A Beginner's Guide to Google+

Google+, the social networking platform was Google's attempt to make sharing more natural on the social media. It aims at integrating most things that an individual would want to share - photos, videos, blogposts, maps and other information - into a single platform to make it simpler and more human. There are many individuals and companies who are attempting to guide people with their Google+ guide, but not many attain their tutorial objectives. Here is a short Google+ guide to help you get started

Your Circles

Google+ is integrated with Google mail, and you can easily import your contacts (choosing the contacts you want to import) and add them to your circles. You can create as many circles as you like, keeping similar people in the same circles, E.g. Family, friends, colleagues, and bloggers. You can also control how much information you share with each circle. When you have news to share but not to all and sundry, you can share the status update with only those in your family circle; if you had a wild night out and do not want your aunts and uncles knowing about it, you can share it with friends only.

Your Stream

Clicking on the "Google+" tab will take you to your Google+ Homepage. At the centre of the page is your stream - the space where you can see updates from your friends and people you follow. On the left, there are options to customise which posts from your screen you can see, and you can opt to see posts only from circles comprising, for instance, friends, family or colleagues.

Hangouts

Google+ allows you to video chat with more than two people at a time, for free! Talk to family or a group of friends anytime, with high quality audio and video. It requires no installation, just that your computer be equipped with a webcam, microphone and speakers.

Search

Once you start using Google+ together with all of your normal web search activity you will start to notice the effects of it's personalisation on search results. By +1'ing articles that you find useful more relevant results will begin to appear in search queries. Google is now adding weight to search results that have been marked by yourself and also any of your Circles. This personalisation of the web is probably just the beginning of further intergration from Google+.

Conclusion

There is still a lot of confusion about Google+. If you have a gmail account or use Google for your daily web experience, there is no avoiding the fact that Google Plus is here to stay. Not many people are using it yet, compared to Facebook and Twitter, but that is set to rapidly change.

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