Since the launch of Google+ back in July of last year, only adults over the age of 18 were allowed to sign up for an account. All that changed on Thursday when Google engineer Bradley Horowitz (Vice President Product Management for Google+) announced that Google+ is now officially open to teenagers!
In addition to this, new privacy and safety features have been implemented to make sure that teenagers will have a safe sharing environment.
From Bradley Horowitz’s post:
Whether you’re a critic or a fanboy (or girl), there’s no denying that Google+ is growing at a record pace. Based on last weeks announcement that they hit the 90 million user mark, it looks like they’re set to hit 100 million users in no time!
You may have seen the infographic that compared how quickly Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ reached a user base of 25 million. It gave a great visual of just how quickly Google’s new social network grew in it’s initial launch compared to the other networks. But, we here at GPlusTuts have a new infographic for you:
Now that Google+ has passed 90 million users, I decided to create an infographic that showed the timeline of how long it took the major networks to reach 100 million users. Now, being that Google+ has yet to officially reach 100 million users, this can only be a projection of what could happen. However, I’m confident it will be pretty spot-on.
Vic Gundotra (Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google) recently revealed that Google+ has now surpassed 90 million users. Being that the social network is now only 6 months old, these stats are mind-blowing!
In Vic’s post, he also revealed some other interesting statistics. However, he didn’t just list out the statistics in a boring old text-only update. Oh, no, good ol’ Vic (and his Google+ team) revealed the stats in a way that could only have been done on Google+. Check out the post for yourself, or just read below for a summary of what was announced.
In true Google fashion the company released their newest innovation on Tuesday with “Search plus your world“. The backlash it caused is not a surprise as this update has officially started the impending Google+ domination countdown.
First, lets talk about what Search plus Your World is, then we’ll get into why it changes everything (again) and what it means for businesses, brands, and you. Fair enough? Great, let’s get into it:
Google+ released an update for it’s iOS devices on Monday. That’s always exciting for me, no matter what the update, but this update was exceptionally exciting with the addition of being able to start a Hangout from the Messenger feature!
Before the update, you were only able to join hangouts that were already going on. You couldn’t initiate one yourself. Well, thanks to this update, you can officially use the Messenger function to start a hangout with anyone in your circles. Here’s some screen shots:
Last month I conducted a poll among my circles using the method I’ve previously written about. The results were a bit surprising.
I conducted the poll on my personal Google+ profile, and got a decent amount of responses. In fact, 4 weeks after I posted it, it’s still getting votes!
So I’ve gathered the results and tallied up the +1′s. Here they are, meticulously crafted into a beautifully designed infographic for your viewing pleasure. Afterwards, you can cast your own vote as to which Google+ feature you think is the best!
A recent post on Mashable states that Google+ has now hit over 62 million users, and is growing at a rate of 625,000 per day! That is incredible!
There are many factors that could be playing into this. Google has been making some pretty aggressive pushes for the social network. Aside from their innovations in a social platform, they’ve also innovated the way they market the social platform! Here’s a great example:
If you tend to follow a lot of interesting people on Google+ you may notice that your stream gets crowded very quickly. Sometimes it’s nearly impossible to keep track of particular posts you’re interested in with all the noise.
This same problem happens on all the social networks, Twitter and Facebook alike. The great news is that while other social networks aren’t doing anything about it, Google realized the problem and created a solution: Circle Volume Control.
Last week, Google added a feature that allows business page owners to delegate the management of the page to others. They call this feature, “Page Managers“.
This new feature has been long awaited since Business Pages were made available! Seriously, I don’t know how big businesses were managing their pages with only one admin. Regardless, the feature is here now, and businesses can now start delegating the management of their Google+ presence.
If you would like to add a manager (or two or three) just follow these simple steps:
Just when you thought Google+ Hangouts couldn’t get any more fun after reading about the Moustache feature, they go ahead and drop this on you:
In lieu of the Holiday season, Google has replaced their Moustache feature with a Reindeer option! Now you can parade around in your hangout like you were Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer!
Just like the feature before it, all you have to do is hit the button while in a Hangout and it does the rest!
Be sure to leave us some screen shots in the comments below!
