Credit: Mike Smuts

Google+ Premium Features is now available for preview for Businesses, Education, and Government. The premium features preview will remain free till the end of 2013. So, here is a quick tutorial on how to activate the same in your Google Apps account.

1) Login to your Google Apps administrator account using your primary domain name.

2) Click on “Settings” tab on the top navigation bar.

3) In the left menu, select “Google+” option.

4) On the “General” tab inside it, click “Preview premium features”.

5) To customize and set up the premium features, select the “Org Settings” tab.

Once you set up the “Org Settings” as per your need, you can use the Google+ features for business such as restricted posts and hangouts within your organization.

However, if you decide to discontinue Google+ Premium features in the future, you can click on the “Stop Preview” option inside the “General” Settings step in step 4) above.

How to activate Google+ premium features is a post from: Google Plus Tutorials

Credit: googleenterprise.blogspot.com

Google+ Premium Features for Google Apps was launched yesterday in order to facilitate businesses, education, and government. Google announced about the new features in their Official Google Enterprise blog. Google Apps and services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Drive are being increasingly used by people for their personal as well as professional work. So, premium features have been introduced in Google+ too which enables members of an organization collaborate in their work with the use of Google services in the cloud.

Some of the features introduced specifically for businesses are:

1) Private sharing within an organization:

Google+ now enables organization to restrict Google services only within the organization so that employees cannot re-share it to anyone outside it. Google Apps users can mark a post as restricted while posting it in order to enable the same. If you want the post to be accessible to specific partners or colleagues outside the organization, then he or she can enable access for them too. In other words, Google Apps administrators can prevent the posts from being shared outside your organization by default.

2) Restricted Google+ Hangouts within your organization:

Face-to-face business conferences between different offices of a company often require expensive video conferencing technology or physical travel to the other office. However, Google+ Premium features enables face-to-face video meetings integrated with Gmail, Calendar and Docs using hangouts. With a simple video camera and microphone, up to 10 people can join a hangout from their PC, phone or tablet.

The employees can also edit and modify a Google Doc in an official meeting during the hangout. A hangout can also be added to a calendar event, allowing attendees to join the meeting directly from the invite or from a calendar entry. However, the Google Apps administrator can restrict the hangouts only within the organization and restrict access to “Hangouts On Air”.

3) Administrative controls:

As mentioned above, the Google Apps administrator has full access to restrict many of the services to be used only within his organization. He can also see which users in his organization has Google+ accounts.

Google+ Premium features for Google Apps would remain free till the end of 2013. This preview period implies that Google will eventually charge for these collaboration tools. However, Google has also promised that this is just the beginning and a lot more features are planned for the coming months, including a mobile version as well as more administrative privacy settings.

Google+ introduces premium features to facilitate businesses is a post from: Google Plus Tutorials

Google+ created yet another record by becoming the fastest social network to reach 170 million users. Less than nine and a half months have passed since the “closed beta” launch of the social network on June 28, 2011. As for the public “open registrations” launch, it has been less than seven months since that took place. So, the pace at which Google+ has grown is incredible. Senior Vice-President of Social Business for Google, Vic Gundotra confirmed that “more than 170 million people have upgraded to Google+” in a post at the official Google blog recently.

To give a good idea of the growth, Facebook took more than 1500 days or in other words more than four years to reach the 170 million users mark. Twitter took nearly 1096 days to reach only the 50 million mark while Myspace took around 1046 days to reach the 50 million users mark. On other hand, it is less than 290 days since the first beta launch of Google plus and it has already crossed the mark. So, Google+ is definitely far ahead of the rest in terms of the initial rate of growth of the social network. However, the numbers also clarify that the growth has stabilized a bit in the last few months after the initial frenzy when it had crossed 25 million users in less than a month and 50 million users in less than 3 months.

The good part is that Google+ is continuously improving and adding new features to the social network to keep up with the competition. They have also been advertising the social network somewhat aggressively both online and offline. But some critics also argue that Google+ has kept the engagement time and daily activity of users in the social network somewhat secretive as they might not be doing too well on that end. It would need to be seen how the Google+ growth moves in the near future. Signs are good as of now but it definitely has some tough competition ahead with the other social networks also adding new features quite regularly ever since the entry of Google+. However, it has to to be kept in mind that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter took upto 6-7 years to reach their present stature. So, it is quite early to conclude anything and it is quite possible that Google+ might be as big as the other two if not bigger in the long run.

Google+ becomes reaches 170 million users within 10 months of its launch is a post from: Google Plus Tutorials

Google+ has got its first major overhaul of the user interface yesterday only around nine and a half months after its closed beta launch on July 28, 2011. Google+ has been continuously bringing in new features based on user feedback ever since its beta launch. However, after the initial frenzy, the rush for new memberships and daily activity in the social network reduced a bit. So, it seems Google has decided to take Facebook and Twitter head on once again with the new changes in the user interface.

The major changes in the new user interface is the shifting of different icons etc. to provide more space for posts. As you can notice in the image above, the main navigation icons such as home, profile, circles, hangouts, games etc. which were on the top of the Google+ page have been moved to the left. The post area has been slightly increased too. On the right of the stream of posts, there are two columns now. The first one immediately right to the stream accommodates “trending on google+”, suggested profiles etc. And on the extreme right, there is the “start a hangout” and space for chat. The hangouts section has been expanded significantly with several new features including a constantly updated list of hangout invites. It seems that the popular features of Google+ such as hangouts, chat, trends etc. have been given a lot more importance in this new overhaul. In addition, the icons can now be moved and rearranged as per your convenience. The profile pictures in the Google+ profiles have been made significantly large too. Most of the changes have been applied both to individual profiles as well as business pages.

The changes has been received well for the most part by Google+ users. It was not surprising that #newgoogleplus was one of the most popular trends on the social network yesterday as can be seen in the image below.

However, if you look carefully you would be also notice that #usesforwhitespace was also within the top trends on Google+ immediately after the new look was applied. Perhaps the only negative feedback about the new layout is the noticeable amount of white space on the right of the posts stream. And the white space becomes more evident in case of desktops as they normally have comparatively larger screen sizes. It was also hilarious as there were many suggestions on the uses of white space flowing in throughout the day including the following gem by Eric Tamez.

It is likely that there would be more changes in the user interface in the near future based on user feedback. But overall the changes have been quite positive and it seems evident that Google would leave no stone unturned for the success of the social network.

Here is an official video of the new Google+ explaining the major feature improvments:

Google+ gets a complete user interface makeover is a post from: Google Plus Tutorials

There are many awesome Chrome extensions for G+. Here are my pick for the top 3 chrome extensions for Google Plus:

1.  Google Translate for Google+: If you are a long time Google+ user, then you would probably find people of different nationalities and speaking different languages in your circles. The G+ user community has been active as well as loyal since the start of the social network. Images, gifs, links etc. are often reshared upto thousands of times. On many occasions those shares might not be in your native language or even English which makes it difficult to comprehend. It holds true especially in case of posts including gifs and images where you also want to understand the text written by the original poster even if it is in a language you do know. The Google Translate for Google+ Extension for the Chrome browser is of extreme help in such scenarios. With the helps of the extension, you can translate the text inline in your Google+ stream without the need of using Google translate separately. This is an extremely handy extension if you use Google+ actively.

2. Google+ notifications: Google+ Notifications is a very useful extension for all Google+ users. Like is the case  with most other social networks, people do not use Google+ all throughout the day. But you would probably like to check the latest notifications such as shares and comments on your posts, circle notifications etc. instantly. This extension helps in doing so. As long as you are logged inside your Google account, the extension will display the recent notifications in your browser itself. You can browse any other website or do your regular work and still receive the notifications. This extension adds a button similar to the one present inside your Google Plus account. Whenever you receive a new notification, the button will become red and show the number of new notifications. On clicking it, you will find the drop down with the details of the notifications. And you can act on them and reply, add to circles from inside the extension button itself. This is also an official extension from Google which means that you can be sure about the quality and long term support of this Google+ extension. There is another unofficial extension Surplus which adds functions such as Notification sounds and the ability to switch between Google accounts. However, there are mixed reviews of the Surplus extension and so, you can decide on which one works for you better.

3. SGPlus: This is a very useful extension if you use facebook, twitter and linkedin too and would like your posts to be cross posted to the three social networks. This adds a button to facebook, twitter and Linkedin inside your Google+ account for quick access. More importantly, whenever you share a post on Google+ it can be automatically cross posted to your Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin account. If you do not want them to be auto shared then you can also turn the feature off. The extension also adds a gmail notifier button in your browser so that you can be notified and can read the new emails without leaving Google+. There is another Google Chrome extension Extended Share for Google Plus which supports a lot more social networks and social bookmarking sites but it only adds a “Share on …” on the Google+ posts and does not do much else.

If you are a regular Google+ user and use Google Chrome, then the first two extensions are must installs. There are several other good Chrome extensions released for Google Plus and so, please make sure to visit the Chrome web store to check them out.

Top 3 Google Chrome Extensions for Google+ is a post from: Google Plus Tutorials

I had searched a generic name Obama as that can be a title as well as related to a lot of news. A lot of fake profiles seem to creep up which would be probably be deleted by Google+ very soon keeping in line their real name policy. But when you press enter after entering the search keyword of your interest (in this example “obama”), then you will be provided a list of various results inside Google+ related to the keyword as displayed below.

By default it would show up everything on Google+ related to the keyword but you can also filter by “People” for Google+ users, Google+ posts and Sparks for news related to the keyword. In addition to that, the search feature also allows you to choose the “best of” or “recent” updates in that section. In the following example, I have filtered out the most recent sparks/news related to the keyword “obama” but you can try any other variation of your choice based on your interest.

You can then save your search too for quick access. Once you have saved the search, you will see a small search mirror icon on the left sidebar with the search keyword for quick access as displayed in the image below.

If you decide to remove the saved search later on, then just click on the cross sign beside the keyword on the sidebar. So, if you feel that your stream is too large to manage then just use the search feature from now on to filter out interesting posts from within Google+ stream. This is another very useful feature and a great time saver for sure.

How to search for specific posts inside Google+ is a post from: Google Plus Tutorials

Then you would need to login inside your Google+ account. Once you are inside G+, please click on the Uncircle+ icon on your browser. It will automatically open up a screen and fill up all the people in your circles on that page. It might take sometime before it displays the circles data if you have a large number of contacts. So, wait for it to complete in such a scenario and once complete you will see a screen like this.

Then you would need to click on the “Find Inactive People!” button and it will filter out the inactive people who have never posted on Google+ or never shared any post with you. You will see the inactive users list as it gets populated and the progress of the search too as displayed in the image below.

Once the list is populated, you will see the inactive users and a “Removed Selected” button below it. All the inactive users are selected by default but you can also remove any users from the list if you wish. Then you need to press on the “Remove Selected” button to initiate the uncircling of all those inactive users. After it is complete, you will be able to see the details of the process as displayed in the image below.

Though it is a good and effective extension but it seems to be buggy while handling large lists. It hung up at least twice for me when I tried it out while creating this tutorial. I would personally not recommend using this extension too often unless your are reaching the maximum users limit in your circles. There are a lot of new Google+ users joining in the past few days and so, some of them might decide to update only when they get time. Many old users of Google+ might also return back to the social networks as it is now public which means their friends can also be on Google+. So, use it option wisely and if possible use it only when you are nearing the maximum users limit.

How to remove inactive users from Google+ is a post from: Google Plus Tutorials

Incoming search terms:

• uncircle google plus

The healthy competition between Google+ and Facebook seems to be growing even more intense as Google added two very popular Facebook games on its network within the last few days. The growth of the Google+ social network has been massive in the last few days and the newly added games can only help in enhancing the same.

Popular game developer Zynga got it’s most popular game CityVille added to Google+ Games today. It is a significant step for Google+ games as well as Google+ social network as a whole because CityVille alone attracts 13.2 million daily active users and 72 million monthly active users for Zynga. In fact, the launch of the game on Facebook last year made it the most largest game launch of any Zynga game on facebook till date. However, CityVille has also had mixed fortunes since June this year which has not been the best always. It is also partially due to launch of newer games by Zynga but the overall popularity has waned in some cases. So, it will be needed to be seen how well it works out on Google+.

The second game is Kabam’s Global Warfare which was launched on Facebook at the beginning of the summer. However, it never became as popular as the other top strategy games even on Faceook and so, it would be need to be seen how popular it becomes on Facebook.

If sources are to be believed, then Google is is offering app developers a “promotional” revenue share where Google gets 5 percent from all in-app transactions and developers keep 95 percent. This should be quite attractive for Game developers compared to the 30% cut Facebook charges for every in-app purchase. So, we might expect a lot of big game developers and games coming to Google+ in the coming weeks and months.

But it would probably still be the core features of Google+ which will help in attracting new users to the social network rather than the games alone. But bringing quality games can surely help in helping moving over some of the Facebook game addicts to Google+.

Zynga’s CityVille and Kabam’s Global Warfare added to Google+ Games is a post from: Google Plus Tutorials

Incoming search terms:

• global warfare google plus

Google+ added another cool feature to the social network today as they enabled users to share their circles with other circles, extended circles or even the public. This is very useful if you have a circle of celebrities, techies etc. whom you would like to share with others or the public. It can also be very useful if you have closed circles such as a circle for family members and relatives or a circle for professionals whom you would like to share with other family members or colleagues. For example, if you have a circle for all the available members of your organization on Google+ then you can recommend the same to any other colleague making it easier for him/her to get started on G+ and to follow all of them.

The best part of this feature is that you do not need to share the name of the circle and it will always be private. It is only the users in the circle whom you share thereby still maintaining your privacy even when you share the circles. If you make any changes to the circle in the future then it will remain private too and would not affect the circle sharing post you made earlier. So, your privacy will be maintained in all circumstances.

Most of the parts of the feature is self explanatory and so, I will keep this Google+ tutorial quite short. At first, you would need to click on the circles icon (which you probably click everyday) and then click on the circle you would like to share. The users in the circle would move to the circles tab and all the users would be expanded. In that screen, you will have two options to share the circle. The first option would be above the detailed tab where you can see a “Share This Circle” Link and the second option will be in the circle itself where a “Share” link would appear in addition to the circle name, edit and delete links. You can check the image below for reference.

On clicking the share link, you will find a popup where you can add the circles with whom you want to share. The rest is completely same as you re-share posts etc. and you can select the circles, extended circle or public and also add a comment if you wish. Once you share the circle, it will appear as a post with a “View People in Circle” button as displayed in the image below.

Any user clicking on that button will be able to view all the Google+ users in that circle and your followers or the public can add them to a new circle or an existing circle on that screen. In the image below, I typed the name of one of my existing circles which enabled me to add the shared followers from Owen Prater to be added to that circle.

Similarly, you can create a new circle for the shared circle by typing a new name instead of the existing circle name. That is all you need to do for sharing a circle with others or to add shared circles to your own circles. The way in which Google+ team has been acting on the feedback of the users is impressive and this would surely help a lot of old timers in help the new Google+ users and friends in getting started pretty quickly.

How to share a Google+ circle with others is a post from: Google Plus Tutorials

Image Credit: Leon Haland

We had posted at the starting of August that Google Plus had become the fastest network to reach 25 million users as per comScore. However, the growth had slowed down a bit in between during the later part of the trail phase. But the growth rate bounced back again as Google+ was made public with open sign-ups. This resulted in possibly a 30 percentage increase in number of users within the first couple of days of open registrations. Though it is only an estimate but Paul Allen has been quite accurate in his estimates in the last few months about the number of Google+ users.

Today, Paul also posted that Google+ has reached 50 million users as per his estimates. This seems quite accurate and in line with the earlier estimates from him as well as third party agencies. He also mentions that Google+ has been growing by at least 4% per day since it was opened to public last week. This would mean that Google+ has not only become the fastest social network to reach 50 million users but has taken merely 88 days to reach it compared to 1325 days taken by facebook, 1046 days taken by MySpace and 1096 days taken by Twitter. However, it would remain to be seen if the phenomenal growth rate can be sustained for long. Facebook also made a few changes recently and so, it is too early to predict about which network would become the most popular one in the coming years. Google Plus is doing phenomenally well but it would take some effort to attract the loyal users of other social networks and to convince new users to join the network.

One major positive for Google has been that Google+ is extremely popular in the US too unlike its previous social networks such as Orkut which were popular mainly in South Asian or Latin American countries. The website received around 15 million users from the US alone in the last week with a 1269% overall growth rate as per Experian Hitwise. So, the signs are not bad for sure.

Google+ becomes the fastest social network to reach 50 million users is a post from: Google Plus Tutorials

Incoming search terms:

• How long it took Google to reach 50 million users