Google+ Notifications for YouTube Uploads

Ondřej Pokorný, a reader of this blog, noticed a Google+ notification about a video uploaded to one of his YouTube subscribed channels: It's Okay To Be Smart. It's a YouTube notification and it even has a special icon.

I don't remember seeing notifications like this. Google+ shows notifications when your own YouTube videos receive comments and you can disable this in the settings.

Danny Fratella, Top Contributor for the YouTube Help Center, explains that "the notifications that subscribers get in their Google+ Notifications are based on their previous engagement with your videos and your channel. If YouTube's algorithms notice that they're watching a lot of your content, they're more likely to receive notifications when you upload new videos. There isn't anything you can do to force this notification upon your subscribers."

{ Thanks, Ondřej. ]

Google+ Celebrates Earth Day

Mr. Jingles, the Google+ mascot, has a special look for Earth Day. Just clear all Google+ notifications and you'll see the new Mr. Jingles, which looks like a terrestrial globe. Click the happy face to see the animation.

Here's a bigger version of the animation from Mr. Jingles' Google+ page:

Happy Earth Day!

Google Now Card for Google+ Stories

Google Now shows a new card for Google+ Stories. Google automatically generates stories using the images you upload to Google+ Photos. "Your best photos are automatically chosen and arranged in a fun timeline to show the highlights of your trip or event," explains Google.

Until now, users only received Google+ notifications.

{ Thanks, Angelo Giuffrida. }

Google Photos in Google Drive

For the past 4 years, Google+ was the place where you could find some of the most interesting and innovative Google features. From powerful photo editors to automatically enhanced photos and auto awesome effects, from video conferencing to live streaming, Google+ integrated and upgraded many standalone Google services. Google now wants to set free some of the Google+ features and make them available outside Google+.

Google Drive now lets you browse the photos and videos uploaded to Google+ Photos. There's a new Google Photos section inside Google Drive and it's interesting to point out that the name is Google Photos and not Google+ Photos.

"To get started, just look for the new Photos menu in Drive for Android, iOS and the web. From there you'll be able to manage your photos and videos alongside other types of files. For example, you can now add pictures of wedding venues and cakes to the same Drive folder as your guest list and budget," suggests Google.

You can add Google+ photos and videos to Google Drive folders, print, download, share, delete or rename them.

The new feature is gradually rolled out in Google Drive for the web and the mobile apps, so you may not see it yet.

{ Thanks, David King. }

Hide Google+ Circles in the New Google Contacts

If you're using the new Google Contacts UI, you probably noticed that Google shows both your contacts and the people from your Google+ circles in one place. The "all contacts" section now also shows Google+ contacts and there's no option to only show non-Google+ contacts.

Fortunately, there's a way to hide the people from your Google+ circles. Google+ has a feature called "your circles" which lets you select which circles you share with. For example, you can add the "Friends" and "Family" circles and quickly share your posts with your favorite circles without having to select them all the time.

"When you share posts, photos, profile data, and other things with 'Your circles,' you're sharing with all of your circles, except the ones you're just following (they're unchecked in this list)," explains Google.

The good news is that Google Contacts only includes the people from "your circles", so you can customize "your circles" and uncheck all of them. This way, the "all contacts" section will only include your contacts. The downside is that the "your circles" option from Google+ will no longer be useful, but you can always manually select your circles.

Google Tests New Contacts Interface

Google released a preview of the new Google Contacts interface. Powered by Material Design, the new Google Contacts improves some of the existing features: finding duplicates, Google Profile integration, while adding some new features: a list of recent messages, Hangouts sidebar, global search results from Google+. It also merges your contacts with your Google+ circles and no longer uses pagination.

"The new Google Contacts comes with a fresh look and feel, and conveniently pools together all your contacts, circles, and the people you talk to most in Gmail," informs Google. Starred contacts and frequently contacted people are placed at the top of the page, followed by your entire address book, which now includes your Google+ circles. You can customize "your circles" and exclude one or more Google+ circles.

Google Contacts now finds duplicates automatically and offers to merge all of them. You can dismiss some of the suggestions and better assess if they are actually duplicates.

When you click a contact, Google now opens a card overlay with a bigger picture and more information from the Google Profile page. Google also shows the most recent email conversations and meetings with that person.

The search feature now includes results from Google+. The first results are from your contact list ("personal results"), while the following results are from Google+ ("global results").

Some features aren't available yet in the new Google Contacts: importing/exporting contacts, restoring contacts, printing contacts, keyboard shortcuts. You can still find them in the old version of Google Contacts. For now, the new Google Contacts is not available for Google Apps users.

The new interface can be found at contacts.google.com/preview and it will be added to Gmail's contact manager over the next few weeks. You can also open Google Contacts and click "Try Contacts preview" in the left sidebar.

How to go back to the old interface? Expand the "more" section and click "Leave the Contacts preview".

{ Thanks, Daniel Sadavoy. }

Google and Lunar New Year Celebrations

Google+ celebrates the Lunar New Year with a special costume for Mr. Jingles, the friendly Google+ mascot. "Countries across Asia are beginning Lunar New Year celebrations to welcome in the year of the sheep. In China, hundreds of millions of people are travelling home in what is considered the world's biggest annual human migration. State media says about three billion passenger trips will be made by plane, train and car over the 40-day period," reports BBC.

Here's the animated version:

There's also a Google doodle for Lunar New Year. Google uses an animation which illustrates that 2015 is the Year of the Sheep (sheep, goat or ram, since there's a single Chinese word for all of them).

YouTube's Also Subscribed Section

When you go to a channel, YouTube's desktop site now shows a list of people who subscribed to that channel and they're also in your Google+ circles. For example, YouTube lists 3 people from my Google+ circles who subscribed to the TED channel.

If you haven't subscribed to the channel, YouTube shows a similar list with people who "already subscribed" (instead of "also subscribed").

If you click a thumbnail, YouTube sends you to the Google+ profile page.

{ Thanks, Anthony. }

Google+ Celebrates Valentine's Day

Mr. Jingles, the Google+ mascot, looks different today. He has a cute rose to celebrate Valentine's Day. You can find the funny animation in the Google+ notification box: in Google+ for desktop, Google+ mobile apps and most Google services.

Here's the animation:

When click the +1 button, Google+ shows some animated hearts:

You can also check last year's Easter Egg for Valentine's Day and today's Google doodles.

"Whether a time for a romantic date, to catch up with friends, or catch up on cat videos, Valentine's Day is a good excuse to connect with the world around you. As nerds, the doodle team wanted to sweeten up our homepage with ways in which technology brings people together," explains Google.

The reCAPTCHA team also celebrates Valentine's Day with a special CAPTCHA:

{ Thanks, Fred. }

Christmas Lights in Google+

Mr. Jingles has some new Christmas lights. Open the Google+ notifications pane in Google+ and in many other Google services, mark as read all the notifications and click the bell icon to see the lights.

"All these colorful lights should surely help Santa find me," says Mr. Jingles.

Here's the animation:

And here are last year's festive costumes. Merry Christmas!

Google+ Notifications Sidebar

The new icon for Google+ notifications is not the only change: previously read notifications can only be found in Google+, which now has a notifications sidebar. "Use the tray on the right to browse through your Google+ notifications," informs Google.

You can pick between all notifications, unread notifications or other notifications. When you click a notification, Google sends you to the Google+ post, Blogger post or YouTube video and doesn't show a preview inline.

Here's the notifications tray from Google's navigation bar. "Looking for your previously read Google+ notifications? They can now be found in Google+," informs Google.

Showing two bell icons is confusing. I'm not sure why previously read notifications were removed from Google's navigation bar. Maybe Google wants to drive more traffic to Google+.

Update: Google switched back to the old interface. "We’ve realized that there were a few shortcomings in the new desktop Google+ notification tray, so we're reverting back to the original notifications experience for now," says Balaji Srinivasan, from Google.

{ Thanks, Neil Capper. }

New Google+ Notification Icons

There's a new Google+ notification icon in Google's navigation bar. When you have one or more notifications, Google only shows the red circle, which is now bigger.

If you don't have notifications, you'll see this new bell icon:

Here's the old bell icon:

{ Thanks, Alfredo Hernández. }

Google Knowledge Graph Links to Social Profiles

Here's another sign that Google+'s importance is diminishing: Google's Knowledge Graph cards now include links to social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and sites like YouTube and Instagram. Google also adds links to Google+. Some examples: Björk, Kirsten Dunst, Barack Obama.

Knowledge Graph cards still include the most recent Google+ post and don't show updates from Twitter or Facebook.

{ via Search Engine Land }

New Google+ Share Button

The share button from Google's navigation bar looks different: it now uses an icon instead of text and it's more compact. It's interesting to notice that Google used a text label only in the English interface.

Here's the old Share button:

Creating Google Accounts No Longer Requires Google+

When you create a Google account, Google no longer forces you to join Google+. Google only asks you to create a public Google+ profile, but you can click "No thanks" and avoid upgrading to Google+.

A Google spokesperson confirmed the change to Quartz: "Users can now create a public profile during signup, or later, if and when they share public content for the first time (like a restaurant review, YouTube video or Google+ post)."

Google has removed the "real names" policy and made Hangouts available to Google Apps users who don't have Google+ accounts. It's likely that Hangouts and Google Photos will become standalone apps that don't require Google+. As Google+ fades into the background, it's time to open Google's apps to everyone and transform Google+ into a social enhancement instead of a requirement.

Back in 2012, creating a Google account from the Google homepage meant joining Gmail and Google+. Some time ago, Google added the option to use an existing email address and now you can bypass Google+.

Upload Google+ Videos to YouTube

YouTube now lets import your videos from Google+. Just go to the upload page and click the "import" button from the right sidebar.

You can select one or more Google+ videos and upload them simultaneously. This is a great way to upload your videos from desktop computers, Android and iOS devices if you've enabled the Auto Backup feature.

Google+ is better suited for uploading and managing photos. Even if Google+ uses YouTube's infrastructure for videos, Google doesn't provide embedding options for Google+ videos.

{ spotted by Nedas Petravičius. }

Removing the Plus from Google+

3 years ago, Google+ was launched in an effort to make Google more social. It's the most successful social service created by Google and the main reason is that Google promoted it a lot and switched a lot features to Google+.

Google Talk morphed into Google+ Hangouts, Picasa Web Albums became Google+ Photos, YouTube comments require Google+, Android reviews and Google Maps reviews require Google+. When you create a Google account, you need to join Google+. There are Google+ features in Google's notification bar and Google+ is the first service displayed in the app launcher.

Google+ was supposed to be a new version of Google, an upgraded Google that's more personal, has better tools for sharing content and better ways to filter information. "This is just the next version of Google. Everything is being upgraded. We already have users. We're now upgrading them to what we consider Google 2.0," said Vic Gundotra 2 years ago.

Vic Gundotra left Google a few months ago and since then Google+'s importance has diminished. Google no longer released some information about the number of active Google+ users and barely mentioned Google+ in the Google I/O keynote. Google+ no longer requires real names, Google Apps users no longer need to join Google+ to use Google Hangouts video calls and there are rumors that Google+ Photos will be renamed Google Photos and will no longer require Google+. "The move would enable the photo service to stand more independently and be accessible for consumers who aren't part of Google+, potentially spurring more growth," suggests Bloomberg.

Google launched some of its best features inside Google+ to attract users. Now it's time to set them free and make them more popular instead of using them to make Google+ more popular.

For many people, Google+ was an artificial barrier. Having to use your real name to write comments and reviews, to share photos, to write blog posts was an obstacle. The Google+ integration improved YouTube comments, but made many users unhappy.

Google+ is not dead, but Google seems to extract the "+" and split into standalone apps and services. The stream could become less important.

Google+ Stories

Google+ Photos added a new feature called Stories. Google automatically groups some of your best photos and videos, based on the date and the place where they were taken, and creates animated stories you can edit and share with other people.

"Google+ Stories can automatically weave your photos, videos and the places you visited into a beautiful travelogue. No more sifting through photos for your best shots, racking your brain for the sights you saw, or letting your videos collect virtual dust. We'll just gift you a story after you get home. This way you can relive your favorite moments, share them with others, and remember why you traveled in the first place," explains Google.

Here's an example:

To find all the stories generated from your photos, go to Google+ Photos, click "More" next to "All photos" and select "Stories". They have pretty accurate titles like: "Friday afternoon in Istanbul", "Trip to Paris", "Weekend in Belfast".

There are many other new features in Google+:

* Auto Awesome Movies are now available on Android, iOS and the web, so lots more people will receive highlight reels of their photos and videos.

* You can now create animated GIFs and photobooth-style images on demand. Just tap the new plus button in Photos, and select either Motion or Mix. (Android only?)

* You can now browse your entire photo library, as well as your highlights, by date. Just drag the new scroll bar to move forwards or backwards in time.

* Really big photo libraries are now supported on Android, so you can access your many thousands of photos quickly and easily.

* You can now browse your entire photo library, as well as your highlights, by date. Just drag the new scroll bar to move forwards or backwards in time.

*  A new navigation menu makes it easier to switch between your favorite circles and communities, as well as other places in the app.

*  It's a lot easier to share content from your phone or tablet. To give it a try, just tap the new pencil icon at the bottom right of the stream.

*  The app menu now slides away as you move down the stream, letting posts fill the entire screen.

Rounded Google+ Notification Badge

After making profile pictures from the navigation bar round, Google+ tweaked the badge number displayed next to the bell icon. The counter is now in a red circle like in iOS, instead of a red square.

Here's a similar screenshot from July 2013:

As you can see there are many subtle changes: there's a "+" next to the name, the bell icon has a different color, the "share" button is smaller, the profile picture is circular, borders and the arrow icon are missing.

{ via Moritz }

Google+ Easter Egg for Valentine's Day

Google+ has a special Easter Egg for Valentine's Day. Mr. Jingles, the Google+ mascot, transformed into a heart. You can find the animation in the Google+ notification box: in Google+ for desktop, Google+ mobile apps and most Google services.

Here's the animation that's displayed when you click the icon. This is the "retina" double-sized version:

"I <3 you, people of Google+! You've made me feel like your Valentine many times over," says Mr. Jingles.

You can also check the costumes for New Year's party, Christmas, Thanksgiving Day, Halloween, 15 years of Google and 2 years of Google+.