Google+ Developers Blog

Sharing Rich Content From Your Android Apps, to Google+ and Beyond

2012-05-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

Many developers have been using Android's share intent to help their users share content with others, directly from their apps. With the recently-launched ShareCompat library, you can now help your users share rich content with their friends (like images and videos) more easily, and the items they share include attribution to your app. All you need to do is add a few lines of code!

I'll walk through a few examples that use Google+ as the application handler, but of course, these share intent improvements can work for any service. Popular apps like Foodspotting, Pulse News, and Shazam are already using ShareCompat to help users share rich content with their Google+ circles. You can check out this photo album to see how they are all taking advantage of the new library.

Creating the Share Intent

If you'd like users to be able to share text from your app, start by building the following intent:

Intent shareIntent = ShareCompat.IntentBuilder.from(ShareActivity.this)
   .setText("This site has lots of great information about Android!
      http://www.android.com")
   .setType("text/plain")
   .getIntent()
   .setPackage("com.google.android.apps.plus");

startActivity(shareIntent);

Here, I passed text and a URL to the setText method, and I used the setType method to identify the content as "text/plain." The intent builder can then pass this information to the application that's doing the sharing. Additionally, I used the setPackage method to specify the application that I want to handle it. In this case, the Google+ application is specified.

The Google+ share box with pre-populated text and link snippet.

Sharing Pictures and Video

Modifying an intent to share pictures or video takes just two modifications:

Intent shareIntent = ShareCompat.IntentBuilder.from(ShareActivity.this)
   .setText("Hello from Google+ Developer Relations!")
   .setStream(MEDIA_URI)
   .setType(MEDIA_TYPE)
   .getIntent()
   .setPackage("com.google.android.apps.plus");

Here, I changed the type to an appropriate content type for the media being shared (“image/png” for images, “video/mp4” for videos, etc...). Additionally, I told the intent builder that I’m sending the media store URI of the picture that I want to share.

A Rich, Personalized Post

Once users shares text, links, images, or video using share intents, the post on Google+ will include attribution to your application, like shown below.

A Google+ post with text and an image shared from the Google+ Share Intent Demo app.

As you can see in the screenshot, I combined sharing an image with sharing text. You can mix and match setting text with sharing pictures, videos, or links.

If you'd like to add similar functionality to your Android app, just check out the ShareCompat documentation. Happy sharing!

Follow the conversation on Google+.

Posted by Julia Ferraioli, Developer Advocate, Google+

Hangouts Hackathon: 1 API, 5 developers, 2 weeks

2012-05-17T10:25:00.003-07:00

Last week we released an update to the Google+ Hangouts API, which includes several new features and possibilities to build on, like the ability to respond to facial movements in real-time inside an app.

As with any new API, we’re especially interested in what sorts of things our developer friends will dream up, so we've commissioned a handful of them to play with it over the next couple of weeks, and to share their thoughts and discoveries along the way. The participants represent a wide range of developers -- from agencies like The Barbarian Group to independent developers like Eyebeam alum Aaron Meyers teamed up with OKFocus.

Follow the Hangouts Hackathon with us on the Google+ Developers page, and, if you’re working on an interesting Hangouts API project we’d love to hear about that too. Use hashtag #hangoutshackathon to chat about our work, or your own, with the new API.

Posted by Jonathan Beri, Google+ Developer Advocate

Introducing the Google+ Share Button

2012-04-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

When your visitors come across something interesting on your site, sometimes you want to encourage a simple endorsement (like +1). Other times, however, you want to help visitors share with their friends, right away. Today’s new Google+ Share button lets you do just that.

In line with the design of the new +1 button, here’s how it looks:

Before visitors share:

When clicked, visitors can add a comment and choose who to share with:

After they’ve shared, the button turns red. They can click to share again.

The new Google+ Share button is available to all publishers, globally. Try adding it to your site now - just visit Google Developers to get the code.

Follow the conversation on Google+.

Posted by Rick Borovoy, Product Manager, Google+

Moving the Google+ Hangouts API Out of Preview

2012-03-28T09:36:00.000-07:00

One of the most important ways we connect with others is in person. That's why we're so excited about Google+ Hangouts, and why we launched a preview of the Hangouts API a few months ago. Today we're moving this API out of preview, and enabling developers to launch and share their hangout apps with the entire Google+ community!

Hangout apps are regular web apps, running in a big window inside the Hangout UI. In addition to using shared-state APIs to give users real-time interactivity, you also have access to built-in Hangout features, such as:

Initiate a group video chat with up to 10 people
Control hangout microphones, cameras, speakers and volume levels
Add sound effects and attach image overlays to faces
Set UI elements such as the video feed, chat pane, and notifications

It’s easy to get started: read the documentation, build and publish your app, and then let users know. You can easily get the word out in one of two ways: 1) post a link to it on Google+, and/or 2) add the new hangout button to your website. In either case, anyone who clicks will start a new hangout with your app running inside. It then appears in the “Recent” apps pane for future hangouts.

To get the ball rolling, we're introducing a new "Apps" pane in Google+ Hangouts, as well as some featured applications, including Aces Hangout, Cacoo, Scoot & Doodle, Slideshare, Clubhouse Challenge by Bravo, and Google Effects. We’re looking forward to seeing what you can dream up in the weeks and months ahead.

Follow the conversation on Google+, and happy building!

Posted by Amit Fulay, Product Manager, Google+ Hangouts

A New Look for the +1 Button

2012-03-07T10:06:00.001-08:00

UPDATE (3/14/12): Today, we released the new +1 button from preview and it’s now rolling out to all users. You may also notice the numbers in your +1 buttons increase, as we update our plugins to better reflect social activity around your content. Our Webmaster Tools Help Center article has more details on this update. Join the conversation on Google+.

Following in the footsteps of our new red and white Google+ icon, the +1 button is sporting a fresh coat of paint. Starting today, this update will be visible first to our Google+ Platform Preview Group and shortly thereafter we’ll roll it out to the public.

Check out the new pixels:

Before you’ve +1’d

After you’ve +1’d

The +1 buttons you’ve already installed will automatically update; there’s nothing you need to do. Stop by the updated configuration tool to see how these changes look across all the various sizes and shapes of the +1 button.

We’ll update this post when these changes graduate to the public.

Follow the conversation on Google+.

Posted by Eric Steinlauf, Software Engineer, Google+

Improving Google+ Plugins Across the Web

2012-02-27T14:56:00.000-08:00

Over a million websites use Google+ plugins -- like the +1 button and the badge for Pages -- to help visitors connect with their brand and share their content with others. Today we're excited to announce a number of improvements to these plugins that make sharing and connecting even easier.

Easier to share from the +1 button
Starting today, it’ll be a little easier to share right from the +1 buttons all across the web. Now, after you +1 something, the share box will pop open right away, without an extra click. Add a comment if you want, choose the people you want to share with, and you’re done.

Easier to follow brands and businesses
When you add Google+ pages to your circles, it's typically to follow their news and updates. That's why we're updating badges for Google+ pages to read "Follow." With just one click, this button adds a business or brand to your "Following" circle, and if you want to customize which circle they're in, you can do that too.

If you're one of the many businesses and brands with a Google+ page, we've also put together a handy style guide (pdf) which includes recommended language and images for promoting your page.

Adding a badge for people, not just pages
We heard you! Now anyone (including Britney Spears!) can add a personal Google+ badge to their web pages, and let visitors add them to circles quickly and easily.
We’ve got lots more planned for the Google+ plugins, stay tuned!

#googleplusupdate

Posted by Julie Farago, Engineering Manager, Google+

Google+ Developers Page

2012-02-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

Today we’re launching the Google+ Developers page to help you stay connected to all the latest Google+ platform news, events, community, and more. As the lead of the Google+Developer Relations team, I’m really looking forward to meeting you there -- add the page to your circles to join the conversation, comment on posts, and join our hangouts.

Our team will host regular hangouts to talk about the +Platform, your experiences with it, and share tips and tricks with the community. Our weekly office hours hangouts take place every Wednesday at 11:30am - 12:15pm PDT, and can be accessed from our Google+ Developers page. The +Platform team will also share Google+ developer events, conferences and hackathons, as well as photos and videos of the events. In addition, we’ll announce and discuss our +Platform launches on our page.

2012 is going to be a very exciting year for the Google+ Platform -- I look forward to seeing you on our new Google+ Developers page!

Posted by Chris Chabot, Google+ Developer Relations Team Lead

More Options for Google+ Badges

2012-01-26T13:07:00.000-08:00

UPDATE (2/2/12): The new Google+ badge is now out of preview and available to all users on all sites.

When we launched Google+ pages in November, we also released Google+ badges to promote your Google+ presence right on your site. Starting today in developer preview (and soon available to all your users), we're adding more options for integrating the Google+ badge into your website. You can configure a badge with a width that fits your site design and choose a version that works better on darker sites. You'll also see that Google+ badges now include the unified +1 and circle count that we added to Pages last month.

If you’re still considering whether to add a Google+ badge on your website, consider this: We recently looked at top sites using the badge and found that, on average, the badge accounted for an additional 38% of followers. When you add the badge visitors to your website can discover your Google+ page and connect in a variety of ways: they can follow your Google+ page, +1 your site, share your site with their circles, see which of their friends have +1’d your site, and click through to visit your Google+ page.

The Google+ Badge makes it easy for your fans to find and follow you on Google+. With these additional options, we hope it's even easier to create a badge that fits your website.

Follow the conversation on Google+.

Posted by Lucy Hadden, Software Engineer, Google+

Add antlers, mustaches, and more to apps in Hangouts

2011-12-13T17:53:00.000-08:00

For NMovember we added mustaches in hangouts and now for the holidays we’ve added antlers. Today, we are adding media effects like these to the Google+ Hangouts API developer preview, so that you can add your own special effects to Hangouts apps.

This new API will let you detect the participant’s face and overlay your own image on it. Images can be attached to different parts of the face (nose, eyes, upper lip, etc.) and will track that point as the face moves. The image will rotate as the face rotates, and scale to the size of the face.

The following code snippet will give you a sense of how simple it is to detect the nose tip of a participant and overlay a custom image. See the API documentation for more details.

// Load the image file
var imageResource = gapi.hangout.av.effects.createImageResource(
   'http://your image file');

// Create the overlay
var overlay = imageResource.createFaceTrackingOverlay({
 trackingFeature: gapi.hangout.av.effects.FaceTrackingFeature.NOSE_TIP,
 scaleWithFace: true,
 rotateWithFace: true
});
overlay.setVisible(true);

We are also adding an API that lets developers add their own sound to the hangouts. Here is a snippet.

// Load an audio file
var audioResource = gapi.hangout.av.effects.createAudioResource(
   'http://your audio file');
// Play the sound
var sound = audioResource.play();

Give it a try and add some fun and interesting elements to your hangouts apps. Follow the conversation on Google+. #seasonforshipping.

Posted by Amit Fulay, Product Manager, Google+ Hangouts

Google+ badges: Drive Engagement with Your Users on Google+, Right from Your Own Website

2011-11-09T11:50:00.000-08:00

UPDATE (11/16/11): The Google+ badge is now out of preview and available to all users on all sites.

On Monday we launched Google+ Pages, to help people connect with all the things they care about -- and lots of businesses and brands have already created pages. One item you may have missed in the initial announcement was the project I worked on, the Google+ badge. The Google+ badge helps you grow your audience on Google+ and show more recommendations in Google search by letting people add you to their circles and +1 your page, all without leaving your site.

Today, we officially begin our roll out of that badge by making it available to our Google+ platform preview group. To get the badge, sign up for the group and then visit our configuration tool and choose the badge size that’s best for your site. If you’re in the group, you may also begin to encounter the badge as you browse around the web.

By using the Google+ badge to connect your website to your Google+ page, you:

make it easy for your audience to subscribe to your posts and endorse and share your site.
get more personal recommendations around the web, by connecting +1’s for your website with +1’s on your Google+ page.
qualify for Google+ Direct Connect, which lets people type +your_site_name on Google search and automatically start following your page.

We’d love to hear any feedback, so please let us know what you think -- join us in the Google+ Developers forum and follow the conversation on Google+.

Posted by Todd Volkert, Technical lead, Google+ badge

Grow your audience with Google+

2011-11-07T10:46:00.000-08:00

Cross posted from the Inside AdSense blog

By Dennis Troper, Product Management Director, Google+ Pages

At Google, we help grow your audience by connecting you with new users. We introduced the +1 button so your site would stand out on search and your users could easily share your content on Google+. But, sometimes you want to join the conversation and post content directly to where people are sharing.

Today we’re introducing Google+ for Business, a collection of tools and products that help you grow your audience. At the core of this is Google+ Pages, your site’s identity on Google+.

Google+ Pages: Have real conversations with the right people
To get your site on Google+, you first need to create a Google+ Page. On your page, you can engage in conversations with your visitors, direct readers back to your site for the latest updates, send tailored messages to specific groups of people, and see how many +1’s you have across the web. Google+ Pages will help you build relationships with your users, encouraging them to spend more time engaging with your content.

Google+ Pages are at the heart of Google+ for Business

Hangouts

Sometimes you might want to chat with your users face-to-face. For example, if you run a food blog, you may want to invite a chef to talk about her favorite recipe, or if you manage a fashion review site, beauty specialists might want to hold how-to sessions with makeup tips. Hangouts make this easy, by letting you have high-quality video chats with nine people with a single click. You can use Hangouts to hold live forums, break news or simply get to know people better, all in real time.

Hangouts let you meet your customers, face-to-face

Circles

Circles allow you to group followers of your Page into smaller audiences. You can then share specific messages with specific groups. For example, you could create a Circle containing your most loyal readers and offer them exclusive content.

The Google+ badge: Grow your audience on Google+
To help your users find your page and start sharing, there are two buttons you can add to your site by visiting our Google+ badge configuration tool:

The Google+ icon, a small icon that directly links to your Page.

The Google+ badge, which we’re introducing in the coming days. This badge lets people add your page to their circles without leaving your site, and allows them to get updates from your site via Google+.

Extend the power of +1, stand out in Google search
You can also link your site to your Google+ page so that all your +1s -- from your Page, your website, and search results -- will get tallied together and appear as a single total. Potential visitors will be more likely to see the recommendations your site has received, whether they’re looking at a search result, your website, or your Page, meaning your +1’s will reach not only the 40 million users of Google+, but all the people who come to Google every day. You can link your site to your Page either using the Google+ badge or with a piece of code. To set this up, visit our Google+ badge configuration tool.

Bringing Google+ to the rest of Google

Our ultimate vision for Google+ is to transform the overall Google experience -- weaving identity and sharing into all of our products. Beginning today, we’re rolling out a new experimental feature to a small group of eligible publishers, Google+ Direct Connect -- an easy way for your audience to find your Google+ Page on Google search. If you’ve linked your Page to your site and you qualify, when someone searches for your website’s name with the ‘+’ sign before it Direct Connect will send them directly to your Page. For example, try searching for ‘+YouTube’ on Google. Users will also be prompted to automatically add Pages they find through Direct Connect to their circles.

Direct Connect suggestions start populating as you type on Google.com

Just the beginning
We want to help you get your site on Google+ as soon as possible, so we’re opening the field trial for Google+ Pages to everyone today. Creating a Google+ Page only takes a few minutes. To get started, you’ll need a personal Google+ profile. If you don’t have a Google account, it’s very quick and easy to join. And if you’re looking for inspiration, check out some of the sites that are already starting to set up their Pages:

To learn more about how Google+ works for your site, check out the Google+ Your Business site. We’re just getting started, and have many more features planned for the coming weeks and months. To keep up to date on the latest news and tips, add the Google+ Your Business page to your circles. If you have ideas on how we can improve Google+ for your site, we’d love to hear them.

Posted by Amy Walgenbach, Google+ marketing

Talk Shop During Google+ Platform Office Hours

2011-10-04T16:29:00.000-07:00

Engaging and learning with developers is a key piece of the Google+ platform. We enjoy interacting with you in Google+, in the Discussion Board, and getting your feedback in the issue tracker. We are always looking for more ways to gather feedback and to help you with any coding questions you might have, so we’re beginning regular Office Hours. Office Hours give you the opportunity to ask in-depth questions and get help debugging your code with our Google+ Engineering and Developer Relations teams.

We are hosting Office Hours every week in a Hangout at 11:30am - 12:15pm PST. To find out which hangout to join for a given week, visit our Office Hours page.

During Office Hours we will be answering technical questions about the Google+ platform we received before the Hangout, as well as questions you ask in the hangout - so come prepared! We won’t be limiting focus to a particular Google+ platform feature initially, though we may bring guests from specific teams who are experts on certain features, like the Hangouts API. In the future, we may add extra time slots to include our friends from around the world.

Hope to see you in our next hangout on Wednesday, Oct 5th at 11:30am PDT.

Comment on this post on Google+.

Posted by Jon Beri, Google+ Developer Relations

Google+ APIs: Now With Search and More!

2011-10-04T11:09:00.000-07:00

Thank you to all of you who tried out our first Google+ API release and let us know how you were using it. And thank you also to those of you who asked for more. In the spirit of releasing early and often, today we’ve released some of the new features that you requested.

Search for it

Last month we launched search in Google+, and now it’s available in the API. You can search for public posts using the new activities.search method by sending the following HTTP request:

GET 
https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/activities?query=cookie%20recipes&orderBy=best&key=[yourAPIKey]

This method searches across the body and comments of public posts. It returns the following JSON encoded output (excerpted for brevity):

{
 "kind": "plus#activityFeed",
 "title": "Plus Search for cookie recipes",
 "updated": "2011-09-30T16:57:34.479Z",
 "id": "tag:google.com,2010:buzz-search-feed:x4rIYTKpR7NZCL8Id8RHXQ",
 "items": [
  {
   "kind": "plus#activity",
   “id”: “123”,
   "title": "You have to try these out.",
   "object": {
    "objectType": "note",
    "content": "I’m baking halloween cookies!",
   },
   {
   "kind": "plus#activity",
   “id”: “456”,
   "title": "Cookies",
   "object": {
    "objectType": "note",
    "content": "Cookies and milk for dinner. Don’t judge me.",
   },
 ]
}

You can search for people by using the people.search method:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/people?query=vic%20gundotra&key=[yourAPIKey]

This searches across public profile information including fields such as name, bio, location, tag line, and description.

The rest of the conversation

Our first API release let you retrieve public posts. We’ve now added ways for you to see how people are publicly engaging with those posts -- you can find out who reshared a post or who +1’d a post, and you can read the comments on a post.

The new method people.listByActivity supports retrieving resharers and +1’ers by sending the following HTTP requests:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/activities/{activityId}/people/resharers?key=[yourAPIKey]
GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/activities/{activityId}/people/plusoners?key=[yourAPIKey]

And comments can be retrieved by the new comments.list and comments.get methods:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/activities/{activityId}/comments?key=[yourAPIKey]
GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/comment/{commentId}?key=[yourAPIKey]

Tell us what you think

As an API developer, I love seeing what people build on top of the APIs I’ve worked on. We have been reading your posts on the Discussion Board and issue tracker and I am excited to see more of your creative ideas. We will continue incorporating your feedback into our design discussions, so please keep it coming.

Follow the conversation on Google+.

Posted by Jordanna Chord, Software Engineer, Google+ API Team

Introducing the Google+ Hangouts API

2011-09-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

In the three months since we launched face-to-face-to-face communication in Google+ Hangouts, I’ve been impressed by the many ways people use them. We’ve seen Hangouts for game shows, fantasy football drafts, guitar lessons and even hangouts for writers to break their solitary confinement. That’s just the beginning. Real-time applications are more engaging, fun, and interactive, but were hard for developers to deliver. Until now.

Today we’re launching the Developer Preview of the Hangouts API, another small piece of the Google+ platform. It enables you to add your own experiences to Hangouts and instantly build real-time applications, just like our first application, the built-in YouTube player.

The integration model is simple -- you build a web app, register it with us, and specify who on your team can load it into their Hangout. Your app behaves like a normal web app, plus it can take part in the real-time conversation with new APIs like synchronization. Now you can create a “shared state” among all instances of your app so that all of your users can be instantly notified of changes made by anyone else. (This is how the YouTube player keeps videos in sync.) And we’ve added our first few multimedia APIs so you can, for example, mute the audio and video feeds of Hangout participants.

When you’re ready to start hacking, we’re ready for you -- read the documentation, sign up, and start coding. We’re anxious to get your feedback, since this is a very early version of the API. We’ll be making improvements and moving towards full production based on what we learn together. And we’ll be releasing new updates on a regular basis, so stay tuned!

Follow the conversation on Google+.

Posted by Richard Dunn, Technical lead, Google+ platform for Hangouts

Getting Started on the Google+ API

2011-09-15T11:27:00.000-07:00

The Google+ project brings the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. The Google+ platform brings that nuance and richness to all of the web. We started with Google’s own products, added the +1 button for site owners and content publishers, and introduced games from a handful of partners. That’s just the beginning though — we want every one of you who builds applications to be able to include rich sharing, identity, and conversations in your app. Today, we’re taking the next step on that journey by launching the first of the Google+ APIs.

Let's Go Public

Google+ gives users full control over their information, supporting everything from intimate conversations with family to public showcases and debates. This initial API release is focused on public data only — it lets you read information that people have shared publicly on Google+. For example, if you want to get my profile information, you can use the people.get method by sending the following HTTP request:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/people/108189587050871927619?key=yourAPIKey

which returns the following JSON encoded output (excerpted for brevity):

{
 "kind": "plus#person",
 "id": "108189587050871927619",
 "displayName": "Chris Chabot",
 "image": {
  "url": "https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-cQNLOQzkGpE/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAEjo/M9_pXL-ra4Q/photo.jpg"
 },
 "organizations": [
  {
   "name": "Google+ Developer Relations",
   "title": "Developer Advocate & Manager",
   "type": "work"
  }
 ]
}

Similarly, you can get a list of my most recent public posts by using the activities.list method:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/people/108189587050871927619/activities/public?key=yourAPIKey

Because we’re starting with public data only, you simply need to register your app before making requests. And if you aren't yet sure which Google+ user is running your app (for example, because they're installing it for the first time), then you can use the new plus.me OAuth2 scope to ask the user who they are.

After your application has requested this scope, you can use the special “me” identifier rather than the long numeric identifier:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/people/me

On The Shoulders of Giants

We love the way the programmable web has evolved, so we’re using existing standards and best practices wherever we can:

Our API methods are RESTful HTTP requests which return JSON responses.
Our payload formats use standard syntax (e.g. PoCo for people info, ActivityStrea.ms for activities).
We use OAuth 2 for secure trusted access to user data.

In addition, since most of us no longer write raw HTTP requests these days, we provide libraries for your favorite language: Java, GWT, Python, Ruby, PHP, Objective-C, and .NET. These libraries are all open source, so we’d love to have your feedback and help with them.

developers.google.com

You can find more information about the Google+ platform, including today’s new APIs to public data, at developers.google.com/+ on our new Google Developers site. This site will be the place to go for access to documentation, terms and policies, discussions with other developers, tools that make development on the +Platform easier and more fun and, of course, the place where announcements concerning new releases will be made.

Included in our policies are three simple guidelines that we aspire to in our own products, and that we’d like all applications built on the Google+ platform to follow also: put the user first, be transparent, and respect user data. The goal behind these guidelines, as with all of the features and fine print, is to work together to build products that our users will love.

And now …

For all of you developers who have been asking for a Google+ API, this is the start. Experiment with it. Build apps on it. Give us your feedback and ideas. This is just the beginning; the Google+ platform will grow and we value your input as we move Google+ forward.

Follow the conversation on Google+.

Posted by Chris Chabot, Google+ Developer Relations

Share to Circles from the +1 Button

2011-08-24T10:22:00.000-07:00

The +1 button is a great way to recommend the pages you love on Google Search. But sometimes there’s content you want to share right away -- at least with certain circles of friends. That's why we'll be rolling out sharing on +1 button soon. Nuanced sharing is a critical part of the Google+ project -- this enhancement is a first step to exposing such sharing across the Web.

Millions of sites are using the +1 button to let visitors recommend their content right in Google search results. Now these sites will get an added benefit as +1 provides an easy way for visitors to share content into Google+. If you manage a website, your visitors can start a conversation about your site’s content with the circles who are most likely to enjoy it, expanding your audience while helping your content get noticed on Google Search at the same time.

We know this is one of many scenarios for including sharing in developer applications. Expect to see more integration opportunities in the future. Check out the +Snippets documentation to get familiar with the approach we’re taking to including rich content in the conversations your users start.

You can preview this +1 button change by enrolling in the Google+ Platform Preview. This preview channel allows you to test updates before they launch to all users on your site.

Follow the conversation on Google+.

Posted by Philip Tucker, Google+ Software Engineer

Stepping Onto the Google+ Platform

2011-08-10T17:05:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Google+ Platform blog! Only 6 weeks ago we launched the Google+ project to fix sharing on the Web. Since then, tens of thousands of you have expressed an overwhelming desire to build applications for Google+ -- we can’t wait to help you out. This blog will be your official source of information and announcements on the Google+ platform. Although we’re not ready to get your coding engines running, we do have some small updates to share as we prepare to open the gates.

In today’s launch of games on Google+, you can now see the first of many types of integrations that we hope to help you build. We chose to start with a small number of partners so that we could experiment, get the kinks out of our APIs, and get real end-user feedback before opening up to the world.

Following today’s launch, I’d like to give you a preview of how we’re going to roll out the platform. Because we want to provide both a great user experience and a great developer experience, we’re focusing on quality before quantity. We will continue to add new partners and new features in small steps, starting with today’s release of the games APIs to a small number of developers. We’re keeping a close eye on feedback, and are eager to open up more access as soon as it’s ready.

If you’re a developer interested in building for the Google+ platform, let us know and we’ll contact you when we have something for you to preview. Just remember, like the rest of the Google+ project this is only the beginning, so stay tuned.

Follow the conversation here on Google+.

Posted by David Glazer, Engineering Director