The search engine giant Google after three fails attempts like first creating Waves with Orkut in India and Brazil only,Second Buzzing in with a fail attempt of Google Wave and Third initiative to create Social Wave in Gmail with BUZZ has finally come up a good enough simple product Google+.Google presenting it as an answer to the Social media market giant Facebook and may be its one last try to become Social Media giant from a search engine giant.
As Google has temporally suspended the invitation process due to ‘insane’ demand,I am feeling alone in Google+ and thought about writing this post and letting you all know about the features of Google+ as long as you are not getting the Google+.
Here are the few features you will have in Google+:
Google+ Circles: Circles are like Twitter List or Facebook friend-list.But it’s far easier to use than Twitter List or Friend list of Facebook.It’s attractive and clean drag and drop feature to select people and drop in Circles makes it easier to deal with.Circles in a way helps you to share your updates according to the people you want to share and also helps you to filter you timeline i.e Stream.While updating your status you can select the Circle with which you want to share your Status updates/photos/videos or you make the Status Update public through which all the circles can see your updates
Stream+Sparks
Google + Stream: Google+ having a Facebook like Timeline,good thing about Stream is you can filter your Stream in accordance with the Circles you have created.By selecting one particular circle you would only see updates from the users belonging to that particular circle only.By selecting the Incoming section you will get to updates from group of people not belonging to any circles.
Google+ Sparks:Now a days we mainly consider Twitter from social media as a big source of news.Well Google has done a great job to let you track your interests from Google+,you can search,select and add your interests here to get the recommended links here.
After adding your interests later you click on the sparks and it will redirect to a page which will exclusively feed you news and links according to what you have selected.
Google+ Profile: Your Google+ profile is nothing but your old Google profile with linked profiles and with a new feature +1.Well they say +1 is the new like button.The +1 section shows the links which you recommend by clicking the +1 button during your browsing.Now most of the sites,blogs have started incorporating the +1 button.+1 button also comes up during Google search.Your Picasa albums also can be shared in your Google+ profile.
Google+ Profile navigation bar
Google+ Hangout: It’s specially a Google+ web oriented killer feature.You can start a hangout and can have a group video chat with 10 people at one go.For this you just need to download the plugin for Video chat.
instant upload
Google+ huddle and Instant uploads: These two features are mainly mobile application oriented.Through huddle you can chat with a group of people or with individual people on the go.Google will send you push notifications to your mobile when you will receive text in huddle.
Google+ mobile application is available in Android market.Instant Upload in mobile application uploads photos/videos you take with your phone to a private album on Google+, where it’s easy for you to share them later from your phone or the web.There is a section in photos tab of web version to select photos from your phone.
Google+ Tagging: You can tag your friends in status updates or in comment section by putting + sign then the name the person you want to tag.
Here are few features of Google+ which Facebook needs to incorporate:
1.There are no 420 letters limit in Google+ like Facebook.You can write as much as you want to write.
2.For the typo masters like me there is a option Edit this post.To correct your typos after posting your update you can edit the post and make the required corrections.You don’t need to delete the post to make changes.
Edit this Post
3.In Google+ you have the power to approve/disapprove photo tags when somebody tags you in photos,this is the much needed feature which is missing in Facebook.You can also select default circles/people whose tags would be automatically approved.
Photo Tagging
Few things I personally miss in Google+ is custom URLs for user profile like we have for our Twitter/Facebook accounts,Google apps are not integrated to Google+.Apart from these Google+ so far looks so good but yes its too early to comment and judge the future of Google+.Do leave your comments about Google+ here.
Yesterday I got this all new Buzz in my Gmail.
You can follow me in buzz: http://www.google.com/profiles/aritra.slg
This is the third product from Google in a row after New Orkut and Google Wave.Recently Google also integrated real time Twitter updates in its search engine.So after Twitter integration,Google wave and now with Buzz you can say that Google trying hard to get into this real time business.
So what is this Buzz is all about?
- Its a real time section which is integrated into you Gmail and it is mainly to share your status updates also your favorite links,images,videos with your friends.
- Connected sites: Shared contents from Google Reader,Twitter updates,Image sharing sites like:Picasa and Flickr,Updates from your Blogger and You Tube accounts.
- Following:Comes with same Twitter concept like you get the updates from people whom you are following.But here Buzz comes with auto following and also suggests you users to follow.
- Private and Public sharing: You can share contents with either everybody or with your few selected friends i.e a group.You can create several Groups in your Google contacts.I prefer private settings for my Picasa and flickr accounts.
- Comments and Like:You can comment under status updates and also can like any status update by pressing the like button.
- @Reply or Tagging: Another concept from Twitter like you want to mention or tag any user or multiple users in status update area or in the comment section area.Just put @ then start typing the name you would get a drop down for the list of users.
Mention users in status updates or in comment section
- Inbox integration:Buzz just does not want you to miss any comments that is why it will give you notifications in form of mails in your Gmail inbox itself.I would have liked a different section for this notifications because cleaning up inbox every now and then is not my favorite work.
- Mobile Support: iPhone users and Android users can access Buzz in their in their mobile handsets through Buzz.Google.com.Still no other handset supports Buzz.This is where buzz lacks.The main reason for Twitter’s popularity was that at first Twitter targeted mobile users and it also allows you to update status through SMS which is still not available in Buzz.You can also post Geo tag enabled Buzz from Google Maps.
My verdict is that I like Buzz because I love sharing my status update,Links etc and Buzz looks to be a great sharing platform for us.
So do you like Buzz,Would you use it more regularly?Share your views in comments and do share with us which feature you like the most or what are the features you want to see in Buzz?
Thanks.
On January 27th Apple launched it’s much awaited tablet iPad.It came after one year long speculations.It will be available in market from March(Still I don’t have any idea when iPad would be available in India).Well that night when I was tweeting my timeline was only(almost) with Apple events live tweets and out of the top 10 trending topics there were seven related to iPad and ongoing Apple event.Later I came to know that there were 177,000 tweets in the first hour during the event.
Well Steve Jobs describes it as “Our most advanced technology in a magical & revolutionary device at an unbelievable price”.They says that its 9.7″ touch screen tablet which is here to fill up the gap between Macbook and iPhone.
Let me first discuss about the price.There are 6 models like:
16GB:- $499(wifi) and $629(wifi+3G)
32GB:-$599(wifi) and $729(wifi+3G)
64GB:-$699(wifi) and $829(wifi+3G)
Here are features that you will get in iPad:
- 9.7″ LCD touch screen.
- 10 hours battery life(If you are playing video) and 1 month standby time.
- Bluetooth.
- In built web browser
- Email client.
- You tube client.
- The screen has IPS(in plan switching) which helps to give better visual effects when you are not looking at it as a flat screen.
- Model comes with 3G and Wifi facilities.
- Photo viewer with geotagging and slide show features.
- Inbuilt music player which is more likely to iTunes and also iTunes store.
- Maps,Calender, Address book.
- Movie plays with an aspect ration of 4:3.
- Supports all iPhone applications and also you can synchronize iPhone and iPod with this iPad.
- A paint application.
- iBooks: Apples own ebook application.
- iWork: Too build presentation and spreadsheets etc.
- iPad can also be synchronized with projector and desktop.
Here are few features which are missing in iPad:
- You can not do multitasking.
- iPad does not have any USB port or SD slots.
- No drag and drop of files.
- No flash support.
- No camera which is the most disappointing thing for me because it discards video chat/conferencing and you can’t take pictures and upload it to facebook/flickr.
- Wifi version doesn’t have GPS and 3G is not with full GPS.
Though they says its to fill up the gap between Macbook and iPhone but I don’t see its use if you have both a laptop and a smart phone.
Thanks
Welcome,
It is Thanks Giving Day and I am launching my official site. Thank you all for visiting my official site. I hope I will get your support and feedback about my site in the form of comments and suggestions. In this Thanks Giving Day I want to thank my friend(Don’t want to mention name) who was there all the time helping me to build this site.
Do mail me here
mail@aritrasen.com
Thanks.
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