How to : Set up your Google Plus Account Step by Step

Today we are going to help you set up a Google Plus Account – Step By Step

Step 1 : Invitations

If you don’t already have an invitation to Google plus, then you should consider making friends with better people, like us.

Hit this link to get an Invite

Note:

• You will need a gmail email address or a fully qualified google profile to get this to work.
• Google apps and associated email addresses are currently not supported

When you get an invite it should look something like the image below

After you get an invite you will need to click the button :

Step 2 : Register

Once you click on the button you will be redirected to the registration page:

Add your details, upload and crop your profile Photo.

And you are all set to CLICK JOIN

Step 3 : Profile

Now that you are in, you would want to set up your profile.

You will be greeted with a similar welcome page :

welcome page

• Click the sprocket settings button on the top right of you browser to get into Google Plus settings.

• Next, Set up your privacy and sharing settings in the page.

HIT – SAVE, and you are done!

Step 4 : Setting up Circles

Hit the circles button on your profile page to set up Circles.

Once on the circles page you will be able to , find people by email addresses or by searching for them over other networks and email services like yahoo mail or hotmail.

Simple create circles of your choice, Like Friends, Family, Colleagues, Game Buddies, College, etc.

You can also add the same person to multiple circles.

Once you are done finding and adding your friends, its time to start posting!.

Step 5 : First Post!

• Simple click on the share bar in your Google Plus homepage and start writing.
• You can add media like videos or photos or even links and location from where you are posting.

• Also select what all circles you would like to share this post with.
• You can also leave it blank to share with everyone

Once you are done typing click the green Share button.

Congratulations you have successfully started using Google Plus (+)

Google Plus for Android receives new stream views via update

Google has rolled out yet another update for the Google Plus App and added couple of features along with usual improvements and fixes. Huddle users can now set permissions for invitations and also reject the new ones.

Google has released an update for the official Google Plus app for the Android smartphones. The new Google+ App update brings content stream customisation and much demanded customisations for Huddle (Group chat).

Google Plus is the new social network that lets users share text, photos, videos and links with other contacts added to different lists called Circles. The Google Plus App is available for Android phones running version 2.1 or higher.

Google Plus or Google+ app for Android has been quite popular due to its sleek interface and instant upload function which creates a private album for user in the clouds. The new update for the app brings the option to adding individual circle streams along-side the main stream.

In simple words, it is like adding individual circle streams to view as you swipe between Nearby, Main Stream and Incoming streams. You have to just swipe from right to left on the main stream to access the stream of individual circles.

Huddle (group chat) users can set permissions for the different users who can start huddle with them. So now you have options - Anyone, Your Circles and Extended Circles that can be set to allow them to invite you in a Huddle. Also you can dismiss the new Huddle invitations.

Huddle maniacs can now add entire circle or multiple users to a huddle. However, one issue remains unsolved — if a single person has invited another single person for a huddle, neither of them can leave that huddle. Also, bit of eye candy has been offered with a new feature that will let users to set a photo as wallpaper.

Since the default profile privacy settings are visible to all, anyone can add anyone on Google Plus. Several users complain about random folks adding them to Google Plus but most people forget to make best of the profile specific privacy settings.

Notably, during the second quarter earnings call recently, Google chief executive officer Larry Page announced that Google+ already got over 10 million users with 1 billion items being shared every day on it.

The social network is expected to grow in coming times if the app comes to other mobile platforms as well.

Google+ Tops 10 Million Users, Confirms CEO Larry Page

It’s official: Google+ has more than 10 million users.

Google CEO Larry Page confirmed earlier user predictions during the company’s quarterly earnings call on Thursday. The site’s 10 million+ members share over one billion items each day, said Page, implying a high level of activity among registered users.

Facebook and Twitter boast hefty leads at the present time: Twitter has over 300 million users while Facebook has more than 750 million. Both of them took much, much longer to reach the 10 million user benchmark, however, but they were minuscule companies at launch, whereas Google is already a colossal corporation — as its financial results demonstrate.

Google earned $9.03 billion in revenue during the second quarter, a 32% increase over the same period last year. Google-owned sites generated $6.23 billion (69%) of that revenue, while Google’s AdSense program was responsible for $2.48 billion (28%). Average cost per ad click increased roughly 12% year-over-year.

“Google is a company unlike any other… despite its size it has retained its agility,” commented one Google investor on Page’s Google+ post. “Bureaucracy is inevitable in a large company, but for its size it is doing remarkably well.”

Initial reactions to Google+ have been largely positive, with critics and users praising its ‘Hangout’ video calls and intuitive ‘Circles’ groupings. “Not surprisingly [Circles] has been very well received, because in real life, we share different things with different people,” said Page.

Google+ is still in “field trial with limited access.” Its invite-only barrier limits its growth, though the allure of ‘being on the inside’ likely adds to its appeal among potential users. The site is already the fastest-growing social network of all time, reaching the one million and ten million user benchmarks with blazing speed. And if Technology Incubator Idealab CEO Bill Gross is accurate, Google+ could reach 100 million users faster than any service in history.

HOW TO: Get Your Own Google+ Vanity URL

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Google+ doesn’t offer vanity URLs for user profiles, making it more difficult to share your Google+ Profile with your friends. Instead, Google uses a long string of numbers to denote users (e.g. 117691391504351341685).

The reason Google+ doesn’t use vanity URLs is because those could lead to spammers figuring out the email addresses of millions of Google+ users (since many Google Accounts are linked to Gmail accounts).

Of course, this leads to a problem: you don’t want to be telling people to type in a long string of numbers to find your Google+ Profile. That’s where Gplus.to comes in. This simple little app lets you create a short URL for your Google+ page, making it easy to share with your friends. Mine, for example, is Gplus.to/benparr, which is much easier to remember than a random strong of numbers.

Gplus.to fills a gap that Google+ doesn’t currently address. Should Google give users the ability to create vanity URLs, or is it too much of a privacy concern because of its connection to Gmail? Feel free to let us know in the comments.

Is Google+ Becoming More Female?

Already using Google+? Follow Mashable News for the latest about the platform’s new features, tips and tricks as well as our top social media and technology updates.

If you believe the “unofficial statistician” for Google+, the new social network isn’t nearly as male-dominated as previously reported.

Paul Allen, the founder of Ancestry.com and the man who released a report estimating that Google+ was about to reach 10 million users, says that the male-to-female ratio on Google+ is not as disparate as some reports, including those published by Mashable, have seemed. Instead, Allen’s latest figures show that 33% of Google+ users, as of July 14, 2011 are female.

To be clear, this still means that Google+ is still a male-dominated network (at least for now), but the breakdown isn’t as extreme as the 90% male, 10% female stat from SocialStatistics or the 75% male, 25% female stats from FindPeopleonPlus.

Allen’s methodology in estimating Google+ statistics varies from some other Google+ data sources.

This is how Mashable’s Stan Schroeder described the methodology earlier this week,

He sampled a number of surnames from the U.S. Census Bureau data and compared it to surnames of Google+ users. By comparing surname popularity in the U.S. with the number of users on Google+ with each surname, he can guesstimate the percentage of the U.S. population that signed up for Google+. Finally, he calculated a ratio of U.S. to non-U.S. users to generate an estimate for the number of Google+ users worldwide.

We’re not sure how census data can be applied to gender, especially on a social network, but we’ve reached out to Allen for additional information on how his data was composited.

Still, Allen’s figures show that from July 4, 2011 through July 14, 2011, the male/female gap closed considerably. On July 4, 2011, Allen estimated that 23% of users were female. By July 14, 2011, that percentage was up to 33.6%.

In its own videos and marketing for the service, Google put a lot of emphasis on women, which to us, implies that women are a prime target for Google+.

In our own unscientific estimates, we’ve seen more women joining Google+ over the last few days than when the service first launched.

That leads us to our question — do you see more women joining Google+ in your own circles? What do you think it will take for the gender ratio to start to balance out? Let us know in the comments.

Facebook bans Google+ ad

Ingenuity is surely something to be admired. Commercial ingenuity is something to be revered.

Sometimes, though, it seems that certain tech companies only revere their own ingenuity. That seems to be the case with Facebook, which, as reported by TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld, has removed a piece of fine commercial ingenuity from its site.

App developer Michael Lee Johnson, conscious of the need to be big on Google+ or be nobody, wondered what the best way to levitate his Google+ circles might be. He hit upon a fine idea: he placed an ad on Facebook. It was a simple thing that was headlined: "Add Michael to Google+."

The copy read: "If you're lucky enough to have a Google+ account, add Michael Lee Johnson, Internet Geek, App Developer, Technological Virtuoso."

If those words weren't enough to persuade Facebook users that Johnson was a must for their Google+, he added a fine picture of himself wearing a jaunty cap.

The offending ad

(Credit: Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

You're not guessing what happened with the ad, are you? You know what happened, don't you? Facebook didn't, according to Johnson, merely erase this heinous horse of Troy from its pages. It reportedly banned all his other campaigns too.

The message he received read as follows: "Your account has been disabled. All of your adverts have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances. Generally, we disable an account if too many of its adverts violate our Terms of Use or Advertising guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions."

Because my life's purpose is to be helpful, I scanned Facebook's Terms of Use and Advertising just to see what specific clause might have been besmirched by Johnson's chutzpah.

Perhaps it was Clause 11 in the "Special Provisions Applicable to Advertisers" section: "You will not issue any press release or make public statements about your relationship with Facebook without written permission." Johnson had shamefully declared on Google+ that he was placing the ad.

Perhaps it was Clause 4d of Facebook's Advertising Guidelines: "Ads cannot insult, harass, or threaten a user." He was, some might say, harrassing and insulting Facebook loyalists by his mere suggestion that there might be another place to socially network.

Or perhaps Facebook, its nose feeling tweaked, merely decided to reach for 6a of the same Advertising Guidelines: "We may refuse ads at any time for any reason, including our determination that they promote competing products or services or negatively affect our business or relationship with our users."

Still, ejecting all of Johnson's campaigns seems a touch cruel. Perhaps Johnson will consider an action against Facebook for emotional distress and, well, damage to his reputation.

This he will have to place, so Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities tells me, in a court in Santa Clara County. For now, Johnson's only public statements have been: "LOL." Oh, and "Facebook. You Suck."

1,460 people currently have Johnson in their Google+ circles. I cannot find Google+'s No. 1 personality, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, among them.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20080054-71/facebook-bans-google-ad/#ixzz1SKnJjXQg

A big A+ for Google?

AP

This screen shot shows a page from Google Plus.

The web is alive with the sound of clicking – on Google’s hot new social app, Google+, that is. It’s currently in demo mode, as the Google execs and lucky few that have been invited get to test it out and see its potential. So far, the result is a resounding in-your-face, Facebook!

By now you’ve gathered that it is a new site/app/feature akin to Facebook, that lets you connect with your friends. It does all the things that Facebook does – collates and presents a live stream of updates from friends and groups, is linked to hobbies and interests, includes a chat option, pic uploading, and instead of “liking” you can now “+1” something.

Now here is where things get interesting. Google+ works on the notion that, just like in real life, friendships and relationships have varying degrees. I know that I don’t know everyone of my Facebook friends, and so I tend to update less, and attempt to remain as impersonal as possible. Which kinda sucks, because it sort of defeats the point of Facebook…

Google+ offers you Circles – a feature that lets you group friends according to your preferences. You could have a Circle of college friends, work friends, frenemies, exes, whatever. And each Circle will have customisable settings so you can choose, almost effortlessly, who can see what, and when.

Sparks is a feature on Google+ that gathers (with a greater emphasis on personalisation) news and updates. You wont just get spam-like messages from hundreds of people you don’t care for, or groups you’ve given up trying to leave. Oh and it features integration with all sorts of other Google services, like YouTube.

Another feature that Facebook doesn’t offer, is video chat. Update: News just in is that FB have just upped their game and added video chat. Called Hangouts, this feature allows you to start video chats with one or multiple users, and start Hangouts at any time.What’s great is, whoever is in your circle, will be able to join in the chat, just like that.

The last feature is Huddle – basically a text chat service that lets you chat with groups or individuals.

Now similar apps or rivals have launched before – but Google+ is the only one to actually gain any attention as a serious rival.

Whether it will have a fraction of the success Facebook has, remains to be seen, but once the app is made available for everyone, I know I’ll be joining. It’s just nice to have options :)

As I mentioned, they’re still in trial mode, but you can take a virtual tour and add your e-mail address to the waiting list, here:

Google+ Web App – Adds Google+ to Chrome’s New Tab

Google+ aka Google Plus has become widely popular in just a couple of weeks since its launch. Larry Page recently announced that Google+ has now over 10 million users which are rapidly increasing every single day. Now if you’re using Google+ on Chrome browser and want a cool and faster shortcut to access it, then check our creation below.

We’ve created a Google+ Web App for Chrome which is preferably a bookmark like most other web apps, that lets you simply access Google+ anytime in a click. Google+ icon is always visible when you open a new tab page in Google Chrome. You can even Pin it to Tabs bar or Pin Google+ to Windows 7 taskbar easily using the app settings.

Unfortunately, I was unable to upload the app to Chrome Web Store because of some guidelines but still it is pretty simple to install and uninstall. To install it, just right-click the googleplus_app.crx file and save it to your desktop. Now open it with Chrome and select Continue. Click on the Install button and that’s it!

>> Download Google+ Web App for Chrome (CRX)

It’s Official – ‘Over 10 Million people have joined Google+’ says Larry Page

Until now, there were a lot of speculations going that Google+ aka Google Plus is about to hit 10 Million users mark. The news has now been officially confirmed and announced in a post on Google+ by Google’s CEO Larry Page itself. Larry has shared a detailed post describing the progress Google has made in his first quarter as CEO.

Larry says:

First we launched Google+ to field trial invitation only

Our goal with Google+ is to make sharing on the web like sharing in real life, as well as to improve the overall Google experience
Circles let you choose with precision who you are sharing with. Not surprisingly this has been very well received, because in real life, we share different things with different people.
Hangouts allow for serendipitous interactions. Like in real life when you run into a few friends. It gives you seamless and fun multi user video and it’s really amazing!

Last quarter, we launched the +1 button in search results and ads–enabling users to recommend stuff they liked, and have those recommendations show up in the search results of people they know

This quarter, we released +1 buttons to the entire web, and many sites like Huffington Post, the Washington Post and Best Buy have added +1 buttons

Google+ is still only in field trial with limited access as we scale the system
Users have to be invited, sign up with a profile in order to use it

However, the growth on Google+ has been great–and I’m excited to release some new metrics for you today
Over 10M people have joined Google+
Great achievement for the team

There’s also a ton of activity
We are seeing over 1 billion items shared and received in a single day

Our +1 button is already all over the web
It’s being served 2.3 billion times a day

So while we have a lot of work still to do, we are really excited about our progress with Google+

The CEO also talks about the progress of Android and Google Chrome:

We have tremendous new businesses being viewed as “crazy”
Android
We actually have a new metric to report of 550,000 Android Devices activated a day!
That’s a HUGE number even by Google’s standards
Chrome
It’s the fastest growing browser
With over 160 million users