Google Launches Google+ Communities, Their Answer To Facebook Groups
Google have just introduced a new feature to their social media platform Google+ called Communities, which enables users to connect through their common interests.“Today”, says Google+ on their blog, “Google+ is the fastest-growing network thingy ever. More than 500 million people have upgraded, 235 million are active across Google (+1'ing apps in Google Play, hanging out in Gmail, connecting with friends in Search...), and 135 million are active in just the stream.”
These are impressive figures for a social media site that many have refuted as a pale imitation of Facebook. The new Google+ Communities feature is one example of the innovation that is helping the network to grow so rapidly.
The Communities tab, which can be found next to the Circles button on the sidebar to the left of the Google+ page, shows three white circles, supposedly heads, on a green background.
Users can either create their own Community or join one that has already been created, using Google’s inbuilt search engine to discover groups tailored to their interests. There are a number of privacy options to choose between when creating a Community: public, public with membership required for interaction, completely private or private but discoverable.
Members of a Community can share photos, videos and experiences, start competitions or discussions, or even create events using the selection of tabs on the Community page. For instance, in the announcement video a young woman joins a “Foodies Unite” Community and posts photos of her recipes.
All of the features unique to Google+ are linked with the Communities page as well, allowing Community members to +1 and share a page’s content, and engage live with each other via Hangouts.
The major flaw with Google+ Communities in its current format is that it is inaccessible from mobile devices, but hopefully the service will be updated for iOS and Android devices soon.
What do you think of Google+ Communities?
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Will Sigsworth
Follow us @SocialMediaF & @WillAtSMF
www.socialmediafrontiers.com
Google Launches Google+ Communities, Their Answer To Facebook Groups
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Thursday, December 06, 2012
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Reviewed by Unknown
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Thursday, December 06, 2012
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Unknown
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