Google+ Developers Blog

Cross-Platform Single Sign-On

2013-05-15T13:46:00.000-07:00

We recognize that users aren’t just using one device to interact with your app. They switch between laptops, tablets, and mobile devices daily. We’re focused on making desktop and mobile work better together so users have a seamless experience between platforms. And today, we are launching another step in this direction -- cross-platform single sign-on (SSO).

Cross-platform SSO lets you stay connected to users and more easily keep them engaged across devices, removing the friction of consent and authentication. Now, when a user signs in with Google on one device, they grant consent once and can continue their experience seamlessly between web and Android devices. For example, if a user signs in with Google on the web and adds items to their cart but doesn’t get around to completing the purchase, if they switch to your app on their Android device, Google+ Sign-In will automatically authenticate the user, so they can be taken directly to the same state and resume their purchase.

We are rolling out this feature on the web and via the new release of Google Play services v3.1 on Android over the coming days. It will be automatically enabled if you integrate Google+ Sign-In.

Get started and learn more about Google+ Sign-In at http://developers.google.com/+.

Google+ platform at I/O:
With Google I/O underway today, we have a lot in store for developers. In addition to over 15 exciting sessions and code labs, we have a packed sandbox with over 50 partners showing off integrations with Google+ Sign-In, mobile recommendations, and Hangout apps.

Posted by Francis Ma, Product Manager, Google+

Google+: Content Recommendations for your Mobile Website

2013-05-13T06:34:00.002-07:00

When you help someone find a great article on your site, you’re not only making them happier, you’re inspiring deeper engagement and loyalty. That's why today, we're bringing together elements of Google+ and Google Search to suggest the right content from your mobile website, at just the right time.

For example: Forbes visitors can now more easily discover other Forbes articles based on Search Authorship signals and other articles with lots of Google+ activity (including +1's and shares). In all cases, recommended content is based on the specific page the visitor is viewing, to boost the relevance of recommendations. And they only appear when people tap for more, so as not to interrupt their browsing experience. Here's how it works:

Recommendations can appear regardless whether your visitors are signed in to Google. But when they are, they'll see content that was +1'd or shared by the people in their circles:

We're also making it easy to add and configure these content recommendations. Just add a single line of javascript to your mobile website, and from there you can make changes in the "For your site" section of your Google+ page dashboard -- no web editor required.

To give today's features a try, feel free to visit any article page on Forbes on your favorite iOS or Android device. More details are also available in our developer docs: developers.google.com/+/features/recommendations.

Of course: we've got lots more planned for Google+ content recommendations, and Google+ Sign-In more generally, so we’re looking forward to having over 50 companies who have integrated Google+ Sign In share their stories (examples below) this week from Google I/O.

"Google+ Sign-In is the most popular social sign-in method on our Android application, measuring 41% of overall social sign-in users”

- Tom Grinstead, Product Manager, Guardian News

"We're thrilled with the initial results of our Google+ Sign-In integration. Our analytics show tremendous sign-in conversion from Google, besting other popular social networks across web, Android and even iOS. Because of this success, we're considering removing other sign-in sources to give more prominence to this new growth channel."

- Haisoo Shin, Director of Engineering, Fancy

Google+ partners at Google I/O include:

Air New Zealand, AllTheCooks, Banjo, Branchout, Business Insider, Colopla, Community Factory, Contacts+, Dealflicks, Deezer, Editora Globo, eHow, Fandango, Flixster, Forbes, Funny or Die, Glamour, Go SMS Pro, HRS.com, Huffington Post, ibotta, Jolicloud , Kabam, KickSend, KLM, Magisto, Mashable, mon.ki, n24, NDTV, NPR, Owners.com, Pixiv, Polygon, RebelMouse, Restalo.es, SB Nation, SkillPages, Slacker, Softonic, Songza, SoundCloud, Speakingtree, Synacor, Tamindir, Terra, The Fancy, The Guardian, The Verge, Trovit, TuneIn, Vasily, Verbling, and Voxy.

See them all here.

Posted by Mario Anima, Product Manager, Google+

Google+ Sign-In: Bringing App Activities to Google Search

2013-04-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

When users search for your app, they often want to go deeper and see what in-app content fellow users find interesting. Today we're making this possible by bringing app activity to Google search results.

Aggregate app activity for SoundCloud in Google Search.

Soon, if you search for a site or app on Google.com (and that app has integrated with Google+ Sign-In app activities), you'll see popular and aggregate user activity to the right of search results. Searching for Fandango, for example, will show the top movies among Google users. And when you click on a movie, you’ll go directly to its page on Fandango.

The current Google Search results page for Fandango (left) and the Google Search page results with app activities (right).

We're rolling out this feature in desktop Search over the next few weeks, starting with a limited number of music and movie apps — including Deezer, Fandango, Flixster, Slacker Radio, Songza, SoundCloud and TuneIn — but we'll be adding more apps over time.

We've got lots more improvements planned, so stay tuned for more updates.

Posted by Seth Sternberg, Director of Product Management, Google+

More Ways to Add Google+ Sign-In to your Apps and Sites

2013-04-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

With Google+ Sign-In, users can sign in to your Android, iOS and web apps using their existing Google credentials, and bring along their Google+ info for an upgraded experience. We already provide APKs and APIs that you can build directly into your apps. And today we're adding even more integration options.

Hundreds of thousands of developers already use the user management and social infrastructure platforms Janrain and Gigya to manage their sign-in systems. Today we're happy to announce that both companies are including Google+ Sign-In as part of their product suites! This means that their customers will be able to:

Add trusted authentication to their apps and sites
Allow web users to automatically download their Android app
Customize their app experience using Google+ profile info
Enable users to share interactive posts with friends
Write app activities that only appear when they're relevant

To get started, simply visit Janrain's and Gigya's getting started guides. You can also stop by some of their customer’s sites, who are already starting to launch their Google+ Sign-In integrations, including:

Janrain: NPR, Universal Music Group sites (which includes over 100 music artist and industry sites like ladygaga.com, justinbiebermusic.com, imaginedragonsmusic.com, eminem.com, and interscope.com), and HSN.

Gigya: American Idol (a Fox Broadcasting Company) and Food Network UK

Posted by Seth Sternberg, Director of Product Management, Google+

Global Google+ Sign-In Bootcamps

2013-03-06T10:58:00.002-08:00

Since our launch of Google+ Sign-In with trusted authentication, over-the-air installs, app customization, interactive posts, and app activities on February 26th, we have received huge interest from the developer community about integrating the new features. The interest was so significant, in fact, that we thought a better way to enable as many developers as possible would be a series of Google+ Sign-In bootcamps.

These bootcamps are a unique opportunity for you, your engineers, and your product managers to work side-by-side with Google engineers over the course of five days, while building the next generation of web and mobile applications with Google+ Sign-In. Google engineers will provide design advice and best practices, help with any implementation issues, and give suggestions on how to get the greatest number of signed-in users. It’s also a great opportunity to connect with other talented developers from a wide range of apps, companies, and technologies. This being Google, of course food and snacks will be provided! A specific agenda will follow for each location.

Bootcamp Cities & Dates:

Mountain View, CA - March 11th - March 15th
London, U.K - March 11th - March 15th
New York, NY - March 18th - 22nd
Berlin, Germany - March 18th - March 22nd
Bangalore, India - April 1st - April 5th
Sao Paolo, Brazil - April 1st - April 5th
Sydney, Australia - April 8th - April 12th
Seoul, Korea - April 8th - April 12th

If you’d like to attend a bootcamp, please apply here. There is limited space, but we prefer two engineers from your company (or anyone that is critical to the integration) to attend each day. If you are accepted, you will receive a confirmation email with additional details after registration closes. Hope to see you there!

Posted by Kinnari Jhaveri, Google+ Product Partnerships

Introducing Google+ Sign-In: simple and secure, minus the social spam

2013-02-26T08:01:00.000-08:00

Today we’re adding a new feature to the Google+ platform: application sign-in. Whether you’re building an app for Android, iOS or the web, users can now sign in to your app with Google, and bring along their Google+ info for an upgraded experience. It’s simple, it’s secure, and it prohibits social spam. And we’re just getting started.

In this initial release, we've focused on four key principles to make things awesome for users:

1. Simplicity and security come first
If you sign in to Gmail, YouTube or any other Google service, you can now use your existing credentials to sign in to apps outside of Google. Just review the Google+ permissions screen (outlining the data you're sharing with the app, and the people who can see your activity), and you're all set. Google+ Sign-In also comes with the protections and safeguards you’ve come to expect from your Google account (like 2-step verification), so you can always sign in with confidence.

Managing your signed-in apps is easy too: visit plus.google.com/apps at any time, or open the new Google Settings app on Android.

2. Desktop and mobile are better together
Many developers offer web and mobile versions of their app, yet setting things up across a browser, phone and tablet is still a major hassle. Starting today, when you sign in to a website with Google, you can install its mobile app on your Android device with a single click.

3. Sharing is selective; spraying is just spam
Sometimes you want to share something with the world (like a high score), but other times you want to keep things to yourself (like fitness goals). With Google+ Sign-In and circles you decide who to share with, if at all. In addition: Google+ doesn’t let apps spray “frictionless” updates all over the stream, so app activity will only appear when it’s relevant (like when you’re actually looking for it).

4. Sharing is for doing, not just viewing
Pictures and videos are great for viewing, but sometimes you actually want to do stuff online. That's why, when you share from an app that uses Google+ Sign-In, your friends will see a new kind of "interactive" post in their Google+ stream. Clicking will take them inside the app, where they can buy, listen to, or review (for instance) exactly what you shared.

If you’re building an app for Android, iOS or the web, and you’d like to include Google+ Sign-In, simply dive into our developer docs and start checking stats once your integration is live. Android apps will require the latest version of Google Play Services, which is rolling out to all devices in the next day or so.

To see what other developers are doing with Google+ Sign-In, just visit any of the following sites, and look for the new "Sign in with Google" button (also rolling out gradually):

Posted by Seth Sternberg, Director of Product Management, Google+

Deep Linking From Mobile Apps

2012-11-15T12:24:00.002-08:00

Hello Android and iOS mobile developers. Now when a user shares a favorite song or news story from your app to Google+, their stream post can include a deep link to that piece of content. Clicking the link either:

Opens your app, and goes directly to the news story (for instance), or
Redirects to Google Play or the App Store to encourage download

Using the Google+ mobile SDKs, you can integrate the Share dialog and embed a deep-link ID with your post. The deep-link ID may be a URI or an identifier that your app can use across its supported platforms, to identify the correct context to launch in your app.

Here are some examples of deep link sharing on Android from Pulse News:

You can also download Pulse News from Google Play to see deep links in action.

Check out our developer docs to learn more about today's launch of deep links on Android and iOS and follow the conversation on Google+.

Posted by Francis Ma, Product Manager, Google+.

Case Study: Scoot & Doodle Sparks Creativity With Their Google+ Hangout App

2012-10-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

San Francisco-based startup Scoot & Doodle brings people face-to-face in a shared online play space in real time. Scoot & Doodle chose to launch their first product as a Google+ Hangout app, and since launching built a user base of 100,000+, achieved strong engagement with returning users averaging 28 minutes per session, and increased their Google+ followers to nearly 900,000.

Scoot & Doodle chose to launch their first product as a Google+ Hangout app because the platform offered advantages to gain traction in the crowded, competitive online social space. Those advantages included:

Access to 400 million highly engaged Google+ users already connected through Circles, Gmail, YouTube, and Calendar
Easy, streamlined discovery of Scoot & Doodle on Google+, through viral channels such as Notifications
Quality, strength, and reach of face-to-face on hangouts, which let Scoot & Doodle users connect, create, and collaborate with up to nine people, simultaneously, worldwide
Relatively simple development in the Hangouts API, they went from concept to launch in just three months

Scoot & Doodle has seen extremely high engagement with its product in Hangouts. The average visitor spends 22 minutes per session, and returning users spend 28 minutes per session. They’ve also found their users are engaging in ways they hadn’t expected, like anime artists collaborating daily with each other and with Japanese writers to create and design characters for online games. Also, students from junior high school to college use the app to illustrate, collaborate, discuss, and solve problems for their class work; for fun breaks, they doodle and play Pictionary-like games together.

U.S. and Japanese artists use Scoot & Doodle to collaborate on anime projects like this one.

“We’re seeing users engage with the product in creative, diverse ways. As a result, Scoot & Doodle has captured far more user communities than we initially envisioned,” says Patty Chang, company cofounder and product lead. “Scoot & Doodle on Google+ Hangouts has pushed the bounds of how we look at our product and where we’re going with it.”

Scoot & Doodle has identified new uses for its product from its followers, and connects with them regularly in hangouts and via Google+. The company also conducts focus groups using Hangouts. Its latest features—talk bubbles, stamps, and scrapbook—arose from discussions between users and customer reps on Google+.

We think Scoot & Doodle is a good example of a company who has built a strong audience on Google+ through its use of Circles, content rich posts, interactive Hangouts, and creative promotions. These promotions have focused primarily on community building and engagement, with good results from encouraging users to create with the app, then share and engage with others in their Circles.

Follow Scoot & Doodle on Google+ and download the full case study here. To learn more about Google+ Hangout apps, visit: developers.google.com/+/hangouts.

Posted by Amy Walgenbach, Product Marketing Manager, Google+

Google+ Roundup From I/O

2012-07-10T14:31:00.000-07:00

With so much going on this year at Google I/O -- including an epic skydiving product demo --we wanted to make sure you caught all the action from the Google+ team.

This year's event was our biggest and most amazing yet, and we shared it all with more than 5,500 developer attendees in person, and millions more in 172 countries around the world via I/O Live and I/O Extended.

Here are a few of the highlights from Google+:

Launched Google+ Events, and Google+ tablet apps for Android and iOS.
Extended the Google+ platform to mobile, with mobile web optimized social plugins and Google+ SDKs for iOS and Android (coming soon).
Introduced new featured hangout apps, and showed off sandbox partners Google Art Project, MiniClip 8-ball Pool, Symphonical, and a preview of Dominion!
Brought the Google+ history API into early developer preview, allowing sites and apps to privately save moments to their users’ Google+ history where users can, if they want, share those moments with others.
Added +1 recommendations to help site owners show more relevant content to their users.

You can watch all nine Google+ session videos from I/O to learn more about the announcements, check out the beginnings of the Google+ developer showcase to get inspired, and attend this week’s Google+ platform office hours to have your questions answered.

Posted by Ken Norton, Group Product Manager, Google+

Extending the Google+ Platform To Mobile

2012-06-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

Since unveiling Google+ to the world a year ago, the number of mobile users on Google+ has grown rapidly. In fact, there are now more people that use Google+ from a mobile device than from a desktop computer. We have always believed in the importance of mobile for our users, and today, we are announcing an offering for mobile developers -- the Google+ platform for mobile, in early developer preview.

This platform includes mobile web optimized social plugins and Google+ SDK for iOS and Android (coming soon). With these new SDKs, you can integrate Google+ identity, sharing, and history into your mobile apps to create more engaging social experiences and connect with more users.

Check out the mobile platform documentation to learn more about integrating Google+ into your app!

We are just getting started and would love to hear your ideas and suggestions. Share your thoughts and follow the conversation on Google+.

Posted by Francis Ma, Product Manager, Google+

Apps are a Plus in Hangouts

2012-06-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

We’ve seen Google+ Hangouts being used in the most creative and innovative ways, connecting fans, facilitating debates, and making a difference in people’s lives.

Three months ago, we launched the Google+ Hangouts API, with the belief that developers can build even more memorable experiences and activities inside the face-to-face-to-face setting of hangouts. The response so far has been exciting.

In the 90 days since we launched apps in hangouts, we’ve seen:

over 200 apps built for hangouts
the average duration of a hangout increase by 2.5 times when participants use an app
1 in every 3 hangouts use an app.

Today, we are introducing a new set of featured apps built by developers around the world that provide fun and entertaining activities for our users.

Google Art Project: Explore collections from around the world with thousands of artworks photographed in extremely high resolution. You can play an art guide and take your friends on a tour of different museums.
New YouTube App: Create, control, save and even share playlists of videos with friends—all inside a hangout. It’s like your own VIP table at the world’s coolest YouTube party.
New Effects App: One of the most popular hangout apps gets more fun with a brand new UI and with the introduction of new effects.
Symphonical: Conduct your business meetings and manage projects in real-time using the Symphonical app for hangouts.
MiniClip 8-ball Pool: Challenge friends to a game of pool with real-time stats tracking.
A Story Before Bed: Family hangouts just got better with this app. Pick a storybook from the shelf and read it to your loved ones.
Panoramio Game: Compete with friends to be the most precise wanderer by finding out where a photo was taken while traveling around the world with Google Maps through stunning Panoramio photos. If you are the best, you get to choose your next destination.
Cheer On: Root for your favorite sports team by customizing your video appearance in a hangout. With so many sporting events coming up this summer, this is one app you must have next time you are in a hangout.

We are still in the early days of this real-time platform and can’t wait to see what you come up with next. Learn more about how you can get started building hangouts into your app.

Posted by Amit Fulay, Product Manager, Google+

Launching Google +1 Recommendations Across the Web

2012-06-26T11:37:00.000-07:00

UPDATE (7/9/12): After a few productive weeks in platform preview, we're rolling out +1 recommendations to all users today. Thanks for your feedback at Google I/O, in the discussion forums, and on our Google+ page. We're always eager to hear from you -- so keep it coming.

Working on +1, we often hear people say they want to see more of what their friends recommend. Likewise, when we talk to site owners, they ask us to help them show more relevant content to their users. Today, we are rolling out a new feature of the +1 button in platform preview: when users hover over a +1 button, they will see recommendations for other great content on your site.

For example, when I go the the Chrome Web Store and look at +1 recommendations on the Gmail app, I see related apps and recommendations from friends.

To keep these recommendations more relevant and on-topic, they will always refer to pages on the same domain or subdomain as the +1 button.

If you’ve already added the +1 button to your site, there’s nothing more you need to do. Recommendations will work across all +1 buttons for all users, whether or not they’re signed into Google+. This update will go live to all of your users in the next few weeks.

If you want to see recommendations today, sign up for the developer preview group and tell us what you think. The +1 team and I would love to hear from you! As always, we are iterating quickly and are hungry for your feedback.

Join the conversation on Google+.

Posted by Julie Farago, Engineering Manager

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