Back in January I wrote about rumor that Google would launch a new social network at CES in Las Vegas. The feature that caught my attention was 'circles' that allows you to create different groups of friends or contacts, and post content relevant for that group only. The idea appealed to me, because I had experienced the meshing of my personal family and business contacts on Facebook. My family has to put up with my business posts and status updates and my work friends and clients get subjected to pictures of my 3-year old grandson paying soccer, my photographs and discussions about my rather eclectic family tree. (Russia, Scotland, England, Wales, Germany - and that's just in the last two generations)
It didn't happen at CES, but Google+ did launch a month ago and it's certainly caught the interest of the social media set. It already has 20 million users.
Google is not done developing G+. They've just acquired a small social startup Fridge, whose software facilitates the construction of private groups within social networks, as well as photo sharing and event planning. Here's a list of other updates rolled out just in the last week:
- You can now re-order your circles by dragging them left or right on the Circles page, and they'll stay that way across Google+. [original post: http://goo.gl/Jy4Vv]
- You can now choose who can start a huddle with you: Anyone, your Extended Circles, or just your Circles. To make your selection just visit Google+ settings on the desktop, or G+ settings on Android. [see attached screenshot]You should now see a better list of places when searching for a place to check into on G+ mobile. [original post: http://goo.gl/opvWa]
- You can now edit the names of your photo albums directly inside of Google+. Just go the Photos page, click "Your albums", choose an album, and click on the album title. [original post: http://goo.gl/gaVv8]
- You can now create new circles in-line from the "Add to Circle" menu all across G+ (including profiles, hovercards, and people suggestions).
- And... we've created a "What's new in Google+" page that'll help keep track of these features & fixes in the future [what's new page: http://goo.gl/0fcNs]