Getting Started With The Google+ PHP API

Getting Started With The Google+ PHP API from anthony james on Vimeo.

Google Plus rivals Facebook in social sites competion

Constant status updates, "checking in" everywhere one goes, looking for potentially clever and witty status updates, uploading 200 photos five seconds after getting home: These are all symptoms of a serious Facebook addiction. Many have recognized the signs and have admitted to an addiction.
However, Facebook's monopoly on social networking may be ending with the emergence of Google's social network, Google Plus. Google Plus combines the core features of Twitter and Facebook. However, its unique features are setting it apart from Facebook.
Announced this past summer on June 2011, Google Plus enterned the cyber competion of social networking sites. Facebook previsouly held the monopoly on the web; however, now Google Plus attempts to create a greater competition rivaling Facebook.
A few of the new services Google Plus offers is the Stream that is equivalent to Facebook's News Feed. Just as on Facebook, one can share videos, photos, links and locations with friends on Google Plus. One can do the basics such as update statuses and comment, and they even have a "+1" feature similar to the "Like" button. In general, these features are very similar, currently putting them at a fairly equal playing field.
However, at this point, Google Plus doesn't have an application like the "Ask a Question" polling application of Facebook.
Google Plus offers a feature known as "Circles." "Circles" can be used to organize friends into categories and groups, such as "Friends," "Family," "Co-workers," "USD classmates" and so on. Google Plus users can specify exactly which updates, photos and links are shared with each group. Facebook has developed something similar in response to Google Plus's unveiling of the "Circles". It has the starred friends or favorites feature, but Google Circles is a much easier system to navigate due to its circular map format.
The video chat revolution is upon the cyber world, and both social networking sites have incorporated video chat features. Facebook video chat is still working out some kinks because it tends to freeze and sometimes not connect. As of now it does not support group video chat, but its privacy features are commendable. When a friend is invited to video chat, they must accept the invitation before video is enabled.
Meanwhile,on Google Plus "Hangout," one can video chat with up to 10 friends and there is no "invitation" application. This means anyone can attempt to video chat another user at any time. However, it lacks the tightend security that Facebook offers with the invitaions and accepting the invitations.
Overall, Google Plus is a safe site with great privacy protections for its users. It takes a little more effort on the user's part to be safe on Facebook, because privacy settings must be manually changed in order to ensure the greatest protection. Google Plus, on the other hand, does this automatically.The privacy settings in Google Plus are built in and easier to change than those on Facebook.
Google Plus is simple and surprisingly refreshing. As of now, it has all the features of Facebook: chatting, status updates, "check-in" and photo/video sharing. It also is free of multiple pesky applications such as Farmville.
Over 50 million people have joined Google Plus, making it the world's fastest growing site since its official launch on Sept. 20. The question is, can it sustain its popularity and draw Facebook addicts to its side? Facebook currently has over 800 million active users, over 50 percent of which log onto Facebook on any given day. Facebook is undeniably the most popular social networking site in the world.
Another benefit of Google Plus is the accesibility to blogspot integrated into the site.
Both sites offer picture sharing. Google Plus uses Picassa while Facebook continues with the typical picture sharing setting.
What Google Plus is still missing that Facebook offers are the business pages, the Facebook games and Facebook questions.
At the end of the day, Facebook is still the top dog. Perhaps Google Plus just needs more time to become established and gain momentum. In the not so distant past, MySpace was the site to be on, and Facebook was that weird site only college kids used. However, over time, everyone followed their friends to Facebook. Perhaps once all of our peers make the switch to Google Plus we will follow with the same Lemming-like mentality that led us to Facebook. Only time will tell though if Google Plus will remain as a main social site or go to the peripheries of Facebook.
Although the addiction to Facebook is unlikely to cease in the near future, props to Google Plus for establishing itself in a Facebook-centric world. Mark Zuckerberg began a social networking revolution, and his legacy very well may withstand the Google Plus invasion.

(Official) How to Add Google Plus To Your Website

New Google Plus features to be launched soon

One of the negatives to setting up and using a new social media platform like Google+ is creating your contact lists all over again. Many of you might be hesitant to get involved with Google+ because your community is already established on Facebook. If this is the only thing keeping you from trying out the new platform, there is a simple way around this roadblock. Here are the steps to migrate your Facebook friends to Google+.
1. Sign up for a Yahoo mail account if you don’t already have one. Log into the account and click on the Contacts tab. There you’ll see a function to import contacts from Facebook. Follow those instructions.

2. Once your contacts are imported click on the drop down box that says “actions.” Choose export all and

export to a Yahoo csv file. 

3. Now go to Google and log into your gmail account. If you don’t have one you can create one quickly. Since you are interested in using Google+ I’m going to assume you have a Google profile already. Once logged in, click on Contacts and create a new group called Facebook.
4. Select the group and then choose “import contacts.”  Browse to where you saved the csv file and choose import. Choose the Facebook group as the destination and click import.

5. Now log into Google+, click on your circles and choose “find and invite.”

That’s it! Now you can add anyone who’s already on Google+ to your circles and invite those that aren’t.
How do you like Google+ so far?

Google Plus Users About To Get Google Apps, Share Photos Like Mad

Google Plus opened wide to the public a couple of weeks ago, but since then, there’s been very little in the way of official updates. Until this week, that is. There’s a ton of news this week regarding Google Plus, including some eye-catching statistics on membership and service usage. In addition, Google Apps are on the way, with Google Plus integration coming “in the next few days.”

Google Plus user base crosses 40 million mark

New York: Internet firm Google's online social networking service 'Google Plus' has crossed 40 million users mark since its launch in June. Google Plus now has attracted 40 million users, reflecting the huge interest in the social networking site which was opened to the public on September 20. Earlier, the service was available only through invitation as part of trial runs.
Interestingly, rival Facebook Inc took three years to reach the 25 million users mark and crossed the over 50 million active users mark in October, 2007. Facebook, founded in 2004, has now more than 800 million users across the globe. "Google Plus is now open to everyone and we just passed the 40 million user mark. People are flocking into Google Plus at an incredible rate and we are just getting started," Google Chief Executive Larry Page said while announcing the company's latest quarterly earnings.
Google unveiled 'Google Plus' in late June as part of efforts to garner a share of the lucrative social networking space that has so far been dominated by Mark Zuckerberg-led Facebook.

'Google Plus' has crossed 40 million users mark since its launch in June.

During the quarter, Google has reported a 26 per cent jump in its net income to USD 2.73 billion in July-September 2011, helped by robust advertising business. It registered revenue of USD 9.72 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2011, an increase of 33 per cent over USD 7.28 billion in the same period last year.