Google+ has shed its invite-only status, and is now open to all in public beta. That’d be a bigger deal if the service wasn’t already open to anyone with a Google account, and if existing members didn’t each have 150 additional invites to hand out.
The real news here is about Google+ Hangouts, which began as a 10-way video calling service but is now showing grander aspirations.
So young, so promising. It was in its prime, and stood to reap the rewards of all of Facebook’s flaws—and in a weird twist, made Facebook copy Google+ for some of its newest “changes.”
But the fact of the matter is, public posts on Google+ have decreased 41 percent since the social networking service launched a few months ago. Even Larry Page, you know – Google’s CEO – last updated one month ago. And I thought something was wrong with me when I forced myself to post something on Google+ so my friends didn’t think I’d virtually disappeared.
Too many services from too many big Web sites have the same monikers.
Pay no attention to the first person on this list of techies to follow on Google+, as compiled by TechRepublic’s Jason Hiner. But the rest of his choices are worth your attention.
Back in February of 2010, Google announced that it was giving up on Google Gears, its neat-but-ultimately-unsatisfying technology that helped make Web services work even when the Web wasn’t available. The company said that it made more sense to concentrate on using HTML5 technologies to build offline capabilities into its Web apps. And now it’s done so, with offline-capable versions of Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs.
Somebody annoying you enough in your Google+ feed (Robert Scoble, maybe? Just kidding, buddy!) that you’d rather not read their incessant posts? Are you not doing anything because you think blocking them is just a bit too harsh? Well, the fine folks at Google have added a new feature to the social networking service just for you.
Now available is the “Ignore” option. Rather than blocking people from seeing and interacting with you and vice versa, it will remove their posts from your stream and disable notifications on their posts. What it won’t do is prevent them from seeing or interacting with your content however.
This seems like a useful feature for the celebrities that Google is now trying to attract to Plus. They can ignore those overzealous fan that’s just a bit too obnoxious. The best thing about Ignore is the ignored person isn’t notified, so no hard feelings.
Ignore is rolling out now so it may not immediately be available to you, but when it is you’ll be able to access the option through one of the following: from your circles themselves, by clicking on the down-arrow drop down to the right of the post in the streams, or from the notifications window in the Google bar.
When the Google +1 button first appeared, it really had only one purpose and that had to do with search. As you +1’d stuff around the Web, all it would really do is highlight pages you recommend to your circle of friends on Google’s search results.
That was before Google+. Now, the +1 button can do much more, and the company realizes this. The feature will act a lot more like Facebook’s “Like” button: when you +1 something, it will now appear in your stream to be viewable to allow your followers.
I should mention that on your Google +profile, there has always been a +1 tab where your +1’s (as long as you were logged in to the account you have a Google+ profile with) were stored. It’s buried, though, and I’m willing to bet many didn’t even realize it was there.
Just like the “Like” button, the new +1 button will allow you to comment on what you’re +1’ing. It will also allow you to select who you want to share it with, a feature Facebook recently added to its own offering.
It’s good to see that Google is making these changes . I guess you could call it the natural progression for the +1 button as social sharing becomes more important to Google in light of Google+’s dramatic gains in popularity.
Get ready for a big smartphone battle in October, when Google’s Nexus Prime Android phone is rumored to lock horns with Apple’s iPhone 5.
The Nexus Prime will reportedly run Android Ice Cream Sandwich, which will merge Google’s smartphone and tablet operating systems into a single version of software. Like previous “Nexus” phones, we can assume that the Nexus Prime will run a pure version of Android with no custom user interfaces from the phone maker and no bloatware from wireless service providers.
And the hardware, according to the Korean-language Electronic Times (via Boy Genius Report), will be beastly. Rumored specs include a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and a 4.5-inch display with 1280-by-720 resolution. Samsung is reportedly the manufacturer, although Nexus phones are Google-branded.
More Google/Motorola musings: SplatF’s Dan Frommer names winners and losers.
The Business Insider’s Henry Blodget thinks the Google-Motorola deal is bold but troubling:
Yes, there’s a chance that Google could pull off a miracle here and transform the Motorola Mobility business into a direct competitor of Apple’s–in which Google gets not only Android distribution, but super-fat iPhone-like profit margins to boot.
But doing that will be super-challenging. Motorola’s current hardware team has displayed none of the magic that Apple’s has. And the more Google tries to mimic that magic, the more Google’s other Android partners will likely rebel against Google’s competitive threat.
