Importance of "+1" and some updates on new G+ feature!

Importance of "Plus One":
If you have been thinking that the G+ feature "Plus One(+1)" is nothing but Google's avatar of "Like" button in Facebook, with not much of an importance attached to it, other than showing the person who posted the content that you like the content - Then my buddies, you got it all wrong!!!!!!

Any idea, what is the market share of Google Search Engine(Oh, I call it "God of Internet")??? - Nearly 70%. Which ideally means, any content that you are sharing in the Internet space by utilizing any social media, should go via Google's purview to target maximum audience. Google's "Search Algorithm" is very sophisticated and trying to crack the pattern of ranking content is a big deal. That said, the "+1" that you do in Google Plus has much more significance, because it gets counted in Google's search algorithm to rank the content. So go ahead and keep "+1ing" and "Sharing" content in G+(but only when you find the content to be worthy enough)!
I hope this states the importance of +1!!

New G+ Features:
1)Page Alignment: The entire page alignment is multi-column based, with an option to switch to just one column running like before!
Is it really necessary? Yes, indeed.
Although, we may not like the current look and feel, it is actually helpful in reducing the bandwidth that was being sucked up by displaying bigger and rich content/pics and scrolling too much with the previous version of G+. That too, if you follow too many people - then, guess what? Even though you may not notice the advantage of this new design right now, you will appreciate it eventually for not sucking up your internet bandwidth too much!
This is a quality design for sure!

2)The re-design of "Share" window: When you share a particular piece of work or a picture, a new pop-out window arrives smooth and clear, unlike the previous trashy one which hangs sometimes!
Hence it is a meticulous piece of design, I'm loving G+ more.

3)G+ hangout: G+ hangout had quite a lot of issues in the previous version, if you could recollect!

a) In the previous version of G+, when a person named "XX" is offline, but you want to send a message to that person, you can communicate via an offline message using G+ hangouts/messaging - Indeed, it saves the offline message, but it was not intimating the person "XX" that there is an offline message waiting to be read. Until and unless, you click the chat window of that particular person, you are not gonna get the message. The other way is to check your mail, and that is too much of work!!
But the new design lists out the conversation(chat message) display with individual contacts on your right hand hang-out navigation bar. Hence the messages are never gonna get deleted until and unless you want it to be deleted. Isn't it super cool!!
And guess what, the contacts are listed in bigger blocks, hence the user can easily get a glimpse to see if there are any new offline messages.

b) Okie, if you have not figured out, how to see a person available online in G+ - here is the help!
A green horizontal line appears beneath the contact's profile photo(See the pic below), that is how you figure out.

c) Hangouts of G+ is integrated with G talk and G Messenger! Cool.

d) Another good thing, you need not look at the browser tab to see if the person on the other side is typing, the messenger gives "three green dot" marquee, which appears when the person types. Peace!

e) The flip side is - Now you cannot hide yourself by keeping your chat status "OFFLINE" although you are online - Oh, Man, this is sad!!! ;-)

f) Hangouts can be hidden by clicking the "Green double quotes" icon at the right hand corner.

4)Google Reader effect: If you were missing the product "Google Reader", then G+'s new design kinda brings in the effect of Reader to the user! Although, you still cannot read the whole shared content in G+, you still have to navigate to the posted link to read the content like before. This will not change because, most of bloggers use Google Adsense, hence if you need to generate revenue via you blog, you need the reader to navigate to your link, instead of reading straight out of G+.

5)Image: Also I observed that the "Image Upload" to be very user friendly and quicker than before. May be because of the sleek design!!

6)Image Editor: A built in "Super Image Editor", which gives more or less the feel of a "Adobe Photo Shop" effect!! Do jump in and mess your photographs up!!

7)Hashtags: Hashtags are introduced. If you are familiar with Twitter, then you might be aware of HashTags. WooHoo!

Verdict:

"Although, change is always hard to digest, most of the time it is for our own good"!, So start loving G+ more!! It can make your business grow better eventually!

End of the day, Facebook is just another Orkut, but Google is(as I put it), "God of Internet"!!! :-)

Image Courtesy: Google