Google+Blog for WordPress A plugin that allows you to automatically import your G+ posts and their comments to Wordpress, allowing you to use G+ as the launchpad for your content. [http://www.minimali.se/google+blog/]
Google+Timing A site to find the best time for you to post on Google+ based on the performance of your historical posts. [http://timing.minimali.se/]
Extended Comments Follow the engagement of your posts across reshares by seeing all comments on a single page. [http://ec.minimali.se/]
Fotostat Currently in testing, this will become a central hub for photographers to manage their presence online as well as track how well their photos are performing across multiple networks. Sign up to be an early tester. [http://www.fotost.at/]
Airlie Beach is a small coastal town found in North Queensland, Australia, known for its array of beaches and close proximity to the great barrier reef. I spent a week up there with my wife and kids earlier this year and find myself wanting to go back there quite often. If you ever get a chance to check it out, be sure to take advantage of the many day cruises on offer, as well as organising a hire car to explore the more remote beaches (and waterfall!).
This photo was taken during an early morning stroll on a beach close to the apartment where we were staying. I doubt the owner cared too much that the boat was stranded there like that - it looked like it hadn't been used for a while. I was quite tempted to walk over and make myself comfortable inside it to have a nap whilst enjoying the morning sun.
[Uploaded via Fotostat - Get earlybird access to the beta via www.fotost.at]
This is another shot from when we were stranded on the island. It is a little too busy with all the trees, but with that it becomes a bit abstract which is what I like about it.
I spent most of this shot fighting off mosquitoes and hoping that the sludge that was the ground would not swallow up both me and my camera. It certainly made for an interesting show though.
[Uploaded via Fotostat - Get earlybird access to the beta via www.fotost.at]
A couple of weekends back we went out on the boat with our friends and managed to get stuck on an island for several hours due to the extremely low tide (thanks super moon!). All was well though as it gave me an opportunity to sneak off a few times to take some photos.
Wandering around I came across this little plant growing up from an old tree that had been cut down. I'm surprised it had managed to grow as big as it had, given that the area lacks shelter. It is amazing how well the native flora thrives in such conditions.
[Uploaded via Fotostat - Get earlybird access to the beta via www.fotost.at]
Know your Audience [A special note to photographers at the end]
Last year with the release of Google+ it was made very obvious that a large amount of people have been looking for a new community that allows them to share their time, their art and their opinions with others in a way that was not previously available. What Google created was not something new by any stretch of the imagination, but it was done in such a way that it made it easy for people to share what they wanted with other like-minded individuals without the constraints that other networks had placed upon them. Google+ was viewed by many as a fresh start, and for those that put in the work and effort they have been rewarded with a large amount of eyes, a new audience just waiting to see what they post next.
Once you have gained a significant amount of followers (and this amount is subjective and personal, what is a large number to one may not be to another) most people will start to wonder exactly what it is that their audience is most interested in. This is the source of many posters asking their audience exactly what they would like to read more about. We are lucky that Google provide us with small amounts of information in the form +1s, comments and reshares to help guage what posts are better received than others, but the amount of people that collate this information into something useful are few and far between.
Knowing your audience is about knowing what it is they want to see from you. With this information your levels of engagement will increase and with it your audience will continue to grow. My thoughts on the best ways to get to know your followers are below:
- Ask them directly by making a post to find out what they would like to see more of - Look through your post history and determine any patterns between successful posts - Follow back your audience or manually view a sample of their profiles to see what it is they themselves are talking about
Photographers, closed beta testing has started for Fotostat, a way for you to see how well your photos are performing online helping you to better understand what your audience is looking for. As invites are rolling out, sign up to be amongst the first testers of this new service by going to www.fotost.at.
For those who have read my last couple of posts, you will know that I have been working on my latest project Fotostat (Closed beta starting soon - sign up @ www.fotost.at) which is going to help Photographers to better understand their audience. Whilst most pay attention to the subject and style they use when addressing their audience, timing is often overlooked as being unimportant or inconvenient. The problem is that without the right timing, you may be missing out on valuable time in front of your audience.
As yet, Fotostat is not ready for public consumption - but all of you, my friends on here, are steadily posting away on Google+, addressing your audience. To attempt to aid you (and myself!) in getting the most out of your posts I have created Google+Timing, a site which analyzes your post history (capped at 100 posts for now) that highlights the days and hours in which your posts have the highest impact. Check it out @ timing.minimali.se.
* There is currently an issue with +1 counts found via the G+ API. I expect this to be fixed soon, but comments and reshares are still working as normal so the site is still useful
If you have any thoughts or comments on the site, as always, I would love to hear them.
First of all I would like to thank everyone that gave feedback and reshared my last post. Fotostat is a service that is being made to help photographers, so by helping me you are all, hopefully, helping yourselves! (Signups for early access to the closed beta are still open. If you haven't gotten to it yet, visit the site @ www.fotost.at)
With all the reshares of my last post I was introduced to the problem of hunting down all the responses. I didn't want to restrict people by asking everyone to comment on the parent post as this never really works anyway, so that meant that I had to go through each reply and collate that information manually. Being the person I am, this didn't really fly with me so I quickly threw together a little web app to make the process a little easier.
To thank the G+ community I am opening it up for everyone to use. Extended Comments for Google+ can be found at ec.minimali.se. It is a way to view all comments from your own post as well as those from reshares, all on the same page. This will be much more useful for power users, but those that have a few posts with high reshares may benefit as well.
Check it out and let me know what you think. Hopefully Google will implement a similar functionality inside G+.
Given that the site was put together rather quickly, there may be bugs - please let me know of them.
Photography is not a time friendly hobby or profession. Whilst a photo can be taken in a fraction of a second, the time to position, frame and otherwise organise the shot takes many orders of magnitude longer. Whether you are a landscape photographer, street photographer, studio photographer or somewhere in between you will understand this. All the prior planning, often followed by editing, contributes to the photo itself - but what does all the time spent sharing the photo online afterward contribute to?
The answer can be different depending who you ask, but the common responses will usually be one of personal recognition, the desire to share art or to spark discussion. To reach the largest audience one will often upload to many of the available social photo networks [Flickr, 500px, Google+, Facebook, Smugmug etc..], duplicating their content in the process. More time is then spent periodically checking back on each of these accounts to mentally consolidate how well a photo is received by others. The statistics gathered can be very valuable if looked at in the right light. For the professional, statistics can help define the most marketable shots, whilst for the hobbyist it can help highlight improvement. The gathering of statistics relating to our photos can be very rewarding but also costly when it comes to the time spent doing so. I'm currently developing a site that will help to reduce the amount of time and effort required to get the reward that photo statistics give and would love to get an idea of your usage patterns.
My fellow photographers, it would be a great help if you could answer the following questions.
- How many photo networks are you a part of? (and which ones?)
- Are you currently using the statistics provided from your photo networks to guide your sharing/marketing? If not, why?
- How much time do you spend across your photo networks per week?
+Matthew Olde and I headed out to Curtis falls early this morning and managed to take some nice shots of the waterfall which was flowing quite heavily thanks to the recent rains.
Here's hoping that our future photography trips will be as rewarding as this one was.
Google+Blog for WordPress is a plugin that allows you to import your Google+ Public posts (and their comments) as blog posts into your WordPress setup. There is a free version and a paid version ($10), both of which can be found at http://www.minimali.se/google+blog/ .
- Support for importing from multiple Profiles/Pages - New option to exclude posts containing a given hashtag - Posts shared via Google Reader will now be imported - Hashtag character set expanded and related bugfixes - Updating your settings no longer forces import (unless specified)
To update please deactivate and delete the existing plugin prior to installing this one.
Feedback
Keep your suggestions coming as they are what guides the development of this plugin. Also be sure to log any bugs you have found with me. Updates will start to slow down a little now as the plugin becomes more stable but be sure to check my posts for the latest news regarding the plugin.
If you are experiencing problems with the plugin not working at all, there can be conflicts with other plugins and themes, especially in relation to comments. Message me privately with these issues including the settings you are using as well as any errors you may be receiving and I will do my best to help you get it all up and running.
I hope everyone has had a great festive season and managed to spend as much time as possible doing the things they love. After a bit of a break I will be hitting the new year hard, continuing work on a soon to be announced project for the photography community and releasing updates for both my Google+Blog Wordpress plugin (in the coming weeks) and pluss.es.
Google+ has become my social network of choice, so much so that I spent much of the last 6 months developing for it. For those that aren't familiar with all that I have worked on, it all started with www.group.as (A way to find people with similar interests on Google+) and continued with my release of the Circle+ extension (allowing people to add others en masse to Google+). Soon after came www.minimali.se (The first Google+ blogging concept, putting your public posts in the form of a blog) and after many requests, the WordPress plugin that did the same thing. Finally minimali.se was retired and relaunched as www.pluss.es with added features (and many more to come).
2011 was an exciting year for me and I have been very lucky to have connected with some great people on here. I want to thank everyone for making my experience such a great one. Here's hoping 2012 is even better for us all.
Group/as Update - Add profiles directly from group pages
UPDATE: Well, that was short lived. It looks as though Google has disabled this functionality now. Hopefully and alternative surfaces soon.
It has been a long time coming between updates for Group/as and this is just a small one, but one many people will benefit from. For those that continue to use the site I hope you find it is still catering to your needs.
Add profiles and see who is already in your circles via a single button
This latest update allows you to add people to your circles directly from the group view pages on the site. Simply use the green/gray button found next to the circle counts just as you would use them on Google+.
This will add a little extra time to page loads, but with the added benefit of showing those that are already in your circles, as well as allowing you to add profiles directly.
To see it in action, simply click through to one of the group pages via the front page or search. Eg: http://www.group.as/photographer/
Let me know if you have any issues with this update.
Original post by +Plusses Pluss.es - RSS & Vanity URLs
Pluss.es, the Google+ powered blogging platform has been updated to allow site supporters to create vanity URLs and expose an RSS feed of their public Google+ posts.
Vanity URLs are in the format of [vanity_name].pluss.es, making it very easy to remember and share your blog with others. Be sure that you choose carefully as names can only be chosen once.
To provide a service such as this it requires a fair amount of time and resources. In order to continue to provide such a service a supporter option has been created.
For a single, once off payment of US$15.00 you will receive a Vanity URL of your choosing (subject to availability) and a daily updated RSS feed. You will also continue to have your blog hosted for the lifetime of this website. We're not planning on going anywhere, this is just a way of ensuring that. To become a supporter simply sign in and follow the instructions via your settings page.
Some people won't like this option and that is fine, hosting will still continue as it is now, I am just ensuring the longevity of the site which is better for everyone.
Upcoming updates
Pluss.es is still under development, so keep your suggestions coming. Below are just a couple of changes we will be rolling out in the near future.
- More default themes for you to choose from - Customisable CSS, allowing your site to be designed by you - Tag based visibility of your posts - More information and pages to make it even more 'blog-like'
With all the excitement surrounding Google+ Pages, it is easy to overlook a great feature that is just around the corner. It looks as though Google+ will be rolling out their own widgets (they call them badges) very soon that will allow you to add Pages (and possibly People) to your circles without leaving the website.
This is a pretty big deal and something that many of us have been waiting for for some time. I'm just hoping that it will also apply to user profiles (I don't see why not). An implementation like this will really make sites like group.as all the more interesting again.
If you are wanting to add a badge for your Page on your site right now, go to the link below and enter in your Page ID (or Profile ID). Check out the preview of 'Standard' to get an idea of what is coming.
Google+Blog for WordPress is a plugin that allows you to import your Google+ Public posts (and their comments) as blog posts into your WordPress setup. There is a free version and a paid version ($10), both of which can be found at http://www.minimali.se/google+blog/ .
- New option for Tag based import, allowing the plugin to only import posts with a certain hashtag - Timezone support (Will now use the WordPress timezone when calculating post submission dates) - Tags that were not being recognised should be now - View post on Google+ link will now open in another tab by default - New option to display the number of reshares on Google+ - New option to control the display of the 'View post on Google+' link - New option to control whether or not trashed posts will be reimported - Post History now goes up to 200 (I suggest lowering this after an initial import)
To update please deactivate and delete the existing plugin prior to installing this one.
Feedback
Keep your suggestions coming as they are what guides the development of this plugin. Also be sure to log any bugs you have found with me. Updates will start to slow down a little now as the plugin becomes more stable but be sure to check my posts for the latest news regarding the plugin.
If you are experiencing problems with the plugin not working at all, there can be conflicts with other plugins and themes, especially in relation to comments. Message me privately with these issues including the settings you are using as well as any errors you may be receiving and I will do my best to help you get it all up and running.
This shot was taken quite quickly (for a long exposure) on the weekend when I was down at the park with my family and our friends. I had planned to get a shot of the bridge while we were down there and am quite pleased with how this turned out.
In search of better angle I stumbled over the temporary fencing that was there and tried to quickly set up and frame my shot, only to be interrupted by a large security guard that seemed to pop up out of nowhere. He was under the bridge the whole time and had been watching me, I was just too busy focussed on the shot to notice. Photography can be quite a strong distraction at times, but that is one of the best things about it for someone like myself.
#MonochromeMonday
Pluss.es - Your Google+ powered blogging platform.
I invite you all to check out my latest project, Pluss.es, a blogging platform which repurposes your public Google+ posts as Blog posts. Your Blog will be updated daily and will include any photos, videos and comments that are found on your posts.
Can the Blog be customised at all?
Yes, it can! You have control over the following settings:
- Theme (There are currently two themes that can be used, with more to come.) - Number of posts on each page - Toggle post pages to show summaries - Whether or not to include photo posts
You are also able to choose to hide certain posts from your Blog, it is as simple as unticking a box and it will be hidden.
Future plans
There are many things planned for the site, here are a couple I am excited about:
- Custom CSS stylesheets (Style your blog to look however you want it to.) - Subdomains (Use yourname.pluss.es to access your blog)
Conditions
Please keep in mind that this site is going through a beta phase so if you come across any bugs please let me know of them. I also welcome any suggestions for features that people may have.
Google have graciously provided me with an API boost so you should not have to worry about the site running out of quota and people missing out.
Please help spread the word, your reshares are appreciated
This post is a brief rundown of the plugin and the settings that it makes available. If you have any questions or feedback please comment. Your reshares are appreciated.
About
Google+Blog for WordPress (http://www.minimali.se/google+blog/) allows you to easily (and automatically) import your public Google+ posts, as well as their comments into your blog. Posts will include images and video, as well as links to articles you may have shared.
On import the plugin will first try to make a heading from the first line of your post, so please keep this in mind when formatting your posts on Google+.
If a post contains a hashtag they will be automatically added as tags to the post in WordPress.
Images, videos and articles are linked to and embedded (where possible) into your posts. If your post contains an image album, it will display a thumbnail for all of the images except the feature image.
Comments are imported (and updated) as far back as your post history setting allows.
Whilst I do my best to keep this plugin both easy to use and bug free, I cannot be held responsible for any problems you may have because of its use. In saying that, if you do have any problems just send me a message on Google+ or via email and I will do my best to help you.
Initial setup
To use this plugin all that you need is a WordPress (wordpress.org) install that allows you to load plugins, as well as a Google+ (plus.google.com) account and API Key (code.google.com/apis/console/). The first two are self explanatory, but the API Key may not be. It is required to fetch your public posts from Google and is done by following these steps.
1. Go to http://code.google.com/apis/console/ 2. Create new project (if you have not been here before) 3. Switch on the Google+ API and accept the terms 4. Your key is now visible under the 'API Access' menu. Click through and see 'API Key' under the 'Simple API Access' subheading.
Settings
To get started you must edit the Google+Blog options under the Settings menu via WordPress. Please fill in the following values.
API Key As mentioned above, this gives you access to your Google+ feed.
Google+ Profile ID This is your unique identifier on the Google+ network. In Google+ click on your name and it should direct you to a URL that looks like this: https://plus.google.com/u/0/103697821787469756035/posts?hl=en . Your Profile ID is the 21 digit number found in the URL (Mine is 103697821787469756035).
Post History This setting determines how far back to look through your post history with each update. The higher the number, the more posts that will be imported (or updated).
Post Overwrite If enabled (by default), this will update your existing imported Google+ posts with whatever is pulled from the Google+ feed. If you make any changes at all to these posts, they will be overwritten in the next iteration.
Exclusion Category You will be able to stop your imported posts from appearing on the the front page of your blog by selecting one of the categories you are importing your posts into (specified below in 'Categories'. Your posts will still be accessible by the categories you specify below directly.
Import Trashed When this is enabled (default), posts will be reimported/updated even if another copy is found in your trash. If you are wanting to disable this functionality, I suggest you empty your trash first so you are aware of what you have moved there.
Display Google+ Link Toggles whether or not to display the 'View on Google+' link at the bottom of your posts.
Display Reshares Toggles whether or not to display the number of times the original Google+ post has been shared.
Import Tag Only Google+ posts that contain this hashtag will be imported. If no posts containing the hashtag are found, the plugin will not import any posts at all.
Status This is the default status for an imported post. Most people will be happy with publish, but if you wish to use another simply choose between pending, future, private and draft.
Author The author selected here will be the author shown on the posts in WordPress.
Categories Default categories can be chosen by selecting them from the list. Each imported post will appear to be in all the categories chosen.
Tags A comma seperated list of tags you would like applied to the post.
Google+Blog for WordPress is a plugin that allows you to import your Google+ Public posts (and their comments) as blog posts into your WordPress setup. There is a free version and a paid version ($10), both of which can be found at http://www.minimali.se/google+blog/ .
- Easily exclude your posts from the front page by choose an exclusion category in settings - You can now choose the author that will be used for the imported posts - 'Photo' posts will now be imported
- WordPress was causing some duplication problems, there is now a workaround in place that should prevent it in the few cases that it was happening. - WordPress Hosts with more restrictive settings are even more likely to work now
To update please deactivate and delete the existing plugin prior to installing this one.
Feedback
Keep your suggestions coming as they are what guides the development of this plugin. Also be sure to log any bugs you have found with me. Updates will start to slow down a little now as the plugin becomes more stable but be sure to check my posts for the latest updates.
More detailed documentation is coming later today.
Problems
If you are experiencing problems with the plugin not working at all, there can be conflicts with certain plugins and themes, especially in relation to comments. Message me privately with these issues including the settings you are using as well as any errors you may be receiving and I will do my best to help you get it all up and running.
NOTE: If you have been experiencing duplicate posts be sure to uncheck 'Post Overwrite' in the Google+Blog settings.
Original post by +Daniel Treadwell Google+Blog for WordPress UPDATE 1.0.2 [NOW WITH #HASHTAGS]
Google+Blog for WordPress is a plugin that allows you to import your Google+ Public posts (and their comments) as blog posts into your WordPress setup. There is a free version and a paid version ($10), both of which can be found at http://www.minimali.se/google+blog/ .
This is a another bugfix update with a couple of bonuses thrown in.
- Canonical links directing to G+ added to posts to help with search ranking - Hashtags are added as post tags to coincide with the Google+ update - A new setting has been added to stop updates of existing posts (comments will still update) - There is now an activity log in the settings area to help with troubleshooting - WordPress hosts with more restrictive settings are now more likely to work - Category changes will remain their regardless of update settings - Draft option added for post status in settings - Article images box is hidden if there is no image
To update please deactivate and delete the existing plugin prior to installing this one.
Feedback
Keep your suggestions coming as they are what guides the development of this plugin. Also be sure to log any bugs you have found with me. Updates will start to slow down a little now as the plugin becomes more stable but be sure to check my posts for the latest updates.
If you are experiencing problems with the plugin not working at all, there can be conflicts with certain plugins and themes, especially in relation to comments. Message me privately with these issues including the settings you are using as well as any errors you may be receiving and I will do my best to help you get it all up and running.
NOTE: If you have been experiencing duplicate posts be sure to uncheck 'Post Overwrite' in the Google+Blog settings.
Google+Blog for WordPress is a plugin that allows you to import your Google+ Public posts (and their comments) as blog posts into your WordPress setup. There is a free version and a paid version ($10), both of which can be found at http://www.minimali.se/google+blog/ .
This is a another bugfix update with a couple of bonuses thrown in.
- Canonical links directing to G+ added to posts to help with search ranking - Hashtags are added as post tags to coincide with the Google+ update - A new setting has been added to stop updates of existing posts (comments will still update) - There is now an activity log in the settings area to help with troubleshooting - WordPress hosts with more restrictive settings are now more likely to work - Category changes will remain their regardless of update settings - Draft option added for post status in settings - Article images box is hidden if there is no image
To update please deactivate and delete the existing plugin prior to installing this one.
Feedback
Keep your suggestions coming as they are what guides the development of this plugin. Also be sure to log any bugs you have found with me. Updates will start to slow down a little now as the plugin becomes more stable but be sure to check my posts for the latest updates.
If you are experiencing problems with the plugin not working at all, there can be conflicts with certain plugins and themes, especially in relation to comments. Message me privately with these issues including the settings you are using as well as any errors you may be receiving and I will do my best to help you get it all up and running.
Google+Blog for WordPress is a plugin that allows you to import your Google+ Public posts (and their comments) as blog posts into your WordPress setup. There is a free version, and paid version ($10), both of which can be found at http://www.minimali.se/google+blog/ .
Paid users, please update by going to http://www.minimali.se/google+blog/Your Transaction Id/ to download. Where 'Your Transaction Id' is the number emailed to you.
Update Details
This update address a few of the more common issues found in the first release.
- Comments not displaying for some themes - Posts duplicating after an update when the post status was changed - Author was not being displayed on posts - Mobile posts were not being pulled across
To update please deactivate and delete the existing plugin prior to installing this one.
Some structural changes were made which may cause comments to duplicate if imported via the previous version. If possible, remove them before syncing again.
Stay Tuned
Based on your feedback there is quite a solid roadmap for this plugin. Expect many features and bug fixes in the coming days. Documentation is also a concern and I will be releasing a post detailing things a little more very soon, along with a packaged readme.txt file.
If you are experiencing problems with the plugin not working at all, there can be conflicts with certain plugins and themes, especially in relation to comments. Message me privately with these issues including the settings you are using as well as any errors you may be receiving and I will do my best to help you get it all up and running.
With the huge amount of interest surrounding my Google+ Blog concept on minimali.se, the number one request was that it be made available as a WordPress plugin. With so many people asking for it, how could I say no?
What does it do?
Google+Blog will automatically retrieve your public posts and the comments associated with them and display them as normal WordPress posts, along with all your Google+ comments. They will also include any media that you have added to your Google+ post (photos, albums, articles and video). It will update every hour or so (providing you have people going to your blog) and will not require any intervention from you whatsoever.
Can I see it?
+Colby Brown has been kind enough to help me finalise the plugin and has also integrated it into his blog. He has a separate page that just displays his G+ posts and their associated comments.
The plugin is quite configurable with the ability to easily change your API Key, Profile ID, Post History (how many historical posts are imported), WP Post Status, Categories and Tags.
How can I get it?
There are two versions available for download, one free, the other paid ($10). There is no limitation placed on the free version, but it does contain a link at the bottom of your imported posts. I have put a lot of work into this and don't believe that $10 is too much to ask for the version without a link.
This is only the first release of the plugin and it will be updated on a regular basis. I welcome feedback and suggestions and strongly encourage bug reports. It has undergone testing, but I am not liable for any problems that are caused by this plugin.
Once you have downloaded the plugin, add it to WordPress via the Plugins menu and activate it. Finish setting it up under 'Settings' -> 'Google+Blog Options'.
If you need further integration message me and we will see what can be worked out.
API Key
You will need to sign up for a Google+ API Key before you are able to use this extension. To get one, go here: http://code.google.com/apis/console/. If needed, create a project then flick the Google+ API switch under Services. From there your Simple API Access key will be available under 'API Access'.
UPDATE 3: Unfortunately the new limit didn't quite hold out long enough. Keep checking back if you are still looking to add your profile. Stay tuned for more updates.
UPDATE 2: +Will Norris and the Google+ Team have been kind enough to raise the amount of API calls that I can make so you shouldn't have too hard of a time creating your own profile now. I will look at expanding the amount of posts shown and profile updates in the coming days. Thanks for the feedback and support*
UPDATE 1: This has really taken off more than I expected. If you experience any problems creating your own profile, check back the next day when the Google+ API quota has reset.
There has been a lot of talk by bloggers on Google+ about potentially moving a lot of their blogging across to this social media platform. Whilst there is (for some) a much more engaging audience here, it does not really double as a landing page for writers to onsell their services or to display talent (other than writing/photography). It is for this reason that most will probably still continue to post to their blog as well as Google+.
I know many are holding out for the API to allow writing directly to Google+ but this seems quite a while off based on comments made by Googlers. What I am showing you now is a concept where Google+ is used as your content management system, and your blog is a mirror of it. The site is still customisable in every way that a normal websites allows, yet it pulls all of it's data for the blog from Google+ saving on rewriting/formatting. You can see all comments, and stats on +1s and reshares, shared photographs and video.
This is something I would LOVE to see Google integrate into Blogger.
I have noticed quite a few posts from people concerned that they are unable to add anymore people to their circles. The reason for this in most cases is that they have hit the limit of people that can be added to circles in a given timeframe. Google do this to stop mass adding (something done by spammers). This has become more apparent of late due to the release of shared circles.
This is not the first time many people have stumbled upon this issue. When I released my Circle+ extension the same limits were being hit and people were having the same issues. At that time some clarification was sought as to what the limits were but no tangible information was given.
In most cases I suggest that people wait up to 24 hours before trying to add anyone else. There is usually a soft limit that is hit first that stops many circles in a short period (allowing single circles now and then), followed by a hard limit that stops circling (or modification of your circles) completely. If you have these problems, just try waiting it out for some time before trying again.
It would be great if Google could give a little more clarification here to let people know the real reason behind the errors, rather than the ambiguous message appearing at the top of their screen.
Would love to hear a response from a Google rep regarding this matter.
(Keep in mind, Google still has their 5000 limit in place for the amount of people that can be circled. This is another problem altogether).
This has been a long time coming for Google+ and should be well received by everyone on the network. The implementation is very clean and simple, allowing a streamlined process to import circles that others wish to share with you.
Suggestions
Given that you have not yet vetted people found in the shared circles, I suggest prepending the name with something that separates them, then merging them into a 'full time' circle once you see the content is what you expect it to be. For example, I prepend all my imported circled with [Shared] and then check them out before adding people to a more permanent circle.
Whilst the animation is nice to see the first couple of times, I would like a way to cut it out so that I'm not taken from the stream that I am on when people are added. This is more just nitpicking than a real problem though.
Well done Google on releasing features that are heavily requested by users.
For more curated lists of people to follow be sure to check out www.group.as.
Starting today you can actually share your favorite circles with others! So if you’ve got a great Photographers or Celebrities circle, for instance, then you can share a copy with your friends.
To get started, just click on a circle from your Circles page, and click Share.
(Importantly: when you share a circle, you’re only sharing its members at that time. Also: the circle name is always private to you, and any changes you make afterwards are private as well.)
Let us know what you think in the comments!
Video Transcript
Hi, my name’s Owen, and I’m an engineer on the Google+ team.
One of my favorite parts about circles is how they help me control who I share with, as well as what I read. In fact, many of you have created lots of great circles around topics that interest you (like Photographers) to bring lots of great content to your stream. In these cases, we've heard that you actually want to share your circles with others. Both to save your friends some time, and to connect them with interesting people and content.
Today I'm happy to announce that we're launching exactly that feature. We let you take the circles you've created, and share them with others! Let me show you how it works.
From your circles page... select the circle you want, add a comment, and then share it.
When your friends receive your circle, they can then pick and choose who to add to their own circles.
Note that when you share a circle, you're only sharing its members at that time. The circle name is always private to you, and any changes you make to your circle afterwards are private as well.
We hope this new feature helps you share and find lots of great content in Google+, while still giving you important controls over how you read and share. Thanks for listening, and please keep sending feedback!
Google Drive - Storage on the web (not the self driving cars)
There has been a lot of talk and speculation lately about an upcoming release of 'Google Drive', an online storage offering by Google. As the linked article points out, this has been somewhat available for a while in the form of Google Docs. What has been missing though is easy syncing of documents (and other assorted files) between your computer and Google, something that is possible with, what will be a key competitor to Google in this space, Dropbox.
Existing cloud based storage
This is a market that has really started to explode of late, driven heavily by people needing their files in multiple locations, without the worry of carrying around a portable storage device (USB Stick, Portable Hard Drive etc..). Whilst there are many offerings, Dropbox is the easiest to recommend with their simple implementation of syncing. All that is required of the user is that they copy or save a file that they want in the cloud to their Dropbox folder, and Dropbox handles the rest. Having software available on all the major platforms also allows easy transfer of files across multiple devices.
Will Google succeed in this space?
The question of whether or not Google will manage to take market share from their competitors in this space is really quite easily answered. They already have millions using GMail and Google Docs, and with the release of Google+ sharing of information between Google Services has never been more prominent. I don't think taking existing market share is something Google is all that worried about, it is making the existing market bigger and capturing it that they would be focussed on. Competitors like Dropbox will most certainly struggle going up against a big name like Google, especially if the new Google Drive is available or advertised across the many services Google has in its portfolio.
As an existing user of Dropbox, I'm very much looking forward to see what Google has in store for us. Given their history of generous storage quotas I'm sure we are in for a treat.
Today Google released a myriad of updates to both their desktop and mobile offerings of Google+. The biggest announcement of them all though might just be the opening of the floodgates. Google+ no longer requires an invite to get started - anyone is welcome (provided they are over 18). With this in mind it might be worth sharing a few useful links for those that are just getting started.
Guides
These guides may need updating but a lot of the information is relevant for a first timer and they will get a lot of value from checking them out.
As well as the aforementioned people (who are always willing to help if they can), you can find a wealth of information about Google+ from the following.
Easily Add Multiple People to Your Google+ Circles
Circle+ is a chrome extension that works great on sites like http://www.group.as/ and http://recommendedusers.com/ by adding all the people that it can find on the page to a circle of your choosing. This is much quicker than adding one person at a time. Please use it sparingly as Google+ does limit how many people you can add within a given timeframe.
After a speculative last few days Google has finally released the long awaited Google Wallet. Could this be the beginning of the end for the plastic credit card as we know it? I believe so.
What is it? Google Wallet is an app initially available on the Sprint Nexus S 4G that allows the user to use their phone as a credit card. Only Citi Mastercards are supported to begin with, but you can easily use your other cards by prepaying a Google Mastercard on your phone.
The phones use a technology called NFC (near field communication) which is the basis for the pay-pass functionality you see available with a traditional Mastercard (pay-wave for Visa). It allows you to simply hold you phone in front of the terminal in order for it to register your payment.
Security concerns One issue many people have with an implementation like this is that it is too easy for thieves to fraudulently use your 'card'. Google have taken this into account by securing the app with a PIN, making it just as secure as a traditional card.
Another common complaint was that combining all of our important cards like this make it easier to lose everything. As someone who already has a wallet that holds both their phone and cards I don't really feel the same way. For me, I only have to worry about picking up my phone and keys and know that I have my wallet with me, whereas before I was having to worry about the three separate items. Limiting technology based on ones own inability to keep track of their belongings is a pretty silly argument in my opinion.
Thoughts I'm very excited about this and am looking forward to when it eventually is released in Australia. The less I have to carry around the better and given that practically everyone has a phone it is definitely the time for this technology to start rolling out. I welcome the day that I can keep my money, access and identity cards all in one place on my phone.
Today welcomed the start of something big for developers and users on Google+ alike. The release of the official Google+ API has been long awaited by everyone, but what can we actually expect from this? Right now, not much at all.
Whilst it is great that there has finally been some movement made in the right direction by Google, the G+ API is very limited. The limitations of it are found in two areas.
Public Data Only This release of the API grants developers access only to data which is publicly available. For example, one can access a users public posts and public profile information, but cannot access posts with limited sharing, or private circle details. The API calls are also limited to being read only. This in turn keeps developers from creating anything that makes changes to a profile (circles, posts etc..). Keep in mind there is still a myriad of things that can be done with the information available, so the API is useful in this respect, but the killer comes with my next point.
Courtesy Quota As with many APIs available, the provider does not want it to be abused, Google is no different. To combat this a quota has been given on the number of queries (API calls) that a developer can make in a given day. Currently that limit is 1000. Whilst 1000 seems like a pretty big number, it really does not go far with anything that gets any sort of real attention. The Circle+ extension for example can make that amount of calls over 1 or 2 uses by a single user. This will be the biggest limiting factor initially for anyone looking to work seriously on the G+ API.
Final Thoughts This is a preview for developers, a taste of what is to come. The documentation is great, it provides examples and thorough definitions of each call and getting started should not be an issue for anyone. In time the quotas will be relaxed and more calls will be added but for now it is just a time to get familiar with the API and Google's implementation of it and be ready for when a more 'production ready' API is available.
Google have done an amazing job with this and I am very excited to see where it goes in the future. There are definitely exciting times ahead for all developers and I see Google+ development being one of the big things over the next year or so. For now though, I will have to stick to using the underlying unofficial Google API for my development. Without relaxed quotas and write access I have little choice.
This is huge news. Whilst only public information is available initially I can't imagine it will be too long before private calls will be possible.
It will be interesting to see what developers can come up with with the official API (no longer needed to hack it up!).
Original post by +Chris Chabot A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Lao-tzu
I’m super excited about how the Google+ project brings the richness and nuance of real life sharing to software, and today we’re announcing our first step towards bringing this to your apps as well by launching the Google+ public data APIs.
These APIs allow you to retrieve the public profile information and public posts of the Google+ users, and they lay the foundation for us to build on together - Nothing great is ever built in a vacuum so I’m excited to start the conversation about what the Google+ platform should look like.
Please follow the link to the blog post to find out what exactly we’re launching and you can find the technical details on how to use this on our new developer site at http://developers.google.com/+
I’d also like to take a moment to introduce my team who will be joining me on working with our developer community (ie: you!) and answering any questions you may have about the Google+ platform on our discussion forums.
We’ll all also be doing a bunch of Hangouts over the next few days and beyond to talk to you directly and hear what you think of the +Platform as well as helping with any coding questions you may have, so make sure to add them to your Google+ developers circle!
Another tech company putting off their IPO. With talk of Groupon and Zynga delaying their own plans to float within the last month, Facebook now looks to be doing the same.
There has been a lot of talk about us currently being inside another Tech bubble and I can't help but think that once these IPOs are pushed through we may start to see it all start to come apart.
Google have just released their first public iteration of flight search. Whilst it is currently very basic, with only a fraction of flights being displayed it will most certainly be something to keep an eye on in the future.
I'm sure big players in travel search will be watching closely, along with startups like Hipmunk.
[Chrome Extension] Circle+: Add profiles found on any webpage to your Google+ Circles
Finally you can easily add people to your circles en masse thanks to my newly created extension Circle+.
To use the extension, follow the link below and install it. Go to a page listing the profiles you would like to add to Google+ (sites like group.as and recommendedusers.com are great for this). Click on the circle in your title bar and choose the circle name you would like to add them to. Watch as the profiles are listed that have been successfully added.
Please keep in mind that limited testing has been done with this extension and there are plenty of signs that Google+ have limiters on how many people can be added within a given timeframe. Do not abuse this extension.
This extension is in no way supported by Google and I personally take no responsibility for any problems (or benefits) it may cause.
Everyone that uses the internet on a daily basis would agree that authentication is one of those annoyances that just have to be put up with. Entering in multiple usernames, email addresses and passwords each time you need to login is painful, time consuming and often it is even a factor which drives away new users from a website. If the latest attempt at solving this problem is anything to go by, things are going to get a whole lot easier.
Account Chooser aims to make the user experience much smoother and streamlined by creating a pleasant frontend which looks to do away with the clunkiness of multiple logins by utilising existing identity providers and remembering your presence from prior visits.
If you are a web developer it might pay to look into this when considering your next authentication procedure. If you are just a regular user of the internet, check it out and look at what you can expect to see more often.
