CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-18 05:11:51 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 29 +1s)

From the back of a marble cheese cutting board.

You don't say!

2013-05-18 00:01:04 (7 comments, 22 reshares, 65 +1s)

Best animated gif...EVAR! #space  

2013-05-15 20:24:52 (55 comments, 20 reshares, 57 +1s)

Communities in the new Google+ Stream

As you may have seen by now, we're excited to roll out 41 Google+ upgrades today - including the new Stream, Hangouts, and Photos. Check them all out here:

http://googleplusproject.blogspot.com/2013/05/new-google-stream-hangouts-and-photos.html

For those particularly interested in Communities, here are the Communities-specific changes we've made in the redesign:

- Communities look great in the redesign - New multi-column layout? New stylish looks? New related tags? They're all in Communities too.
- More prominent About section - Community moderators have been asking for a way to make their About sections - with its critical set of guidelines and rules - more visible. Now prominently in the upper-right, perhaps you might also find the About section useful for timely announcements now,... more »

2013-05-15 18:57:36 (8 comments, 8 reshares, 33 +1s)

We just introduced the new Google+! Enjoy the details below.
#googlepluslove

2013-05-13 22:05:36 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 25 +1s)

I/O is coming...

And here's the official community for anyone who wants to join the discussion.

2013-05-13 02:26:15 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here's Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World. Space Oddity

2013-05-10 23:45:11 (1 comments, 3 reshares, 29 +1s)

Awesome use of a community - +Tim Coe, a writer, is penning several "choose your own adventure"-style stories where the community's members decide what to do next.

Love this!

2013-05-08 06:40:54 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 38 +1s)

During a presentation today, a coworker announced that he'd love to join a community about kosher foods, and "holler at me if you want to join too."

I turned to him and asked "Did you just say 'halal at me'?"

I was entirely too proud of myself.

2013-04-25 20:19:16 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 25 +1s)

Rocky northern California coast (near Redwood National Park)

2013-04-25 20:16:05 (10 comments, 1 reshares, 49 +1s)

Rocky northern California coast (near Redwood National Park)

2013-04-25 00:16:31 (2 comments, 3 reshares, 26 +1s)

Definitely some good geeky communities in here.

2013-04-23 18:03:48 (29 comments, 8 reshares, 39 +1s)

Hey guys - heads up on a quick change for community role management - we're making a tweak to ensure that only owners can promote regular community members to moderators.

This should help better differentiate between owners and moderators.

2013-04-23 05:05:02 (8 comments, 1 reshares, 66 +1s)

Learning to use my 300mm (600mm equivalent) lens.

I can almost see the far side of the moon with it.

2013-04-23 02:36:44 (6 comments, 4 reshares, 42 +1s)

Wondering why there was a freshly golden-painted fire hydrant this weekend in San Francisco, on the corner of 20th and Church in the Mission District?

It's because, 107 years ago, during the fires of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, it seemingly (almost magically) kept on pumping out water long after most other hydrants ran dry. And it helped save a neighborhood.

More of the story here: http://www.naalarm.com/bill/golden.htm

(Excuse the poor quality phone pic!)

2013-04-20 18:20:37 (4 comments, 6 reshares, 18 +1s)

So damn funny if you saw the original Dove ad.

2013-04-19 02:24:45 (76 comments, 59 reshares, 120 +1s)

Moderators can now move posts between community categories

Based on all the amazing feedback you’ve shared, we know that being able to move posts from one discussion category to another is at the top of your wish list. We’re excited to announce that moving posts is now possible, and will be rolled out to all moderators throughout the day. 

To move posts between categories:

1) Go to a community that you moderate, and find a post you’d like to move
2) Click on the post’s current category (located at the top next to the date)
3) Select the new category you’d like to move the post to

Let us know what you think in the comments, and please keep the feedback coming!

#googleplusupdate  

2013-04-19 02:24:45 (179 comments, 888 reshares, 559 +1s)

Moderators can now move posts between community categories

Based on all the amazing feedback you’ve shared, we know that being able to move posts from one discussion category to another is at the top of your wish list. We’re excited to announce that moving posts is now possible, and will be rolled out to all moderators throughout the day. 

To move posts between categories:

1) Go to a community that you moderate, and find a post you’d like to move
2) Click on the post’s current category (located at the top next to the date)
3) Select the new category you’d like to move the post to

Let us know what you think in the comments, and please keep the feedback coming!

#googleplusupdate  

2013-04-18 16:44:58 (4 comments, 3 reshares, 32 +1s)

I'm excited to announce something else we've been working on: Google+ Comments, launching today on Blogger. This provides you with some features that you won't have seen in other commenting systems; my own favorite is that it brings the conversation from G+ into your blog, so that the social media conversation doesn't get segregated from the comment thread.

This is a purely opt-in launch for blog owners: if you have a blog and want to try it out, follow the instructions in this post. We'll be rolling it out over the course of today!

2013-04-12 22:27:56 (3 comments, 5 reshares, 16 +1s)

+Ken Norton drops knowledge on how to be the best product manager ever. Great essay.

2013-04-11 01:08:13 (5 comments, 8 reshares, 19 +1s)

Hyperlapse: Time-lapse on Steroids!

You probably know what time-lapse is, right? BUT... do you know what _Hyper-lapse Photography_ is? It's "a technique combining time-lapse and sweeping camera movements typically focused on a point-of-interest" [quote from http://www.teehanlax.com/labs/hyperlapse/].

The video below is an example.

 At http://www.teehanlax.com/labs/hyperlapse/, you can create your own hyper-lapse videos from the image material gathered for Google Street View. Just define the start and the end of your journey, and the software will do the rest (with some restrictions to keep the server load manageable).

#hyperlapse

2013-04-10 18:16:42 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 49 +1s)

Point Reyes, CA

2013-04-10 18:14:55 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 39 +1s)

Point Reyes, CA

(Best viewed large)

2013-04-10 16:24:28 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

New awesome game just released by the talented +Geoff Stearns. You challenge your friends to find the best photo to answer questions the game asks you.

2013-04-09 05:38:01 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 28 +1s)

Man. You can 3D print anything nowadays. I love the future.

cc: +Jonathan Terleski 

2013-04-09 05:35:35 (5 comments, 2 reshares, 21 +1s)

This single-topic Tumblr makes me want to never have kids.

Then again, it's so funny that it kind of does.

(I think I might end up being a bad parent.)

2013-04-05 22:30:30 (12 comments, 11 reshares, 47 +1s)

New favorite (vegan) blog: http://thugkitchen.com/

(Language slightly NSFW)

(h/t +Laura Smith)

2013-04-02 20:09:28 (0 comments, 5 reshares, 11 +1s)

World GDP rose by 2.5% during the final quarter of 2012. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) alone have been responsible for 55% of global growth since the end of 2009. Dragged down by debt and austerity, the 23 countries that make up the developed world contributed just 20% to that growth http://econ.st/14BDbXk 

2013-04-02 15:53:36 (5 comments, 4 reshares, 55 +1s)

Golden Gate Bridge at sunset - Crissy Field, San Francisco

2013-04-01 21:13:13 (13 comments, 2 reshares, 24 +1s)

The livestream where they announce all the YouTube nominees has been going on for 5 hours now.

This is serious dedication to the contest. Which video will win?

2013-04-01 17:00:58 (9 comments, 14 reshares, 36 +1s)

Communities moderation pro-tip: Remove, report, and ban on mobile

For those of you now moderating your communities on the go in the newest mobile app, a quick tip: Did you know that you can remove, report, and ban in one simple action, just like on desktop?

Just choose the "ban from community" option on any post, and the following confirmation screen will make it easy to also remove the post, and also report as spam.

#notaprilfools  

2013-04-01 05:03:51 (10 comments, 26 reshares, 53 +1s)

So, is the Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile really a smile? What's everyone feeling at the birth of Venus? What's on the farmer's wife's mind in American Gothic?

Finally, these questions can be answered with the new "Add emotion" button.

#emotipics  

2013-04-01 00:18:25 (5 comments, 5 reshares, 31 +1s)

Your photos +Emotion

Google+ Photos is all about sharing your experiences and emotions with the people you care about. We’re constantly looking for ways to help you create richer, more expressive photographs. 

Many months of research on how people communicate on the Internet have convinced us that when it comes to expressing yourself, nothing beats the richness and elegance of a few properly placed colons, parentheses, letters and hyphens.

:-)  :P :O :/

These representations of your innermost emotions are simple, and best of all, unambiguous :P 

So starting today, we will give you the option to add stylized emotions to your photos. To give it a try, simply open one of your pictures in the lightbox, and click the “Add emotion” button at the top left of the screen. 

We will plumb the emotional depths of everyone in thephoto, th... more »

2013-03-31 22:37:38 (3 comments, 3 reshares, 9 +1s)

Hurry - only one more day to upload your contest entry before youtube.com shuts down!

2013-03-29 17:18:30 (6 comments, 5 reshares, 43 +1s)

I want to try this HADOUKEN-ing. A thing in Japan now apparently http://imgur.com/a/LsgGd?gallery

2013-03-29 00:49:51 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Happening right now from 5:00PM to 6:00PM PT - +E! Entertainment is guest-moderating the Game of Thrones Circle community, answering questions about the upcoming third season on HBO.

As a big fan of the books and show, I'm geeking out.

2013-03-28 20:35:42 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 12 +1s)

The Knitting Lodge community is becoming more than just a place to connect with each other and share our projects.  If you've joined in our virtual "hangout" groups, online discussions, or gathered with us in the Yarn Mountain shop, then you already know that we learn a tremendous amount from each other.  

This is where the idea of bringing our Summer Workshop Series to our online community began.  We're going to select certain courses from our workshop list and offer them via The Knitting Lodge on Google+.   Please consider the 5 questions we've asked in this survey to help us pull the final details of the program together.  Without you, we don't have a reason to do this, so please know how valuable your input is.

 +Nicole Flores  is going to collect your answers and coordinate the program.  Thank-you for sharing the amazing journey withus! - C... more »

2013-03-25 18:28:11 (18 comments, 6 reshares, 35 +1s)

You may have seen this morning's announcement with lots of new Google+ functionality for iPhone and Android - amazing Snapseed photo filters, redesigned posts, location sharing, and more.

And - there are twelve new Community features in Android and / or iPhone too! Here's the exhaustive list:

1) The option to invite people to a community, or share a community
2) The ability to adjust the volume of community posts in your Home stream
3) Moderators can now remove, report, and ban from any post
4) You can now reshare posts to a community
5) Moderators can now approve / deny flagged posts
6) Moderators can now moderate comments
7) You can now post from the "top" of a community (no need to first browse to a category)
8) You can now post to a community from the "Home" view
9) Moderators can now manage them... more »

2013-03-25 20:08:12 (28 comments, 47 reshares, 159 +1s)

You may have seen this morning's announcement with lots of new Google+ functionality for iPhone and Android - amazing Snapseed photo filters, redesigned posts, location sharing, and more. (Link below.)

And - there are twelve new Community features in Android and / or iPhone too! Here's the exhaustive list:

1) The option to invite people to a community, or share a community
2) The ability to adjust the volume of community posts in your Home stream
3) Moderators can now remove, report, and ban from any post
4) You can now reshare posts to a community
5) Moderators can now approve / deny flagged posts
6) Moderators can now moderate comments
7) You can now post from the "top" of a community (no need to first browse to a category)
8) You can now post to a community... more »

2013-03-21 17:16:43 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

#InMyCommunity we made dessert together, 6000 miles apart

It all started when I decided (in California) to make this complicated dessert, involving two parts:
- an orange confit
- a chocolate caramel mousse

I was just too intimidated to do it on my own, so I asked the foodies+ members to see if anyone would join me.  To my delight, not one but three members, from Canada, France & Spain rose up to the challenge, and we all prepared the dessert together.

[Note: 6000 miles / 9000 km is roughly the distance between California / Canada & France / Spain]

---
Here is our foodies+ community: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/114884141077604568395
Here is how our "Let's cook together" works: http://goo.gl/ziaAM 
The participating pioneering members for this experiment were: +LisaW... more »

2013-03-20 20:42:46 (20 comments, 4 reshares, 11 +1s)

We are consistently inspired by how our products impact the lives of people in ways we could never predict. With the recent launch of Google+ Communities, the human stories that unfold within them are what make them truly powerful.

If you've had a memorable or interesting experience in a Google+ Community, we'd love to hear your story. We want the weird, the funny, the remarkable, the beautiful - anything that was meaningful to you. Submit your story starting with the hashtag #InMyCommunity.

2013-03-20 18:29:13 (6 comments, 3 reshares, 16 +1s)

We are consistently inspired by how our products impact the lives of people in ways we could never predict. With the recent launch of Google+ Communities, the human stories that unfold within them are what make them truly powerful.

If you've had a memorable or interesting experience in a Google+ Community, we'd love to hear your story. We want the weird, the funny, the remarkable, the beautiful - anything that was meaningful to you. Submit your story starting with the hashtag #InMyCommunity.

2013-03-18 04:34:26 (13 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

First the Pioneer Kuro, now the Panasonic VTs - why do the highest quality TV manufacturers exit the game?

2013-03-15 17:10:26 (20 comments, 11 reshares, 35 +1s)

Some more photos from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park in Florida. Amazing quality and attention to detail. I was definitely nerding out.

2013-03-15 05:47:43 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 33 +1s)

Guess the castle!

Update: JD James wins(-ish) - it's Hogwarts, at the Harry Potter theme park - where I nerded out a bit last weekend.

2013-03-14 20:25:57 (16 comments, 7 reshares, 19 +1s)

Adjust the volume of community posts in your Home stream

You can already adjust the volume of What's Hot and Circle posts in your Home stream (see http://goo.gl/d2nlU and http://goo.gl/wrHDD). Today, and by popular demand, we're bringing this option to Communities.

Say you want to see more posts from your travel community: now you can dial it up! Or maybe you don't want to be tempted by your dessert community (too often): choose to see fewer posts in your Home stream, or none at all. It's completely up to you!

To try it out, just visit a community that you've joined and click the "Actions" menu. You'll see options at the bottom to adjust the volume of posts in your Home stream. This will roll out throughout the day today.

As always, let us know what you think in the comments!

#googleplusupdate  

2013-03-14 20:16:10 (21 comments, 19 reshares, 67 +1s)

Adjust the volume of community posts in your Home stream

You can already adjust the volume of What's Hot and Circle posts in your Home stream (see http://goo.gl/d2nlU and http://goo.gl/wrHDD). Today, and by popular demand, we're bringing this option to Communities.

Say you want to see more posts from your travel community: now you can dial it up! Or maybe you don't want to be tempted by your dessert community (too often): choose to see fewer posts in your Home stream, or none at all. It's completely up to you!

To try it out, just visit a community that you've joined and click the "Actions" menu. You'll see options at the bottom to adjust the volume of posts in your Home stream. This will roll out throughout the day today.

As always, let us know what you think in the comments!

#googleplusupdate  

2013-03-12 22:13:52 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 21 +1s)

Love my custom Pinkberry fruit cup. Double order of fruit, small dash of frozen yogurt. (@Charlotte Douglass International Airport)

So glad frozen yogurt is in fashion.

2013-03-09 19:35:00 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 30 +1s)

Cowgirl Creamery factory @ Point Reyes Station, CA

Rows and rows of Mt. Tam (or Red Hawk?) cheese being manufactured on a Saturday afternoon. Ambient overhead florescent light. No flash. Olympus OM-D (20mm @ f1.7). Minor development in LR 4.

It was tough not grabbing one or two.

2013-03-09 07:57:32 (11 comments, 1 reshares, 41 +1s)

Late at night on the dark highway. Car invisibily passes me without its lights on. I change into its lane, behind it, flash my highbeams a few times. Nothing.

Another car in front of me sees what's happening, also changes into the lane, flashes its highbeams too. Finally, the dark car turns its lights on.

That's some teamwork right there.

2013-03-06 18:33:25 (4 comments, 8 reshares, 33 +1s)

Some profile & page improvements, per your request

We spend lots of time listening to your feedback, and today we're launching some profile and page updates that you've been asking for. These include:

- A new tab for your Local reviews. In addition to your photos, +1's and YouTube videos, there's now a place for all your Local reviews. Highlight your favorite restaurants, or hide the tab completely via settings -- it's completely up to you.

- An easier way to edit your info. The 'About' tab now consists of separate cards (like Story, Places, and Links) -- each with its own prominent edit link. As always: you can share specific fields with specific circles, or keep them just for you.

- Bigger cover photos, with a better aspect ratio. Cover photos are much larger than before (up to 2120px by 1192px), and they display in 16x9... more »