Why Google+?
Obviously, if you are comfortable with your current social network, you should stick with it, but if you're looking to branch out, then Google+ is a great place to do that. The new social network from Google has plenty of features to entice anyone who's apart of the ecosystem and utilizes Gmail, Docs and Google's other services on a frequent basis. Google+ also has a nifty feature that lets you "hang out" on a video chat with several friends at once.
However, no amount of features can make a social network worth joining. You'll want to see how many of your friends are on the social network first to see if it's worth your time to join. Without any friends, the features are useless. But if you really need some friends, you could always invite yours with the helpful link on the right-hand side.
Adding Friends
What Are Circles?
When adding friends in Google+, Circles are a way to group certain friends into certain categories (i.e. a Circle called "work" for all of your work buddies; or a circle called "family" for family members). These Circles help keep you in touch with these different groups. For instance, your family will be able to see those pictures of you in Vegas, but your boss will still think you were "sick" on that day.
Creating a Circle
Creating a circle is easy. Just click on the Circles tab (to the left of the "Find People" box) and find the empty, greyed out circle in the Circles section. Hover over it to reveal the link for creating a new Circle. A new pop up will appear, letting you type a name of your new circle, adding a description, and even adding people to the Circle. When you have finished, click the blue button.
Adding Friends to a Circle
You just saw one way to add a person to a circle on Google+, but there are many other ways to befriend your family, friends, or others on the social network. Another way is by searching for them in the large Find People search field at the top of all Google+ pages. When you land on their profile page, simply hover your mouse over the orange "Add to circles" button and select the appropriate circle.
Commenting on, Sharing, and +1-ing Posts
Google uses the same type of commenting system that Facebook and other social networks do. On anyone's post, there is a Comment button where you able to respond to their post textually. In addition, a Share button lets you share their post to your circles on Google+.
One thing that you may have wondered about is the +1 button. This button is a cross between the Like button on Facebook and the Digg button. When you click it, it will show that you +1'd the post, but will also keep a running count of all the people that clicked the +1 button.
Adding and Managing Photos and Videos
Photos are one of the major attractions to Google+ because of the uploading simplicity and the cool user interface that Google has provided. If you have used Google's online photo sharing site Picasa using your same Google account, then your photos from that service will automatically be made visible in your Google+ account. If Picasa is more of your thing, you can continue uploading there and the photos will also be viewable in Google+.
By clicking on the Photos tab (to the right of the Google+ logo), you will be able to see all of the recent pictures from your Circles. To see your photos, click on "Your albums" from the list of options on the left-hand side of the page.
Your photos are arranged by albums. To create a new album and/or upload photos, click the orange "Upload New Photos" button on the top-left of the page. You can set the name of your new album, or select a new album by clicking on the "add to an existing album" link. When you are ready to upload your photos, simply drag and drop the photos to be uploaded to the dotted box. You can also select photos on your computer by clicking the button labeled as such. When you have finished, click the Create album button.
When you upload an album, you may not want the photos to be visible to all of your Circles. To change the privacy of your albums, click on an existing album, then click on the edit link next to the text that reads "Visible to". A small pop up will allow you to set the circles or individual people that can see the photos in that album. Click Save when you're done.
Gmail Chat
If you use Google Chat in Gmail, you'll feel right at home because Google has included that same chat functionality in Google+, adding the ability to chat with your Circles as well. Simply search for a contact, or click on an available contact to begin a text, video, or audio chat.
Hangouts
Where Google+ really shines is the ability for multiple people (up to 10 people, to be exact) to chat simultaneous using video. There is one large video stream for the person who is talking, and smaller video streams below for everyone else. When Google+ detects a spike in the audio from a chat, their video gets placed in the large video stream. Pretty cool, huh?
Sparks
Sparks is a way for communities of similar interest individuals to share items on Google+. It's similar to Facebook pages, except these pages are designed specifically for different interests/topics, like Gardening, Sports, Cars, Movies, Android, Computers and more.
When you navigate to a group, you'll see news items (presumably from Google News) about those topics. You can either read the news items, or you can Share the items with your Circles, adding your own comments.
Mobile applications
Android
Google has provided two ways of connecting to your Google+ account while on-the-go. The first is the native application that is only available right now to Android users. The application has some pretty nifty features, including the ability to upload your photos from your phone using the web interface on Google+.
iOS
If you're not lucky (or is it unlucky?) enough to own an Android device, you can use the available mobile-friendly website that Google has created. It's not too shabby and is available at m.google.com/plus.
Helpful Tools and Resources
Cheat Sheet
Throughout your adventures on Google+, you may get lost in the wonderful world of social networking. When this happens, you can print out and use the Cheat Sheet provided by Mashable.
Google+ Profile Vanity URL
Google currently doesn't support creating your own plus.google.com/username URL. However, a third party service will gladly help you overcome this shortfall by giving your profile the URL it needs. Just head to gplus.to to get started.
Follow this article's author, Cory Bohon on Twitter.
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