Google+

Start Google Plus is a great extension for Chrome and Firefox that lets you update Twitter and Facebook from within Google+, also adding feeds from both social networks onto your main page. We mentioned it in our Facebook to Google+ migration guide, but felt it deserved to be highlighted on its own because it's so useful.

To get started, you just download the extension and install it like any other, then log into Google+ and authorize both your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Once you've done that, you'll see your Twitter stream and Facebook news feed show up in your Google+ feed. This is really great if you want to go to a single location for all your updates, but if it's too much in one place you can always just turn it off. What's really useful is the ability to post status updates to all three services directly from Google+.

Strength:
Finally got basic social networking features right by hiring seasoned staff, mainly cloning what’s worked for other social networks. Legacy of building scalable systems, nearly unlimited amount of resources, existing advertising, analytics, and ad buying network.

Weakness
Lack of integration with other Google systems, existing feature set limited and not compelling enough for mainstream users to set up camp on yet another social network. Significantly behind Facebook and Twitter’s global reach.

Opportunity
Integrate with all Google features also including search (which would spur on brand adoption, and ‘free’ marketing), email (The first social network) applications platform (they already have a thriving developer community)

Threats
Feature war: Facebook has ability to enable search features and can blow out their inbox features since they have the developer chops from Friendfeed, Gmail team. Secondly, Google+’s features are status quo, that enable email platforms to quickly catch up.

Strategy: Five Ways Google+ Can Become Mainstream:

1) Comment Management Features
2) Integrate Search Tools
3) Enable an Applications Platform
4) Launch Brand Pages (no, really)
5) Integrate Google+ into Search Engine Results Pages

Google plus occupe le devant de la scène depuis une semaine. Tout le monde ne parle plus que de cela. Chacun y va de son analyse, de son conseil, de ses louanges. Il faut dire que pour tout ceux qui sont réfractaires à Facebook, il n'existait jusqu'à maintenant aucune alternative crédible. C'est désormais le cas. L'effet de nouveauté et l'impression d'appartenir au cercle fermé des early adopters y est forcément pour quelque chose. Reste à voir si l'effet durera dans le temps, c’est une autre question... De nombreuses astuces d'utilisation ont été publiées un peu partout, notamment pour aider les gens souhaitant faire le switch entre Facebook et Google plus. Plutôt que de faire 15 billets par jour sur la question, nous avons choisi de vous réunir les meilleurs conseils et astuces dans cette liste, en vous renvoyant vers des articles plus complets. Bonne découverte !

These short video clips show you how to send direct messages, manage your privacy and more on Google+.

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]

With Google+ fast becomes the newest online craze, now hosting nearly 20 million users with 2.2 million of those joining in a mere 32 hours, it seems imperative that you not only join, but you quickly learn how to use the thing too. With Circles, Sparks, Hangouts and the + symbol everywhere you look, it can be slightly daunting.

However, after a couple of wanders around the site you can quickly get to grips with the basic tasks and seemingly take part in all Google+ has to offer. So listed here a number of key tips, tricks and hints to help you get the most out of starting afresh with Google+.

1. Finding Google+
2. Creating a Circle
3. Hiding People You Have Added in Circles
4. Tagging someone in a Post
5. Changing your Profile Picture
6. Adding New Interests to Sparks
7. Start/Join a Hangout
8. Adding someone
9. Finding your Facebook Friends
10. Changing your URL

Google+ keeps a record of all the web pages that you have marked as +1. It means that you can use this feature of Google PLUS as a bookmarks. And the best part is that you can now export Google +1 links as bookmarks.

Yes, it means that you can take all the links that you marked as +1 and use them as your bookmarks for the web browser that you use. We would be guiding you step by step to do this.

To do this, we would be accessing Google Takeout which is actually a service which lets you save data from Google products

There click on the Choose Services tab and then click on the Google + 1 service so that it saves all the links of +1 pages

Now, click on the Create Archive button which would actually pile up all your +1 links into a package where you get to use them as bookmarks

And then click on the Download button which would ask for your verification. Once done, it will download the zip archive on your computer which could be used by you the way you want

For those relatively new to Google plus, this post will help you navigate, adding friends (fast), circles, security, search engines, and more. Read. Learn. Connect.

Pour faire suite au billet de Korben hier sur la requête idéale pour fouiller dans Google+, voici quelques syntaxes de requêtes utiles sur Google. Bien sûr, ce n’est pas parfait (comme pour toutes les BdD indexées par les moteurs), mais çà peut donner davantage de résultats que sur un moteur dédié comme GPlusSearch .

Six tips for using Google+ now that will help you understand your profile, Circles, Hangouts, sharing, privacy, and measuring traffic to your web properties.

It’s no secret. I like Google+ a lot. Lot of people love Google’s new social network. But, I think it noteworthy when someone like Steve Kille, a former Senior Research Fellow at University College London and one of Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)’s authors writes, “Google+ is very impressive. I reckon Facebook is toast.”

Kille, CEO of Isode, a high-performance messaging and directory server software company, has been helping design the Internet’s communication infrastructure from its very easy days. He knows what he’s talking about.

In his blog for Ferris Research, a leading e-mail and Internet communications research firm, Kille explained that he saw Google+ eventually killing off Facebook for numerous reasons.

These reasons included: Google Plus‘ “integration with other Google services [which] will be a key strategic advantage, that Facebook will not be able to match.”

He makes a good point. Google already has, for example, a sophisticated e-mail system, Gmail, and a Voice and Video over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Google Chat. Facebook, on the other hand, is discovering that integrating Skype for VoIP into Facebook is easier said than done. Just today, August 1st, a major Skype/Facebook security hole has been reported.

...

Guy Kawasaki shares his favorite features of Google+.

1. It’s magnificent competition for Twitter and Facebook

2. You can edit your posts and comments after publishing them.

3. Pictures are large and visible—not thumbnails or merely links.

4. Amassing followers is an even playing field.

5. The community writes Chrome extensions to fix shortcomings.

6. When you block someone, you’re really getting rid of the bastard.

7. When you mention people, they are likely to get notification - you’re not just hoping they see the mention.

8. No one has asked me to circle them yet compared to the dozens of requests that I get every day on Twitter.

9. It’s fun to watch Google smack down people who violate its terms of use.

10. Watching Robert Scoble post is like watching Joshua Bell play the violin.

11. It shows that Apple is one social-media phenomenon behind.

12. It illustrates the power of perseverance: Google+ is to Buzz what Macintosh is to Lisa.

The irony that Mark Zuckerberg has the most followers on Google+ cracks me up every time I check the statistics.

Have you ever thought of searching the most trending or popular posts on Google+? Well Google+ has the option to search for people but they lack this special feature of searching the popular posts. Since Google+ is a new kid on the block, there certain features those are yet to come, till that time the third party sites and applications are there to help us. In case you ever want to search for the popular posts on Google+, the ‘site:’ search operator is there to help you.

Here’s a simple trick. Go to Google.com and type the following:

site:plus.google.com inurl:posts 30..2000 shares

Google will display all those posts shared from 30- 2000 times and those were the most popular ones. Now if you want to change the sharing range numbers from 30- 2000 to something more like 50- 5000, Google will display all posts shared that many times.

Google+’s increasing popularity has made developers create more and more apps and themes based on the social networking site. We had covered some awesome Windows 7 themes based on Google+. Wallpapers always spice up your desktop and if you are a fan of Google+, here are some awesome wallpapers. These are created by Deviantart users and all credits to the author/developer of the wallpaper. Click on the wallpaper to download them.

Few days back we had covered a desktop notifier for Google+ which will notify you of new updates or notifications on your Google+ account. This freeware tool, G+ Notifier, has been updated with new feature and includes a desktop version of Google+. With the new version of G+ Notifier you can use it as a desktop client for Google+. The application is portable and does not require any installation and it works from the system tray.

Several high profile users were shut off from the service for violating the Google+ common name policy. In response, Google has added warnings prior to suspension, but is sticking to its name policy.

If you’re ready to join Google+, learn how you can incorporate an alternate name without risking your account.

Google+ is all the rage right now. Even under its limited-invite "field trial" phase, the social sharing service is growing in leaps and bounds, with oodles of new users joining every day and even more champing at the bit to get in.

Most of us, however, are only beginning to scratch the surface of what Google+ can do; like many Google products, G+ is brimming with advanced features and untapped tweaks. That's why I decided to put together this massive list of Google+ tips and tricks. It includes some of the best power-user pointers I've found both from my own experimentation and from following some really smart folks in the Google+ universe.

Get the most out of Google's new social network with these 40 awesome tips and tricks.

Organizing your circles in Google+ can be the most confusing part of the new social network. Yet people are learning to embrace and even optimize their circles for better productivity, filtering and privacy.

We spoke with some Google+ mavericks about how they’ve corralled their circles to be more effective. Below, they share their clever tricks and best practices so you can learn from both their mistakes and their successes.

Google+ has only been active for a month, and tech enthusiasts can’t seem to get enough of it. While Google is still trying to figure out exactly how to approach social correctly, the network has built enough buzz to attract a reported 20 million users. While this doesn’t compare to Facebook’s staggering 750 million users or Twitter’s sizable 200 million users, those networks have been around much longer.

Several of us on the VentureBeat staff have immersed ourselves into the Google+ ecosystem to see what it has to offer. Thus far we’ve come to generally enjoy the service and noticed a few strengths it has over Facebook and Twitter, especially in the realms of privacy and video chat.

Here are five features we’ve seen that we like in Google+ more than Facebook and Twitter:enough buzz to attract a reported 20 million users.

1. Circles
2. Hangouts
3. Mobile capabilities
4. Data downloading
5. Sparks

The Complete Google+ Cheatsheet Infographic

We are just getting warmed up with Google+, and some people claim to master it already. Well, I honestly think that is a little bit too soon to announce to the world since the service hasn’t been up very long, and things are still being implemented, changed and refined. Personally, I haven’t gotten passed all the features about the circles. Some of them are not easy to use without reading about them first. The primary thing we want in a new social media service is a simple user interface and a straight forward use.

Techno Streak knows this, and they have spent a little time compiling the most important user shortcuts to manage your social media fix a little faster and easier over at Google+. They turned the information into a really useful cheatsheet for everyone to download. I am sure we will see more features pop up in the near future that will make the whole thing not only more user friendly but also more addicting.

Si vous n’avez pas encore créé un compte sur Google+ je vous suggère de le faire. C’est probablement la plateforme sociale de l’heure. Pourquoi maintenant, par ce que si les médias sociaux vous intéressent c’est l’occasion de découvrir une nouvelle communauté qui s’établit et qui cherche à faire évoluer cette plateforme.

La semaine dernière, je vous proposais quelques astuces qui facilitent l’utilisation de Google+. En voici cinq autres.

Utilisez les «Cercles» comme outil de veille (filtrage de contenu)
Repositionnez vos Cercles
Affichez toujours votre Cercle favori
Décidez qui peut vous inviter dans une Clique (Huddle)

Google+, le nouveau média social de Google connaît une croissance phénoménale. Tout près de 20 millions d’utilisateurs se seraient inscrits ces dernières semaines. À mon avis, c’est l’un des réseaux sociaux les plus intéressants. Loin de l’échec de Buzz, le dernier né des services de Google semble avoir le vent dans les voiles. Si vous débutez sur Google Plus, je vous propose ici quelques astuces qui vous aideront peut-être :

Comment faire une recherche sur Google+?
Masquez les informations concernant les abonnements et les abonnés
Obtenez le lien URL d’une publication publique
Envoyer un message privé
Caractères gras, Italique et mot barré
Utiliser un cercle vide pour créer vos brouillons et tester les fonctionnalités

Google Plus has been the latest buzz online. For those who are not aware, Google+ is the latest project of Google which connects and links all the pages of Google (and Google profiles). In simple words, it is Google’s answer to Facebook. Users can share photos, videos, locations and their “Status Updates”. But searching for particular profiles may become a little cumbersome. So, we introduce you to FindPeopleOnPlus.com, an initiative started to search “Specific” profiles on Google+.

It works as an online Yellow pages directory exclusive for Google+ profiles. Now, the first question that came to my mind when I heard of this web site was, “Why would Google need search engine?”. Well, searches are refined more refined on FindPeopleOnPlus. Users can search for people based on name, location, profession and much more. To give you an idea of this ‘much more’, you can search for people based ‘relationship status’, ‘following’, ‘followers’, ‘profession’ and even ‘country’, besides search based on ‘gender’.

In response to user feedback, Google has launched a new section of the Google+ center dedicated to Google+ feature updates.

The “What’s new in Google+” section is essentially a list of release notes for the Google+ Project. The updates are smaller than Google’s traditional blog posts, but longer than most of its Help Center pages. It’s a centralized location for finding out what new features Google has added to its social network.

Most of the “posts” include YouTube video explanations about the feature updates (recorded by Googlers), along with a link to the Google+ post where the feature was announced. The search giant is clearly trying to eat its own dog food when it comes to Google+.

Google+ vous semble un peu terne, pas assez personnel ? Avec une extension pour Chrome appelée Layouts for Google Plus on peut y placer l’image de fond de son choix ou choisir parmi celles qui ont été partagées par les autres utilisateurs.

A vous les paysages de montagne, les couchers de soleil, la photo de belle maman, les exploits du petit dernier…

Une fois l’extension installée il faut choisir une image dans la bibliothèque, pas toujours du meilleur goût et souvent peu adaptée au background de G+, ou y mettre l’image de son choix en cliquant sur le bouton Upload a background image.

Google+ Plus icons can be used on blogs and websites to link to Google+ Plus profile and can also used in creating Google plus Wallpapers. Here we have compiled a list of 20 best Google+ Plus Icons package for webmasters

In Google+, one of the main activities we perform is finding people of interest to follow. In this graphic to the left, I started following journalists and news professionals based on a great list that I found at Muck Rack (hat tip +Steve Garfield). This will prove to be great, because I’ll get to learn what they’re doing with Google+, figure out what has their attention, and also, it never hurts to know some reporters and journalists.
...

Some Ways to Get Circled By People You Follow

Comment with meaningful and useful information or ideas. Someone shared a link to a related video to one that I had posted, and I found it useful, so I circled them back.
Share and add commentary to posts of that person, explaining why you find it interesting. Everyone loves a little boost of promotion.
Comment with relevant links to your own work, if it makes sense.
Have a well filled-out profile. The better your profile, the more likely someone is to want to connect with you.
Post interesting things worth seeing, should this person decide to look at what you’ve shared publicly.

Beyond that, that’s all you can do to hope to get some connectivity with those who you’ve chosen to circle.

La gestion des contacts dans les Cercles est une des fonctionnalités de Google+ qui fait son intérêt, mais aussi une des plus délicates à gérer. Passé l'émerveillement et l'amusement du début, il faut bien avouer que l'on se retrouve bien désarmé devant les possibilités offertes par cet outil.Quelques idées pour en tirer le meilleur :

Although it’s only been in existence for a month, we’ve seen a number of Google+-related websites and services spring up across the web.

From directories where you can find new Plussers, to sites that will show you the hottest posts and even resources that will help you get more out of the service, we’ve rounded up 15 fab online destinations. As you might expect from such a fledgling service, some of the sites are a work-in-progress, but we’re bookmarking them in the hope they will develop into useful resources.

Après avoir d’abord campé sur ses positions, Google a fini par répondre à la colère des utilisateurs dont les comptes Google+ ont été bloqués au prétexte qu’ils n’utilisaient pas leur véritable nom et prénom.

Dans un message publié sur le réseau social, Bradley Horowitz, le vice-président produit pour Google+, a tout d’abord fait un petit mea culpa. Il a reconnu que de « nombreuses violations de la politique des noms de Google+ étaient en fait bien intentionnées et involontaires » et que le processus mis en place peut sembler « frustrant et décevant ».

Horowitz a ensuite annoncé une série de mesures destinées à rectifier le tir.

Pour commencer, finies les suspensions systématique lorsqu’un compte est identifié par un pseudonyme. Les utilisateurs recevront un avertissement et seront dirigés vers une page leur expliquant comment modifier leur profile pour se mettre en conformité avec les règles de Google+.

Ensuite, le processus d’inscription sera amélioré afin d’aider les nouveaux membres à ne pas commettre d’erreur dans ce domaine.

Et enfin, Google a trouvé un compromis pour permettre aux personnes de se servir d’un surnom, d’un nom de jeune fille ou tout autre « nom alternatif ». Ils pourront ajouter ces noms de substitution dans la section « autres noms » présente dans le profil Google+.
Pour finir, Google a promis d’autoriser le recours aux pseudonymes sans toutefois donner de délai.

Not crazy about Google's design choices for Google+? Using scripts for Greasemonkey, Extensions for Chrome, Firefox Add-ons, and other browser plug-ins, you can make some pretty wild changes to the look and feel of the site. You can also take a more utilitarian route and take advantage of code that can translate posts from directly within Google+ or port all your Facebook photos to Google+ Photo (i.e., Picasa), where storage is virtually unlimited if you have a Google+ account (photos 2048 x 2048 pixels and smaller don't count toward your 1GB allowance).

Check out these 16 scripts and tools that modify or enhance Google+

Grâce au plugin "Start Google Plus" pour Firefox, chacun de vos posts sur votre compte Google Plus pourra être diffusé en même temps sur Twitter et sur Facebook.

De plus, vous pourrez suivre vos flux Twitter et Facebook directement depuis votre page Google Plus! (ceci dit, le flux Facebook ne s'affiche pas chez moi...peut-être est-ce temporaire...?)
Après l'installation du plugin, il faut vous identifier sur vos différents comptes en permettant à Google Plus d'accéder aux autres réseaux sociaux.

The meteoric launch of Google+ (20-million users in less than 3 weeks) can be seen as the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes of such failures as Buzz and Wave – the word ‘Circles’ immediately comes to mind here. Users are invited to collaborate with whomever they want to include and those who are excluded are oblivious to it, that’s quite a nifty way to manage the message socially. This form of ‘targeted sharing’ is in keeping with their core money-spinner, Adwords, too. More on that later though.

What we can confirm via Joseph Smarr is that Google+’s backend is built mostly using BigTable and Colossus/GFS and that they use a lot of other common Google technologies such as MapReduce which many other Google applications do. What this means, in the bigger scheme of things, is that Google+ isn’t a Facebook killer – it’s a social media game changer, and here’s where some imaginative integration speculation can spice things up:

Google+ and Docs = collaborative publishing on the fly
Google+ and Youtube = exponential video sharing
Google+ and Latitude = Foursquare killer
Google+ and Translate = a true social media Babel fish
Google+ and Sites = Facebook Fan page killer
Google+ and Adwords = a viable, trackable and ROI effective monetisation model for social mediaIn

In the bigger scheme of things, Google+ is Google’s Chocolate Factory when it comes to being the one-stop shop for all of their amazing (yet currently disparate) peripheral applications. Given a bit more time, these wild speculations could be the death knell for some of the more favoured social media entities.

Pour ceux qui twittent trop ou ceux qui suggèrent d'autres utilisateurs sur le réseau Twitter connaissent surement l'application FollowFriday qui vous permet de partager les utilisateurs que vous aimez pendant toute une semaine de manière à les suggérer et leur rendre service en les faisant plus connaitre. Le même principe est désormais disponible pour le nouveau réseau Google+, peut on donc parlé déjà d'un but à zéro dans les filets de Facebook?

En effet j'aime bien cette option sur Twitter et je l'aimerai surement sur Google plus puisque c'est une application qui renforce la relation entre les utilisateurs en reconnaissant leur effort. Circle Sunday est crée pour la même raison et plus encore parce que celle-ci renforcera de vraies relations entre les utilisateurs qui utilisent leur vrai nom.

As it rolls out its Google+ social network, Google has been cracking down on its requirement that users have "real" names, just as Facebook has -- but are we losing something valuable as a society as a result of this stamping out of online anonymity?
...

As a number of users have pointed out, Google and Facebook aren’t just focused on requiring real names because they want to improve behavior on their networks — there is also a very real interest on their part in being able to build a profile of a user for advertising and marketing purposes as well. And more than one user of Google+ has raised concerns that Google’s crackdown on pseudonyms or fake names has apparently resulted in users being blocked from using any of Google’s various services, including email, because their profile is tied to all of the company’s other products.

L’originalité majeure de Google+ par rapport à bien des réseaux sociaux existants (Facebook, Viadeo, LinkedIn, etc.) est la suivante : il n’est pas nécessaire d’avoir des relations mutuelles (« je suis ton ami, tu es mon ami« ) avec les personnes que l’on suit, ou qui nous suive. Un élève peut tout à fait suivre le flux d’information d’un enseignant sans que ce dernier n’accède à ses données personnelles. La question « faut-il être ami Facebook avec ses étudiants ? » n’a ainsi pas lieu d’être dans le cas de Google+.

Même sans avoir atteint sa version finale, l’outil s’avère très agréable d’utilisation. Épuré, il permet de créer très facilement des « cercles« , autrement dit des ensembles de personnes avec lesquelles on va pouvoir partager telle ou telle information, et ainsi renforcer les interactions entre les personnes.

Quel est l’intérêt de Google+ par rapport aux autres réseaux ? En quelques mots : une grande facilité d’accès et de ciblage de l’information délivrée. Et aucune contrainte en termes de nombre de caractères (force – et limite ! – de Twitter, comme de Facebook).

La concurrence, comme le Prix Nobel d’économie Friedrich Hayek l’avait fait valoir jadis, est un processus de découverte à travers lequel les entreprises apprennent ce que leurs clients veulent et les clients apprennent quelles sortes de produits et de fonctionnalités servent aux mieux leurs besoins.

Une partie de ce qui a conduit Google à créer un concurrent était la conviction que Facebook ne proposait pas certaines fonctionnalités, ou que celles-ci étaient mal conçues, et que les fournir de manière compétente pourrait attirer le public.

La plus évidente de ces fonctionnalités sont les « cercles » de Google+, qui donnent aux utilisateurs un contrôle plus facile et plus précis sur quels amis voient ou ne voient pas les éléments particuliers que les premiers souhaitent partager.

La « beauté » de la concurrence, c’est qu’elle nous permet de trouver ce que les gens veulent. Les dirigeants de Google ne sont pas certains que les utilisateurs préfèrent les « cercles », bien qu’ils soient assez confiants pour lancer le logiciel.

La seule façon avec laquelle ils sauront à coup sûr est le test du marché : les différences avec Facebook seront-elles suffisamment attractives pour que les gens rejoignent Google+ ? Il est également intéressant de noter que ce n’est pas un choix exclusif : simplement parce que vous pensez que Google+ est mieux ne signifie pas que vous avez à renoncer à Facebook. Il est possible qu’ils se révèlent être des compléments et non des substituts. Certaines personnes boivent du Coke et du Pepsi.

Ayant capté le marché en grande partie pour lui-même depuis si longtemps, Facebook aurait très bien pu devenir insensible aux besoins des utilisateurs. La capacité de Google de créer un concurrent significatif est ce qui va forcer Facebook à innover, même si Google+ échoue dans le long terme.

So Google+ obviously has some traction. Just a few weeks after its launch, Google CEO Larry Page revealed that the nascent social network already had 10 million users. But will it ultimately blow up enough -- and matter enough -- to become a problem for Facebook? Yeah, I think so. (Ad Age Managing Editor Ken Wheaton isn't so sure.) Here's why:

1. THE POWER OF METAPHORS.
2. GOOGLE+ IS A PURPOSE-BUILT ANNEX, NOT NEW CONSTRUCTION.
3. GOOGLE+ IS A CHANCE FOR A SOCIAL-MEDIA DO-OVER.
4. FACEBOOK RAGE.
5. THE SOCIAL-MEDIA PORTABILITY PROBLEM IS OVERBLOWN.

Après avoir créé la polémique suite à la suspension de nombreux comptes de son réseau social, Google apaise les tensions. Deux hauts responsables ont répondu aux craintes des internautes directement via Google+, en expliquant que ces mesures servent avant tout à lutter contre le spam et les faux profils.

Contrairement à Facebook, Google+ n'accepte que les profils avec un prénom et un nom réel, sans ajout de suffixe et sans surnom. Tout profil suspect est suspendu voire même supprimé, ce qui a provoqué la colère de nombreux internautes.

Suite à de nombreuses plaintes, Google s'engage désormais à envoyer une notification avant la suspension éventuelle d'un compte, afin que l'internaute ait le temps de modifier son profil.
Dans un échange rendu public sur Google+ avec le célèbre blogueur américain Robert Scoble, Vic Gundotra (vice-président en charge du social chez Google) explique qu'il s'agit de suspendre du réseau toutes les personnes qui écrivent leurs noms d'une manière étrange, en y ajoutant un pseudo et des caractères spéciaux, ou qui utilisent un faux nom.

Voilà presque un mois que Google a lancé sa plateforme sociale Google+.

Après un mois d’utilisation, nous avons une vision un peu plus précise de ce qu’est Google+ et surtout de ce à quoi il va nous servir. Première chose importante : Google+ est très différent de Facebook et de Twitter, les autres plateformes sociales de référence (Google Plus, Facebook and Twitter compared in an infographic).

Je pense que Google+ est en fait beaucoup plus proche de FriendFeed que de n’importe qu’elle autre plateforme dans la mesure où l’on peut y faire beaucoup de choses, beaucoup plus de choses qu’avec les autres services : publication de messages courts et articles, partage de liens, photos et vidéos, checkins, recommandation de contenus…

Dans la pratique, je peux vous confirmer que Google+ est une plateforme très versatile où l’on peut avoir des interactions sociales très diversifiées dans un environnement productif et cohérent (notamment grâce à l’utilisation des cercles). Mais le plus important à mon sens est l’attention toute particulière qui est donnée aux contenus au travers des Sparks et qui fonctionne comme un redoutable levier concurrentiel (cf. 3 Reasons Why Relevant Content Matters).

Au final, la première impression que donne Google+ est la bonne : Ce n’est pas un réseau social, mais une plateforme sociale qui va servir à lier tous les services de google entre eux. Là où l’intérêt des réseaux sociaux augmente avec le nombre de membres, la valeur de Google augmentera avec le nombre de membres ET le nombre de services qui y seront greffés. Ça tombe bien, car Google offre de nombreux services dans sa Galaxie : Gmail, YouTube, Blogger, Maps, Picasa, Shopping, Music…

ManageFlitter is a “freemium” service that has introduced a new tool to make it easy to post your public Google+ postings to twitter! (That part of their service is currently free.)

It’s worth noting that updates will not be immediate – and may have a sizeable time delay – because Google has no official API and all scanning must by done “manually” by the tool. However, that doesn’t stop it from being awesome!

Simply visit ManageFlitter sign in via Twitter’s OAuth (secure) and allow it to scan your account. The tool actually does much more than what we are using it for and it’s worth checking out.

The service automatically (and reasonably quickly) grabbed my most recent publicly posted G+ status which let me know in fact working. Delay however has been present in other posts. It conveniently uses the http://goo.gl short url which I personally feel shows the destination as well as a better trust factor than a random bit.ly.

Il existe quantité d’applications pour savoir qui vous “unfriend” sur Facebook et qui vous “unfollow” sur Twitter. Il n’y a donc rien d’étonnant à ce que “GoogleMinus” soit apparue rapidement, effectuant exactement le même travail pour le nouveau réseau social de Google: elle vous indique qui vous a exclu de ses cercles Google+.

Car la matrice relationnelle de G+, qui s’apparente plus à celle de Twitter qu’à celle de Facebook dans la mesure où l’on peut suivre sans être suivi, donnera lieu aux mêmes susceptibilités (follow/no follow back/unfollow) et aux mêmes vices (follow/follow back/unfollow).

Cette application s’installe dans votre navigateur, disponible sous Chrome, Firefox et Safari. Elle est propulsée par la plateforme Kynetx qui fournit plusieurs autres applications spécifiquement dédiées à l’usage des réseaux sociaux.

Tous les réseaux sociaux ont en commun de pouvoir accéder aux informations qu’on y partage et aux relations qu’on y établit. Cette capacité à ingérer des quantités massives d’information et à nous « profiler » était intégrée. On essayait de la contrôler tant bien que mal en choisissant les informations qu’on publiait, ou non.

Cette paix armée vient d’être rompue.

Elle est rompue par la puissance de monitoring d’un réseau social qui connaît aussi mes activités « non sociales » comme par exemple mes recherches en ligne, mes amis blogueurs, les lecteurs de mon blog, les destinataires de mes mails, et qui maintenant connaît la structure profonde de mon réseau social et la nature des échanges qui s’y produisent.

Mais surtout, elle est rompue par la production par les autres d’un savoir constitué à mon insu, et sa maîtrise par Google. Un savoir dont je ne sais rien.

Je parle, naturellement, des cercles.

Google+ isn’t perfect. Far from it, in fact. But by that realization, we also have to understand that we don’t yet have a true definition of what “perfect” would be. In fact, I’d venture to say that we never will. Due simply to the fact that we as people are ever-changing, so too are our expectations. We’ve found things to scratch our itches (Twitter, Foursquare and other, more niche-oriented ideas do this) as they happen but we can never really tell when that next itch will come along.

The perfect social network will never exist because we as humans won’t let that happen. We refuse to be happy with “good enough” and that’s a very good thing. Because of this fact, we will always want more and better services, even if they’re only helping us to accomplish what we’ve already been doing for years. The companies that win in this endless race will be those that can spot the itches as they happen, then be ready to scratch them until the next one comes along.

Google’s fun new social network is clearly growing faster than expected and has problematic blind spots – and its Achilles’ Heel is NSFW content.

One thing’s for sure – the content restrictions on Google+ certainly make the social network safe for children.

But who is going to make it safe for adults?

I’m on Google+ with content that might be racier than most, sure – and I love Google+. A lot. But I know my way around Big Social and its failings with NSFW (Not Safe for Work) policies. And I can tell you that this situation isn’t going to end well.

Nothing tests the mettle of a social network like spammers, brands, hackers, trolls – and poor policies around content that is not safe for work.

No, I’m not talking about porn (for once). I’m talking about the huge amount of everything that falls between porn and G-rated (general, all ages) content.

Google+ has done something that I think is going to become a huge problem: they do not allow content they deem as not work-safe, yet have not put content controls in the hands of Plussers.

Without giving Google+ accounts the ability to self-rate photos, albums or posts, or the ability to opt-in or opt-out to safety levels, Google is laying the foundation for one community management crisis after another.

The big failing of all Big Social endeavors is not treating edgy content like any other kind of content - content that some people want to see and share, and some simply do not.

There are no girls on Google+.

That was the hyped conclusion circulating last week when word got around that almost 75% of Google+ users were men. Mashable even referred to the platform as a “sausagefest.” The numbers have shifted a bit at latest count and even the 75% figure is a drop from the 88% that GOOD dissected in a July 7 piece.

I only have one question : Does it matter?

Part FriendFeed, part Google Buzz, part Facebook, part Google.com and all of its properties, Google Plus represents a fresh approach to social engagement not seen at this level since the early days of Twitter. In the U.S., we have only a few top traditional TV networks, CBS, ABC, and NBC. In social networking, we now have a top three to compete for the online attention of not only Americans, but also the world–Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

For years it seemed that Google couldn’t grasp the human laws that govern social networking. The intentional and unintentional spectacles of exhilaration that launched Wave, Buzz and +1 showed the world that a culture of engineering is only part of the formula required for social networking. It would take a culture of sociology, ethnography and psychology to understand the dynamics of human behavior and package them into a meaningful service that real people would embrace. It would take a team of great minds such as Chris Messina and Paul Adams, a former user experience expert at Google to realize that to +1 Facebook or Twitter, would take a novel and human approach.

The number of users using Google’s new Google+ social network has climbed to over 10 million with more than 1 billion daily shares. It’s no big shock that cybercriminals–perhaps too easily caught on other social networking platforms such as Facebook–will pick Google+ as a new target. Should this give Google+ users a cause for concern?

The recent introduction of Google+ has been fodder for much Google-versus-Facebook discussion. At the center of the discussion has been the Circles component of Google+, which allows users to arrange their contacts in meaningful clusters (for example, “family” and “work”) and share different content with different clusters. Circles play a role that’s almost entirely analogous to Facebook’s lists, which have been around (if somewhat buried in the Facebook UI) for a long time. Facebook of course also has the notion of groups, separate from (and more recent than) lists. Here are some basic observations on lists, groups and circles that seem to have been glossed over in the various recent articles.

Une extension pour Chrome pour ajouter des options à Google+