What is your opinion on the new button?

There have been a few Google+ users who are sceptical about the feature either claiming that it’s functionality isn’t different enough to have it’s own button separate to the standard +1 or that introducing an additional button will cause poor interface usability experiences. Cihan Demiral commented on the official Google+ Developer post the following -

“All right, let me get this straight: When you click on the +1 button, it lets you share via a pop-up — now we’ve got another button that only lets you share content, sans +1-ing it. Correct? Fantastic.

You could’ve made it so upon clicking a +1 button, it would give you the usual sharing pop-up, but there could be a +1 button right next to that green ‘Share’ button; that +1 button I proposed would also function as ‘Close’ — ‘+1 and close this pop-up’. Boom, ~5kb less js on every page on the internet and, more importantly, less confusion about the functionality of G+.

But no, it would be too simple. You’re right. Congrats.”

A discussion also took place in the official AdWords community on whether introducing the button would create too much clutter within threads -

http://www.en.adwords-community.com/t5/Community-lounge/The-new-G-Share-Button/m-p/18617

I think it will be interesting to see whether websites make use of the Share button or simply leave it alone, what are your opinions on it?

“Yesterday (11th April) 204 days since Google+ opened its doors to the general public, the coolest social network received its first major makeover. The reaction has been very postive and it is clear that Google has been listening to its users. The new look Google+ interface boosts a customisable toolbar (Ribbon), a reformated comments and post interation area, a bigger emphasis on multimedia in posts and a general tidying up of the screen.

However, one issue that dominated discussions yesterday was the increase in unused screen space, dubbed whitespace. So much chatter was generated that the #usesofwhitespace and #useofwhitespace hastags rapidly climbed into the top five trending topics for Google+. The whitespace is a result of the main conversation feed (Stream) has been moved over to the left which means if you’re viewing Google+ on a widescreen monitor (and who isn’t these days?) you have almost half your screen unused. To be fair, when you’re at the top of your Stream, there are useful elements such as the list of trending topics and contact suggestions. This has prompted many innovative suggestions for the bright white area of your screen. Many posts have appeared with people using it to illuminate x-rays, to rest their iPad against and to hang strips of bacon from (I kid you not!).

However, in the meantime, I would like to suggest some more practical uses for this space So here are my five top ideas for what they’re thinking:

1) Dockable window/pop-out for Hangouts - How cool will it be to have video chat going on while monitoring the Stream?

2) The return of YouTube - The YouTube player tab is no more, but the whitespace gives a great area for it to return to.

3) Custom Stream/Search - The ability to set up a second stream based on a custom search. You could keep your eye on a trending topic while still following the general conversations.

4) Widget area - As Google services become more integrated, the space could accomodate your stocks and weather widgets, your gmail notifications and Google Calendar. Think about how an iGoogle homepage looks.

5) Split pane - Have the stream on the left and the ability to open your Circles screen, photos or a game in the right hand area. True social media multitasking. It would be awesome to have your photos open on the right and then drag them directly into the Stream to create a new post.

I can guarantee that those clever people at Google have already got ideas of what they’re are going to do with this space. All the designers will be working on widescreen monitors and they all know about good design. So there is no way the unused screen area hasn’t gone unnoticed. We are just going to have to be patient and wait and see. One final thought, this whitespace has arisen because of an efficient design by the Google team. To have all this functionality at our fingertips, for it to be intuitive and still have room to spare on the screen, I think is a testament to the skill of the Google+ team.”

Spencer Cartwright is an educator with a passion for the use of technology in the classroom. You can follow him on Google+ via his personal profile (bitly.com/spencermc) or his ICT blog (bitly.com/spenceict), on Twitter (@spenceict) or on his website www.spenceict.co.uk

So the main question that springs to mind is: Why? Why are Google pushing their new social network on British television? I imagine the initial reaction made by Facebook supporters and many other bloggers will be, “IT’S BECAUSE GOOGLE+ IS A FAILURE!” But I don’t believe this is the case. In the past we have discussed Google+’s initial growth in comparison to other social networks so I don’t think this is the concern, Obi Felten (Google’s EMEA director of consumer marketing) touched upon one of the reasons being that they wanted to rekindle the interest of original beta users who have missed out on all the updates released since June last year.

The commercial involves a touching life story of how one man progresses through family life as Google+ is used to record the most significant moments. Obi commented: “We realised we needed to drive awareness and show how Google+ is relevant and meaningful to people’s lives as it’s not easy to understand in one sentence – the best way to educate people about a product is to demonstrate it.” I was sceptical when first seeing the commercial but Obi’s comment clarified the need for a television ad; when trying to explain what Google+ is to people I always recommended that they check out the interactive demo for themselves, allowing the public to see it used first hand on their own television screens is probably one of the best ways to generate awareness for the product. I wouldn’t say this is a survival attempt by Google but instead an effort to push forward further, while still being around 750 million users behind Facebook we must remember that the social network is incredibly young and is growing at an exceptionally fast rate despite this.

• The ability to either create a brand new document from scratch (ideal for brainstorming) or to open an existing document from your profile to share with others.

• Easily switch between multiple documents at once meaning that comparisons can be made rather than being restricted to one document at a time.

• The feature is placed within a collapsible sidebar meaning that there is plenty of room to edit the document while still keeping the principle Hangout features.

There is already (unsurprisingly) plenty of support from the Google+ community for this new update, I could definitely foresee businesses making the transition to Google’s social network purely for the free functionality of this new feature.

Share and Edit documents while discussing them face to face with your contacts.

Both Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg have maintained updated profiles which allow the public to actively interact with their posts and media published. This gives the political leaders some sort of indication on what the Google+ community think of their thoughts and actions making it an excellent testing ground when used correctly. David Cameron’s last update was at the beginning of October making it clear that he (or his PR) were quick to give up on the social network; yet it’s interesting to note that he is still in more people’s circles than the other two party leaders, perhaps this proves that it’s worth having the Google+ presence regardless of whether a celebrity of influential figure is going to keep their profile updated. David Cameron can always return to that profile at a key time to promote himself and essentially target almost 140,000 people at the touch of a button.

By now you have most likely seen different famous icons from around the world join the ever growing social network but to keep relative to the subject I want to bring it to attention that Labour’s London mayoral candidate, Ken Livingstone, has joined Google+. The account has only recently been created so it will be interesting to monitor how the profile is used from a candidate’s perspective, what sort of success will be gained and whether it can have an impact during and leading up to the election period. These factors will depend on how effective Ken Livingstone manages the profile and whether he fully utilises Google+’s excellent features to interact directly with the British public, we have already seen Barack Obama address his nation live using Google+ Hangouts and constantly reach out to the public via posts.

Labour's London mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone has now joined Google+

I hope you visit the new site and like what you see, it’s always good to meet new users and to help out with your AdWords related questions!

A fountain of AdWords knowledge resides within!

Google+ is becoming a social network with responsibility.

Times have quickly changed and Google are now enabling teenagers as young as 13 to also join the ever growing social network. There are obviously always concerns about younger ones being exposed to the social world of the internet but this update has been released along with the introduction of additional security features that will help keep both younger and older users’ privacy protected. Some of these features include:

• Sharing content - Teens will now be encouraged to consider their sharing decision when attempting to post outside of their circles, I imagine this will be in the form of some popup prompt asking the user whether they really want to do share the content to such a wide audience.

• Hanging out with friends - This one might prove frustrating for some users but basically whenever a stranger joins a hangout from outside a teen’s circles then that teen will be temporarily removed from the hangout in an attempt to protect their identity. It’s not ideal for the teen getting kicked out of a flowing conversation every time someone joins but I imagine many of you parents reading this wouldn’t be too happy with strangers seeing your child on a webcam either.

Okay, so the video may have confused you a little but Your World is basically a social twist on the search results provided by Google. Enabling the “personalised” view of search results allows data from Google+ to be inserted into the list giving you an insight on how your friends / contacts are related to particular search terms.

Searching “Liverpool football club” for example might show me a number of “personal results” alongside the standard search results; these may include pictures from albums, videos that have been shared or simply posts belonging to people within my Google+ circles. There is also the chance that Google+ profiles and pages are included within these personalised search results if they have a strong enough relation to what is being search for at the time, Liverpool football player profiles might be show in “Liverpool football club” search for example. This might seem a novelty feature but imagine searching for a product or holiday destination you are interested in and then realising your contacts already have experience with it, you then have the ability to browse their pictures and comments to assist you in making a decision while also having the potential to open a dialogue with one of those contacts.

There are already privacy concerns with regards to personal photos being displayed on Google’s search engine but I am confident that this is something Google will address after the history of privacy scandals we have seen other social networks face (book) in the past. People are also stating that this is something they don’t want to see during their standard usage of Google’s search network but this is no problem as users can simply select whether they want it included or not via a click of a button.

For those of you interested in Your World and Google+ then I would suggest checking out the following link for now -

http://www.google.com/insidesearch/plus.html

This blog hasn’t been the only thing growing though. There are a few unofficial numbers flying around but I’ve seen that there is now between 62 – 150 million people using Google+. I would personally say that it’s most likely closer to the latter though considering that the social network had 20 million members during the first month of it’s invitation only phase which was in July. I doubt that the number of users has only tripled for the duration of 6 months, I imagine there is exponential growth as Google+ users tell their friends about the social network, those friends tell other friends and the cycle  thus continues.

There is still a lot of talk about how Google+ will “survive” or why it will never beat Facebook. I’m amazed this is the case though considering the start it’s had so far; I’ll admit that many people snubbed the idea when first trying the new social network but Google has listened to user feedback over this 6 month period and made an incredible amount of changes which have benefited Google Plus each and every time.

For those of you who missed it … here are The Muppets on Google+!

The first feature is the ability to add someone to your circles directly from an email in Gmail. Simply open the email and you will be given the opportunity to add the contact via the standard icon located towards the top right corner of the interface. I can see a lot of people re-managing their circles with this update to create “mailing lists”, perhaps for business reasons or simply to send recreational emails such as Christmas cards to family and friend circles.

Google are making life easier day by day.

The second feature follows on from my idea of how circles will now be created. Moving your cursor into the upper part of the left side bar will expand a list containing your Google+ circles, you will then be able to filter email according to the contacts within these circles. Click on your family circle for example and you will be presented with a list of emails from all your family. Again, a simple feature but one that is very practical and helps keep users organised which I imagine many (including myself) can be guilty of.

Make sure you hover your cursor on the left side bar to expand this list.

Originally in Gmail you would have to manually enter information for each of your contacts which proved to be a labouring task which many refused to do. A new feature removes this hassle by automatically updating information using the details on your contacts Google profiles. I was pretty impressed upon seeing that my contact list had various details next to their names such as telephone numbers, email addresses, circles inclusions, etc. The list of circles is again included in the left side bar making it quick and easy to filter certain contacts for whatever reasons you may have. I would suggest checking your own privacy settings though if you are concerned about being called or emailed by Google+ contacts you are not overly familiar with.

Prior to this screen you will see a list of your contact and a summary of their details.

The fourth and final feature allows you to share image attachments received via Gmail on Google+. Originally you would have had to download the image, save it somewhere on your computer and then upload it to your account; now it’s simply a case of hitting the “Share” button and selecting the appropriate circles you wish to share the image(s) with.

Share those attachments on Google+ with a couple of simple clicks.

So collectively a cool number of features right? Let me know whether you think it will change your day to day Gmail experience or whether you are simply going to dismiss these Google+ related updates.

There is also something rather interesting out about facial recognition on Google+ but I shall leave that for next time…