend … ” wrote one Facebook friend on his Google+ page.
Photo: David Chen, Taipei Times
Sure, Google+ has made being “social” fun again for me — I’ve been spending more time these days posting updates, sharing links to videos I like and engaging in banter with friends — but it feels a bit lonely. My friends and contacts here so far are a relatively small circle of tech enthusiasts and early adopters.
So friends, I’ll see you on Facebook. But I’ll still be waiting for you on Google+.
GOOGLE+ FACTS AND TIPS
There’s a lot to discover on Google+. Here are some basic facts, tips and miscellany on Google’s new online social network.
(1) On Facebook, you share with everyone who is your “friend.” On Google, you choose who to share with, whether it’s one person or the entire Internet.
That’s why Google+ is all about Circles, a function that requires you to categorize your contacts before you do anything else. Every time you write a post, you have the option to choose which Circle to share it with (look in the box below where you write your post). You can also share your post with just one person (essentially making it a personal message), or mark it “Public,” which means even people who are not in your Circles can see it. Beware: your Public posts can turn up in a Google search.
(2) Anyone can add you to their Circles and vice versa.
In this sense, Google+ is more like Twitter than Facebook. You can follow anyone, and anyone can follow you. But your follower can only see any posts or photos that you choose to make public, and you can only see what they make public.
(3) Get familiar with the privacy settings on Google+
You’ll find them by clicking on the gear symbol in the top right corner of the page, which leads to the Google+ Settings page. On that page, go to the left column, click on Profile and Privacy. It’s a good idea to get these sorted out before you start posting away.
(4) Your contacts won’t know which Circle they’re in — and that’s the way it should be.
If you’re feeling guilty about leaving your coworker out of your “Friends” Circle, don’t. Your contacts can see that they’re in your Circles, but they won’t know if you classify them as “Friend,” or “Acquaintance,” etc. Alternatively, you can hide all of your Circles from public view by going to your profile and clicking “Change who is visible here” under your Circles list.
(5) Turn off e-mail notifications.
Do this first, or your e-mail in-box will be flooded with notifications when you start posting and commenting on Google+. To change your settings, click on the gear symbol in the top right corner of the page, and then go to Google+ Settings, and make adjustments under the section called “Receive Notifications.”
(6) Who to follow (or add to your Circles) on Google+
If you embrace the Twitter-like qualities of Google+, you’ll probably want to find a few interesting public figures to follow. The Web site socialstatistics.com tracks the most popular Google+ public profiles, and the most followed person to date is none other than Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, followed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The Web site also keeps an updated list of the most popular posts on Google+.
(7) A few Taiwanese public figures are already on Google+.
And they’re proving to be popular. President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is ranked No. 27 on socialstatistics.com’s list of most followed figures on Google+. To give you an idea of how well Google+ appears to be catching on in the Chinese-speaking world, Ma is ahead of William Shatner and Ashton Kucher at the moment. Another high-ranking Taiwanese using Google+ is Mando-pop singer Valen Hsu (許茹芸), who ranks No. 32. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential hopeful Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) also posts frequently on Google+, but her ranking isn’t listed since she chose to not make her number of followers public (something that any Google+ user can do).
(8) There’s no character limit on Google+ — you can write as much as you want.
Whereas you have to limit your status update to 140 characters on Twitter and 420 characters on Facebook, Google+ lets you write as much as you want. You’ll see a lot of Facebook and Twitter style status updates, but also a fair number of long blog entry style posts.
(9) You can edit your posts on Google+ at anytime.
Just go to the right hand corner of your post, click the arrow, and choose “edit this post.” This is another nice feature Facebook doesn’t have.
(10) Have fun with “Hangouts”.
Hangouts lets Google+ users hold group video chats with each other. One obvious use for Hangouts is business conferences and meetings, but Google has also designed them to have an element of serendipity. Up to 10 people can join any Hangout that’s open to the public — musicians on Google+ have held concerts, other users have held cooking classes and from time to time you’ll see Google executives and engineers holding their own Hangout sessions with random users. For me, though, the best use I’ve gotten out of Hangouts was talking with family — I was able to chat with my two brothers, who were in different parts of the US, from Taipei. The video and sound quality wasn’t great, but the technology is impressive — whoever is talking automatically gets placed at the center of the screen. When I saw my two brothers and myself on the same screen, all in different geographical locations, I had one of those hair-raising “the-future-is-here” moments. This feature will be great once Google gets the kinks worked out.
(11) Prevent others from sharing your posts.
Google+ is nice in that you can address your posts to specific people or groups. But if you really want to make sure your thoughts don’t get around, you can prevent your contacts from sharing your post. Go to the right hand corner of your post, click the arrow, and select “Disable reshare.” I found this to be a slightly awkward solution — it would be better if you could disable reshare before publishing your post.
(12) Don’t like the functionality of Google+? Hack it to your liking.
My one complaint with Google+ from the start was the layout of the comments. If you expand the comments on a post while reading your stream, there’s no way of hiding them afterwards — that’s annoying if you have 50 or more comments because you have to scroll, scroll, and keep scrolling just to get to the next post. But if you use the Google Chrome Web browser, you’re in luck. +Comment Toggle and G+Plus Me for Google Plus are free downloadable extensions that let you hide comments, and the latter even lets you collapse all posts into single lines, which cleans up the page considerably.
There are plenty of Web sites listing Google+ hacks and extensions, but several Google+ users pointed me to two good guides in particular at PC World (www.pcworld.com/article/236651/40_google_tips_and_tricks_for_power_users.html) and The Next Web (thenextweb.com/apps/2011/07/27/the-mother-of-all-google-resource-lists/).
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