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V-BIZ!
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SOUTH WALES
Allan Blair Beaton talks about Google+
Here we go again! Another social
media tool that is supposed to be
the next 'big thing'. Google+ is the latest social media innovation for staying more connected and having more control of your information.
It makes your life easier by adding some new ways of filtering the information you receive as well as the information you share. Do you use Google, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Earth etc? Well, maybe you might want to have a look. This is what I have found so far.
What is Google+?
Google+ is actually a series of tools to help you stay connected with the people you care about and it includes a suite of comprehensive social tools to make your life easier and they're called Circles, Hangouts, Huddle, and Sparks.
Google+ Circles
One of the really powerful things about the Google plus project is its ability to manage your social circle. One of the challenges with Facebook is that anyone of your friends with can see anything you put on your wall. So it's almost an all or nothing kind of thing. The problem with this, is that in reality you share different kinds of information with the many different social circles in which you travel. It's all about the way we relate to people. In the real world you relate different kinds of information to your family that you do not with your friends or co-workers.
The bottom line is you want to share the right information with the right people, and make it very easy to do so. Google's website says "Circles make it easy to put your friends from Saturday night in one circle, your parents in another, and your boss in a circle by himself - just like real life". While Facebook does offer lists - my personal experience so far is that Google Circles simply make it easier to control your sharing. Easy is still a good thing right?
Google+ Hangouts
One of the biggest things on the horizon for many social media companies is the ability to connect with people via video. Hangouts is where that happens on Google+. This one feature alone will blow most people away, as you will now be able to hang out with up to 10 of your friends in a video chat room. Where they have added more value is that they made it extremely easy to do this, so you don't have to be a 'geek'. So, gone are the days of endlessly texting back and forth. Now you can let your buddies know you're hanging out and they can drop by and chat with you face-to-face up to 10 at a time.
Google+ Sparks
Every one of us today is suffering from information overload. Many of us receive 100 or more e-mails every single day. It all gets kind of overloading. Google+ Sparks is sort of like your personal assistant who sits through all of your incoming articles and video feeds online so you really only get the information you wanted to watch read or share.
Google+ Huddle
Texting has always been an amazing way to interact with busy people, but there's a problem when you're trying to communicate with multiple people at the same time. It gets very hectic texting back and forth several people at a time trying to make sure everybody stays up to date.
Huddle is the Google+ answer to keeping everyone in the loop via text. If you're trying to get six friends to decide on which movie to watch, huddle groups all those conversations into one chat on one page and you can do it directly from your Android or iPhone.
Google+ Instant Upload
We all love to take pictures on our phone. It's an amazing convenience when you consider that you rarely have your camera with you at the right moment, but you almost always have your phone to take a quick picture. Where many of us are challenged is when it comes to being able to take those photos off of our phone and share them with other people. For many it's a technical nightmare or at the least it isn't any fun. When was the last time that you got 'stuck' trying to upload photos due to some ridiculous technical glitch? Instant upload gives you an incredibly easy way to share your photos and videos to your own private Google+ album. Then you just decide which circles to share with.
Final Thoughts
Google+ represents some of the latest ways that Google is going social. But it's not just about adding another "Me Too" kind of social network. They are truly innovating the way it all works and making our lives easier. To me it represents many of the reasons Google owns the internet world. They deliver what people want and they make it easy to do. If everyone is trying to rank as high on page one of Google as possible, would it not be a good idea to engage here too?
More in the next issue as we see how City Life gets on with Google+. In the meantime if you'd like to like City Life on Facebook go to www.facebook.com/citylifecardiff
Allan Blair Beaton
All social media sites are
@AllanBBeaton
www.social-b2b.com
To ask Allan a question, please tweet using hash tag #askallan or ‘like’ his Facebook page |
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