Will Google’s Updates To Google+ And Hangouts Attract New Users?

At the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco yesterday, the internet search giant announced numerous changes to its products, including updates to the social network Google+ and the messaging and video VoIP service Hangouts. Google has also made updates to Search, Chrome, Maps, Android and Play.

This is what Google had to say in a post announcing all the updates:

We unveiled the newly designed Google+, which helps you easily explore content as well dramatically improve your online photo experience to give you crisp, beautiful photos—without the work! We also upgraded Google+ Hangouts—our popular group video application—to help bring all of your real-life conversations online, across any device or platform, and with groups of up to 10 friends.

When a user first logs in to Google+, they will be invited to take a tour of the new settings. The major new feature highlighted is Hangouts, which is available across all devices, replacing Talk on mobile phones. On phones Hangouts is a standalone application with its own individual icon – speech marks within a speech bubble – which also denotes the feature in Google+. If a users has a Google account active on more than one device, both will register the activity when they view a Hangouts notification on one.

Hangouts is similar to Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp: a thread-based text conversation messenger that supports multimedia content, such as videos, emoticons, emoji and photos. What makes hangouts stand out is the inclusion of a video call feature, allowing users to enjoy some face time with a friend, or even conference call a number of other users. Google wants users to commit to long conversations on Hangouts, allowing users to save conversations over a long period of time.
“Of course, we give you the ability to turn off history,” said Google’s Vic Gundrota whilst on stage at the developer conference yesterday. “But having the ability so save those conversations, I think is delightful and amazing.”

As well as releasing Hangouts across all platforms, Google has made a number of significant changes to Google+’s layout and accessibility. Google has revamped the Google+ stream, transforming it into a multi-column design. Depending on a user’s screen size, they will see between one and three columns. Images are the focus of the new stream, just as they are on Pinterest and in the new Facebook news feed, with some filling the entirety of the screen. The various widgets surrounding the stream are also more animated: the “sharebox bounces, the menus slide, and the cards flip and fade”, according to the Google+ and Hangouts update announcement post on the Google blog.




Having taken a tour of the new site, users are invited to “Share what’s new…” in a text box at the top of the page. The Google+ stream also contains personal hints and general suggestions, embedded throughout rather than all at the top. So, for example, scrolling eight rows down in the second column takes me to an option to complete my profile. This feels less intrusive than it would if it were at the top of the column, allowing me to see and enjoy the streams content without being put off immediately. In fact, according to the announcement post, the new update is meant to intrude as little as possible:

Technology works best when it gets out of the way, and lets people do what makes them happiest: living, learning and loving. That’s why, when we started the Google+ project nearly two years ago, we aimed to bring real-life sharing to software. We wanted to forget about tools, and focus on each other. And it seems to be working.

As well as redesigning the stream, Google has addressed another issue with feeds: “they’re kinda flat”. To combat this problem, the Google+ stream now has a “related hashtags” feature. Google will intuitively add hashtags that it believes are related to a post’s content. Users can click on these hashtags to find more posts with the hashtag. Web conversations will be identified, categorised and ranked, so that users can discover more about what they see in the stream. Users can add their own tags if they want, or remove those automatically allocated by Google. The video beneath shows the feature in action.



The final big update has been made to Photos. Google has introduced a lot of new automatic features to Photos. Users are provided with “unlimited free storage at standard size (2048px) and 15GB of free storage at full size” online where they can auto-upload their photos as soon as they’re taken (users have to give their permission for the feature to work). 

Google will highlight the best photographs a user takes to help them select their favourites, but there is also an auto-enhance feature if users need to touch the odd image up. The most interesting Photos feature is an automatic animating tool, which will create GIF-like stop-motion graphics from any chronological series of photographs that users upload. Google has taken full advantage of YouTube to create another explanatory video. 



Google are hoping that their updates will attract more new users and persuade current users to access the service more frequently. However, despite Google’s insistence that “190 million people are now active in the Google+ stream, and 390 million are active across Google (+1’ing apps in Google Play, making video calls in Gmail, sharing videos from YouTube...)”, the average social networker still divides their time between other sites like Facebook and Twitter.

At the moment, Google+ is more of a specialised, community-focused social network. Many users access the site to share things from one specific aspect of their life: an interest, a hobby, a job. For example, Google+ has a very active photography community who share, like and comment on their photos and the photos of others. People use Facebook and Twitter to share their everyday thoughts and keep their friends updated with what they been up to, which makes them frequently active on the site; they use Google+ to connect with a community of likeminded individuals with similar interests, which takes far less time in comparison.

Although the updates are significant, its hard to say whether they bring anything new to the table. The updated stream certainly looks better across all devices, maintaining Google+’s minimalist colour scheme but still managing to make the content more accessible and eye-catching. Also, Google+ has beaten Facebook in the race to incorporate hashtags, but apart from that their is not that much difference between the Google+ stream and the news feed. The improvements to Google Hangouts will only really have an effect on current users: new users are unlikely to use the service unless enough of their friends are active on it. Of course, keeping current users active is an important task.

The automated photo upload feature will undoubtedly divide opinion: on the one hand it makes saving and collating photos easier and quicker, on the other it could be seen as invasive, despite the fact that it can be switched on or off at any time. It is also hard to see anyone except current Google+ users sharing their photos on the site rather than via Instagram or Twitter.

Google’s updates definitely improve the various Google branded services, but it doesn’t change the fact that, apart from a few innovative features and thrills, they’re once again late to the party.

Do you think Google’s updates will attract new users to Google+?

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Will Sigsworth

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