What is Google Plus? Google Plus Review

What is Google Plus? or What is Google+?

Google Plus Review or Google+ Review

Google+: More than Just Social Networking

Google+ is an identity and social networking service owned and operated by Google Inc. It was developed primarily to enhance Google’s online properties and at the same time serve as an authorship tool that directly associates web contents with their authors or owners. Currently, Google+ is the 2nd largest social networking website in the world next to Facebook and it is growing at a rapid pace indeed.

History

Google+ was initially launched by Google as an invitation-only field test in June 2011. However, due to high account demands, the site was later opened to anyone 18 years of age or older. On January of 2012, it opened to younger users of ages older than 13 in United States and most other countries, 14 in Spain and South Korea, and 16 in Netherlands.

Google+ is Google’s 4th attempt to delve into social networking. It followed Google Buzz, Google Friend Connect and Orkut. Prior to its launch though, Google first referred to it as Google Circles. This name alludes to how they wanted to emphasize organizing friendship information.

Previously, Google was known for epic failures in their attempt to enter and succeed in social networks. This time is a whole new ball game and nothing like previous attempts. In fact, one could say that based on the excellent success of the Google+ platform, Google has apparently learned a great deal from their previous failed attempts and is now able to apply those lessons towards the impressive success of this new attempt.

Features

The main point of using Google+ is to get yourself out there. Whether it’s connecting with people from all over the globe, sharing everyday insights, photos and videos or keeping updated with events, Google+ makes it all possible with the following features:

• Profile

By creating a profile on Google+, users get to show a little of themselves to the world. Profiles help make it easier to search and connect with friends, relatives and other users. A Google+ profile shall serve as a representation of how a user would want to appear across Google+ or within the Google+ community.

Google+ is also greatly enhanced because it is also possible to create a business profile for branding and marketing. Not only that but Google+ has provided amazing interconnectivity between elements such as Google+, Communities, Personal Profile-Business profile, Google search engine, YouTube, Google Partners, your websites and more!

• Circles

Google+ allows users to control who they would like to share their updates with and whose updates they would want to see. Google+ members have the option to broadcast their posts either to the world, or exclusively keep their conversations private. Google+ circles is such an amazing concept because it gives you extremely precise control over how you organize and share to all of your varied connections.

Google+ circles give precise controls

• Communities

Google+ users have the option to be part of public communities where they can create conversations about topics they are interested in. But of course, there are also private communities users can join to connect only with just a few people.

Of every element of the Google+ platform I would submit that the communities are the brightest shining star of all. The communities are vibrant groups where you can join in and participate with other users who have similar interests.

Join or create a vibrant social community

• Photo Sharing

Photos uploaded on Google+ are accessible from all types of devices. They are enhanced automatically to look better for sharing. This platform has been demonstrating very impressive statistics for user photo uploads.

• Hangouts

Connect with people across computers, Apple or Android devices and bring conversations to life with Hangouts. This feature allows photo-sharing, messaging with emojis and group video calling for free!

After the communities, I feel that the hangouts are the 2nd brightest star of any of the Google+ elements. This feature is simply profound for use as a very sophisticated collaboration tool and on top of that it is very cross-platform friendly.

Google+ hangouts are a sophisticated collaboration tool

• Google+ Follow Button

The Google+ follow button allows Google+ pages to be linked to sites. Users will be able to get more recommendations for their sites and at the same time grow their audience on Google+. Google+ has made available a highly advanced and full featured selection of API’s which allows for full integration and connectivity of all features of G+ into your website and other social platforms.

Google+ provides every API imaginable

Why People Use Google+

Three of Google+’s main strengths are communities, photography and the easy-to-use Hangout feature. About 1.5 billion photos get uploaded on the website every week! As such, Google has continued updating their “social layer” to stand out in these 3 areas.

In addition, having Google+ followers can boost search engine ranking and could be considered as a potent form of search engine optimization. A +1 does a lot more for search ranking than Twitter or Facebook and so there is a serious need to fully understand the value of this network in order to gain full benefit.

Site Statistics

While even as a private beta, Google+ was able to rake in at least 10 million users just 2 weeks after its launch. Within a month, user count surged up to 25 million and in October 2011, this increased to 40 million!

By the end of 2011, some 50 million Google+ accounts existed. Currently, there are 540 million active users of Google+ across Google Properties and some 300 million in Google+ Stream. From any perspective these are simply staggering statistics that cannot be ignored or brushed aside.

Reported in February 2012, while Facebook users spend an average of 7 hours on the social website per month, Google+ users spend only about 3.3 minutes per month on Google+. In May 2013, the duration increased to 7 minutes, not including traffic via apps. As time moves forward we anticipate that user engagement statistics will greatly improve.

Future Trend

Google+ is not only geared to provide opportunities of meeting new people. It is also now being used by professionals and businesses to connect with their clients or deepen relationships with consumers.

With the mobile application available, as well as many Google apps and properties requiring users to sign up for an account, the Google+ community is expected to further grow in the coming years.

We sincerely do not anticipate that Google+ will become the next Facebook as far as being a personal person to person network. Based on current observations is seems much more likely that Google+ is headed down a different path and is destined to more closely resemble the user base of LinkedIn than Facebook.

We predict that Google+ will evolve into a huge and powerful social network that is more used for business and professional purposes than for personal use but only time will tell.

Conclusion

Meet new people, easily connect with long lost relatives or friends, boost your search engine ranking, and easily comment on YouTube by signing yourself up with Google+. It’s indeed a social website that offers more than just social networking but business engagements too.

If you have been ignoring this network our suggestion is that you do so at your own peril. This network has grown so large so quickly that our position is that it simply cannot be ignored. The longer you wait to build your base here, the more you are going to miss out on all the valuable benefits.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions concerning Google+ you are invited to post those here in this discussion. Also, if you would like to share with us your personal profile, business profile or community we would be interested in that discussion as well.

If you are interested in social networking at Google Plus you are more than welcome to connect to (circle) our Google+ business page.

Also, if you’re interested in reading or sharing interesting content about social media topics we would like to invite you to participate in our Google+ community.

If you are active at Google+ or have an interesting community there feel free to add a link to your profile or community page in the comments section below.

If you’re still wondering why you should consider Google+ take a minute to watch the clever video below…

What is Google+ (Google Plus) and do I need it? | Video Summary: Google Plus is Google’s new social network. But why start a Google Plus account when you already have a Facebook account? Well, Facebook was developed on the premise that everyone is your “friend” which isn’t how your social circles work in real life. Google plus is built so that you can intuitively break up all your connections into “circles” and treat each circle separately. (Facebook allows you to do some of the same things but the privacy settings are confusing and constantly changing.)

Google Plus has a lot of slick features, but the biggest reason to open a Google Plus account is that if you use a lot of Google products you will inevitably get one some day.