Google is a search engine and we can easily search for just about anything on it. But Google also runs an email service (Gmail), Google Reader, Google Groups, it owns YouTube which streams billions of videos and much more.
WDYL (what do you love from Google) is a search engine that searches for Google related services and links to them based on a particular search query.
For example, I searched for “India” on WDYL and it shows up a host of Google related links organised for me. It allows creating Google alerts, looking up ‘India’ related YouTube videos, India on Google maps and more relevant links for various Google owned services which are related to ‘India’.
I used it with a few more queries and I found it really useful to look up Google Books, Videos and setting up alerts and even read up latest related news and blogs. This saves a lot of time, when you are searching deep for content and information about a particular thing.
Here is a quick video from Google about WDYL
Do try out WDYL from Google and drop in your comments.
A few days ago, Aditya covered 5 advantages Google+ has over Facebook. Last week during the unfortunate serial bomb blasts in Mumbai, Pratik Parekh pointed out to another advantage Google+ has over Facebook. This advantage is in link-sharing feature present on both sites.
If you followed social-media after Mumbai Blast closely, then you might have come across Wikipedia article links to Ajmal Kasab’s page being shared all over. Some miscreant had modified Kasab’s date of birth on his wiki page making it 13th July’s which was the day the serial blasts took place in Mumbai.
Like many people, I fell for falsehood and shared the wiki-link over Facebook as well as Google+ at the same time. After few hours, when the error on Wikipedia was resolved, Google+ shared link preview showed corrected date of birth while Facebook link-preview still showed the wrong date of birth.
You can see screenshots below:
Facebook Link Cache
Google+ Link Cache
Is this a big deal?
No. Not at all IMHO. But it certainly shows the care with which Google+ has been designed! 😉
Google+ is still in private beta but developers have already put their mighty efforts and built many extensions, bookmarklets, add-ons, userscripts, web apps and much more! This post lists all those tools (webapps, extensions and everything in between) which can make Google+ better in all aspects.
#1. Color Plus
Let’s start with the most basic tool. Most of the geeks/bloggers (including me) didn’t like the color of the Google bar and many wanted to customize it, there are many ways to do this. If you’re on Chrome then Color Plus might do the work for you. Using Firefox? No worries, there’s a userscript for that.
Shortens your Google+ profile URL, hopefully Google will introduce this feature in the coming days. Just choose a nick name, enter your profile ID and you’re done! Your shortened URL will be something like this – http://gplus.to/nickname
Some say that the best feature of Google+ is its integration with the Google bar, no doubt, it’s a wonderful feature but it may make a bit unproductive as it follows you everywhere (on all Google sites).
ADVERTISEMENT
Block Plus removes the Google+ integration from the Google bar and you may continue doing your work than concentrating on Google+ notifications. Another Userscript, Google+ notifications blocker, does the same thing but eventually works on all browsers.
This is a nice addition to Google+, Plusbar is a bookmarklet which converts Google+ into your entertainment dashboard. You can watch BBC News, Al Jazeera, Nasa TV and many other live streaming channels directly from Google plus.
This is just the opposite to Block Plus, Surplus makes it easy to check your Google+ updates on non-Google sites. Apart from checking updates, you can also post links/normal text. You can also turn on desktop notifications and sounds in the options.
PlusFeed allows you to follow Google+ posts of anyone by subscribing to their feed. To get the feed address, replace Google_plus_ID in http://plusfeed.appspot.com/Google_plus_ID with your Google plus ID and subscribe to it using your RSS reader.
Even though Google+ is liked by most of the beta testers, only a very few of them left Facebook and decided to choose Google plus as their primary networking tool. So, as with the arrival of Google+, the +1 button has got some meaning and many started +1’ing (along with liking) their favorite articles.
Like +1 combines +1 button and like button into a single button, so that you can save a few seconds. Your +1’s won’t appear instantly, it may take a minute to appear.
Share your Google+ posts on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn with a couple of clicks. Just click on Share on.. present beside the Share option and choose the site on which you want to share the post.
Pretty self-explanatory, it’s a directory of all the people who signed up for Google+, it detects your area and shows user suggestions. Apart from acting as a people directory, it is also a showcase of Google+ statistics and top Google+ users which I found interesting.
While Find People on Plus shows some mild statistics of every Google+ user, Google+ Statistics is better if you want to checkout graphs, following trends etc. You might know about Twitter Counter, the same guys have built Google+ Statistics.
You can also track your Google+ statistics by signing up using your Google account. It also provides a statistics widget which you can embed on your site.
This chrome extension will help you in exporting all your Facebook photos to your Picasa account. If you’re migrating to Google+ then this one will be handy, as you don’t need to manually export the photos.
You need to login to Facebook and grand permission to the app, as this app has become popular lately, it may take more time to migrate the photos.
With GTools+ you can customize the interface of Google+ such as editing the Google bar components, changing the position of the chat box, pinning the Google bar to the top and much more. It can also be used for translation and to setup notifications for Google+, you can even customize the color of notifications.
There are many extensions and add-ons to post sync your Google+ posts with Twitter and Facebook, but this one is extension-free. You just need to authorize the app in Twitter and Facebook and post a Google+ update of the authorization string you get (share it with only + Agent G).
Once you have done that, you can sync your Google+ posts by simply sharing the posts with +Agent G.
If you are using Gmail, chances are you aware that up to 15 different types of files which are attached to an email, can be looked up without the need to download them.
This is useful, as it saves space and also from a security point of view the file is opened online and not on your computer. Today Google announced, that it was added support for .RAR and .ZIP files.
To check the contents within a .zip or .rar file, click on View as seen in image below.
All the contents can be seen listed and the best part of it is we can download the individual file or open in online on Google Docs if it is supported by Google Docs.
It is important for Google Docs to support as many different types of files as possible so that users can find it comfortable using their Chromebooks which does not have any software installed on it but is a OS which is more or less a browser.
Google+ has decided to not allow fake names or fake ids for creating Google+ profiles, much like Facebook does. Facebook pages are a goldmine for brand managers to really engage fans and followers daily with updates and even helping with customer service. For blogs like the one you are reading this article one, a Facebook page is a must for people to follow and look up articles.
Google+ has to have something similar to Facebook pages to compete against it. At the moment Google is allowing businesses to register with Google+ Entity profile.
It is still experimental and it will be used see the effect of brands with the Google+ experience.
If you are looking to join Google+ Entity program, register here.
Do you think Google+ can come up with something more interesting than Facebook Pages? I guess if they allow more customizable option, it could be quite the killer idea.
I have been using Google+ for almost a week now and there is still a long way for it to go before it starts really competing with Facebook. I think they have really integrated Google products and services nicely into a social network.
I felt there are 5 key advantages that Google+ has over it Facebook which might just cause a lot of headaches to Facebook over the next few months and years.
#1. Money
Yes, Facebook also has a lot of money but Google has a lot more than Facebook. Google can invest half a billion dollars for then next 5 years in Google+ only to make sure Facebook’s rise is kept in check.
ADVERTISEMENT
Facebook does not have that sort of portfolio and will have to out do Google+, as it cannot outspend it.
#2. No Dependence on 3rd parties
Facebook depends on Skype for improving it’s chat services along with having video chatting via the browser. This is mutually beneficial to both Facebook and Skype.
Google+ depends on technology they have built with Gmail and Google voice for powering chatting between Google+ friends and groups. Google also owns Android, Google TV and Chrome OS which can power a successful social product even more.
ADVERTISEMENT
#3. Standalone products
Google+ has been built more like a common meeting point for all their services like Gmail, Chat, Maps, Voice, photo sharing with Picasa and YouTube. This means it’s a social network made for bringing together different services offered by Google.
With Facebook there are no standalone products for video or images. I cannot share images and albums with people without a Facebook account all that easily like I can with Picasa.
#4. Search
Google has its own search engine which everyone considers the primary source of traffic for almost any website. Facebook has some integration with Bing to have Social Search but the results are not as powerful as yet to really get Google worried.
ADVERTISEMENT
But a powerful search feature built into Google+ will certainly give Facebook more headaches to deal with.
#5. No Pressure
Facebook started as a college product and with its founders quite happy to see it spread across universities in the United States. Facebook evolved without the pressure of competing with the big boys of social networking. MySpace and Geocities were the social services back then.
The lack of pressure to beat these large companies meant Facebook could keep innovating and changing without upsetting too many users. Now Google+ is in the same situation. It is not expected to defeat Facebook in a face-off and it can quietly improve its service, without worrying too much about how users might react.
Facebook’s really big advantage…
I do not mean that Google+ has won the fight against Facebook. Not by a long shot, as only recently Facebook announced it is used by over 750 million people. So how many people use Google+ will finally end up deciding it’s eventual success or failure.
What are your views about Google+ and Facebook when compared? Do drop in your comments.
Google+ might be grabbing headlines in the past week for being one of it’s best ‘social media’ products. But there is one more Google owned service which is highly social. That service is YouTube and it has its own very interactive social environment.
Not a lot has changed with YouTube’s designs and how it displays the videos and playlists. Related videos still pop-up in the right hand column and in general there seems to be just a lot happening while watching a video.
YouTube has unveiled Cosmic Panda which is a way for users to test out its new layout and display options.
Below is the current layout while users play a video.
Notice how the suggestions are on the right hand column and the resize options are hidden.
Now after signing up for the Cosmic Panda test on YouTube, the same video showed with some more interesting changes.
I noticed that the comments and suggested videos are shown in tabs below the video while video size can be changed more easily than before.
If you have your own channel on YouTube, you can even check out the new themes and layouts made available for the YouTube Channel. Head over to Youtube.com/cosmicpanda and try out the new features and design layouts for YouTube.
Also let me know if you like the current layout or the new one planned through your comments.
Google+ has been here for a week now. As we are exploring it, we are finding various tricks to add more functionality to Google+. We discovered a Chrome extension that lets you share Google+ posts and updates on Twitter.
Tag people: Use + or @ before the name. You can even tag someone who is not in your circle- (just like twitter).
Drag and drop to share your photos and videos – a feature similar to that in Gmail.
Edit your post after publishing: The small arrow at the top right of the post is very useful. If after posting an update, you realize that there has been some mistake, you don’t have to delete it. Just click on the arrow, it’ll give you an option to edit your status. You can also edit your comments after posting.
Disable reshare:This option is also available from the small arrow at the top right of the post. This is useful when you send a message to a selected group of people, and you don’t want someone from that group to share it with others.
Disable Comment:Use this feature when a post is getting spammed with comments.
Mute others’ post to remove it from your stream.
Do you know any other shortcuts or tips? Share it with us through your comments.
I have liked using Google Plus for a few days, but found the Google+ ID a little too tedious to remember. The Google+ profile is basically a numerical id and very difficult to share with people. There is no way to customize this profile id into a login name.
But there is a quick fix for that which is not from Google+ but a third-party tool called GPlus.to.
Just look up your Google+ profile ID and insert that number along with your nickname into the online tool.
Now with this I have a more easy to remember URL for my Google+ profile as Gplus.to/adityakane instead of the long and difficult to remember URL plus.google.com/u/0/116447136547996635976. 🙂
I am pretty sure that once Google+ is out of beta it will soon make this feature available but until then you might want to use Gplus.to.
Google Plus has been around for a couple of days and it being still a little too exclusive, which has meant that a lot of my friend on Twitter and Facebook cannot be found on Google+. Also services like Hootsuite and Digsby which are useful for managing and sharing updates across two or three different social networks have not yet integrated Google+.
With Google Plus Extended Share extension for Chrome, users can share something they see on their Google Plus feeds and share it on their Twitter or Facebook accounts.
Google+ to Facebook and Twitter
The extension adds a new ‘Send To’ option with your Google Plus updates. Clicking on it will give you the option of sharing the link to that update on Twitter and Facebook.
I found that the options with “Send To” showed up with any publicly shared Google+ post which means I could share posts by my friends on Google+ too.
I am sure that once Google+ is out of beta, users will get a lot of integration options for sharing one update across many different social networks.
But for the moment this extension seems to be nifty for cross-sharing across profiles on different networks.
Do try out the extension if you are using Chrome and drop in your comments.
