Sunday, December 4, 2011

How to create and run a poll or survey in Google+?

Google+ is a pretty young but the fastest growing social network. Being relatively new it lacks certain features; for example an app or feature to run a poll or survey.
Due to vast number of users, borderless and varied demographics, social networks are a natural fit to launch and run surveys (about any topic).
Google+’s lacking of survey / poll feature doesn’t stop you from running a survey. Thanks to comments and disable comments feature on Google+ posts.

Here is a nice little hack that allows to run polls/surveys in Google+

Google+ poll / survey hack

Create a post on Google+ as you would normally do and explain what is this survey / poll about?
In a separate line explain how to vote (Ask them to click on +1 button next to the answer they find in the comment section below. In the above example, you’ll find Yes, No, Not Sure as answers)
Type in the exact question at the end about the survey (refer image above)
Add Public plus if you want to add any circles or individuals
Type each answer as a separate comment
Once you are done with all the answers, click the down arrow icon next to the post and select Disable Comments
That’s it. You are done. You’ve created your survey on Google+!!

Here is the link to the Google+ menu survey (real example to find if Google+ bar replaced with the new menu) you find on the above image (please feel free to cast your vote)

Since the comments are intentionally locked, the only way users or followers respond is by pressing the +1 button. Now if you wait, you’ll find the +1′s start coming from your followers. The total number of +1′s against each of your comments is the result for this survey.
This little hack will help you to run and gather information from your followers right now without waiting for the arrival of poll/survey feature in Google+.

11 Big Google Plus Secrets Revealed

Although, it is too early to comment on Google Plus's success or failure, it surely has become a talk of the town these days. Google has packed this product with some awesome features to deliver a powerful punch. Learning from its past failures - from products like Buzz, Wave, and Orkut - Google, this time, has meticulously worked for the success of every single feature on Google Plus.

Google Plus is packed with smart features. But, some features help it to stand out from the competition.

Scarcity

Like Apple, Google has its own way to intrigue people for its products. Google creates the desire for its beta products by creating scarcity. If your friend is on Google Plus and you are not, it definitely is a matter of grave concern. Scarcity makes Google Plus a highly desired product - money cannot buy you an account.

Virality

Google products spread virally through personal "invites," of course available in limited numbers per user. An "invitation" coming directly from a close-and-trusted friend to use a product demands more attention and quick action than any other existing form of marketing. The probability of the invitee using the product increases many folds. Through viral distribution Google Plus has amassed over 10 million users in just two weeks.

Adherence to Conventions

Google Plus does not have an uncanny resemblance to Facebook's design and interaction by accident. As a matter of fact, Google has stolen most of Facebook's design for Google Plus. Remember the saying, "good designers copy, great designers steal?" Google is aware of users comfort level and expertise with Facebook user interface; and, by stealing the design from Facebook, Google has ensured that Google Plus's design does not overwhelm the users with a "completely" new interface. Using Google Plus is a cake walk for Facebook users.

A Suite of Products with Single Sign On

Not all of us are technically savvy to efficiently and effectively manage plethora of username and passwords with a zen-like ease. Managing and remembering these growing number of sign-on credentials is a big pain among web users. Google offers a wide array of products, ranging from: Web, Mobile, Media, Geo, Home & Office, Social, Specialized Search, and Innovation. Google has perfected the complex art of single sign on; the user can seamlessly switch between Google products, if he is already signed on.

Our life goes beyond social networking websites. We routinely use email, documents, rss readers, maps, storage, etc. While Google caters to almost all of our online needs, Facebook and Twitter fail terribly on this front.

Google Bar

Often unnoticed, do not go by its size. Google bar, though, is still evolving, it definitely delivers a punch. It is both simple and powerful at the same time. Google bar not only provides access to all Google products/services in a single container but also takes a real time dashboard avatar - by providing notifications on Google Plus. For sure, in future, like Apple's new iOS 5 notifications, Google will start notifying across its entire product suite.

"Circles" Feature

Most of us face the perennial problem of differentiating between personal and professional messages. Some users use Twitter to market themselves and Facebook to communicate with family and friends. Others maintain two different accounts on Facebook and Twitter - one for personal and the other for professional use. Multiple accounts, obviously, are painful to manage and act as deterrents to many.

Though, applications such as Hootsuite provides an option to integrate various social media websites in one place, it, of course, does not allow adding other popular services such as: mail, photos, videos, blogs, etc. Also, most of the users are technically-challenged to use Hootsuite.

Google Plus seems to - gracefully - solve this tough problem by creating "Circles." Circles enables and empowers the user to create and share messages targeted to specific groups from the same message box with great ease.

Unlike Facebook "Groups," creating a new Circle in Google Plus is a piece of cake. Circle has a great visual interface with intuitive drag-n-drop features to quickly create and edit members.

Stream Filter Feature

The ease with which messages from various circles can be filtered in Google Plus is highly commendable. The quick filtering helps the user to quickly find the messages of his interest instead of mining for relevant messages by reading through a long scrollable list.

"Hangouts" feature

Facebook rushed to launch video chat soon after Google Plus launch. Perhaps, Mark Zukerberg's team needed something to compete with "Hangout." The beauty of "Hangout" is its ability to facilitate multi-party chat. This much desired video-chat feature was just not available for free to the masses.

With Hangout, one can create a live video chat session with multiple people without being a nerd - simply by using Hangout from Google Plus. According to Jay Morgan, a User Experience designer: "Group video chat has a lot of potential for getting people together to make a decision or have a conversation. It's better than a call, and it's better than many 1:1 conversations."

Invisible Chat

For many - obvious and vague - reasons, sometimes we just do not want to make ourselves available on chat. However, we may require to chat with just one person without making ourselves online. Facebook Chat does not allow a user to chat with other users in invisible mode, which is a big drawback. Sometimes, you just do not want to get distracted by other users. Google Plus, however, solves this problem by allowing its user to chat in invisible mode.

Disable Reshare

Google Plus allows its users to disable further sharing of their posts. This feature ensures that sensitive and private information remain in close circles. It enables the user to take control of the information that he shares with his circles.

Message Amplification

Google Plus informs the user about the amplification of a post by displaying the number of times a post is re-shared and the people involved. The names who re-shared the post help the user to identify the amplifiers in his circle, helping him to concentrate on these people.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Google+ Update: Watch How Posts Get Shared with Ripples

Sunday, October 23, 2011

google + Manage your albums

Manage your albums

You can manage your albums on the Google+ Photos homepage.

Rename

Click on the photos homepage in Google+.
Select Your albums on the left.
Click the album you'd like to rename.
Click on the album name to change, then press Enter.

Edit share settings

Here's how to change the share settings of all your albums in one place:

Click on the photos homepage in Google+.
Select Your albums on the left.
Click Change how your albums are shared to open the share settings editor.
Make your edits to the following settings:
Click Save for changes to each album.
Click Done.

You can also see who has access to each of your albums and edit album visibility on an individual album, here's how:

Click on the photos homepage in Google+.
Select Your albums on the left.
Click on an album.
Below the album title, you'll see the album's visibility after "Visibile to:". Click on the visibility to see and edit the list people who can see your album.
When you're done, click Save.

If you change an album's visibility to share with a more limited group, such as public to limited, all posts and comments related to that album will be deleted.

Delete

Click on the photos homepage in Google+.
Select Your albums on the left.
Click the album you'd like to delete.
Click the Delete album button.

Be careful, if you delete an album here, the album and its photos will be permanently deleted from all Google products, including Picasa Web Albums, Blogger, and others. Deleted albums cannot be recovered.

Manage photos

Go to Picasa Web Albums, to copy or move photos between albums as well as reorder the photos in an album.

Create Profile Banner in Google Plus

This tutorial, the goal may be as a complement to your profile page so that it becomes more colorful when viewed by others. Although as a complement. but fungsion this banner for me is very advantageous because by means of this banner that I can advertise my website. To create a profile banner at Google Plus is easy but it takes a little creativity to the banner maker. Because to make this banner we must meet several requirements, namely:

1. Image size must be 750 x 150 pixels , If you have difficulty in making an image measuring 750 x 150 pixels, you can search for reference images on Google.

2. After that the picture size of 750 x 150 pixels is cut into 5 equal parts of 150 x 150 pixels, To cut it into 5 parts, you do not have to bother to cut it manually because there are already tools that can cut the image into equal parts. You can use PhotoScape. Screenshot:

The image above is an example of shape would it be, if you wish, you can follow the steps below: 1. Go to Google Plus your Profile page.
2. Click on Edit Profile, and after that it will comes up as shown below.

3. Click Add some photos here.
4. After that you have photos you’d cut into 5 parts ecara the front row of the image. If you’ve uploaded all press Ok.

5. If you have click Done Editing.

It’s finished profile banner you created. It is way to early rather complicated but then the outcome is also exciting. If the tutorial is less obvious maybe you could ask some advice and criticism to this website. Hope you enjoy and good luck

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Google+ Youtube Connection Rolled Out

Have you ever wanted to go to Youtube, and see a list of videos people have shared with you on Google+? Well, Google just rolled out this capability. It’s very simple to set up. All you need to do is go to your YouTube settings, and connect your Google+ account to your account on Youtube. Once this is done, all newvideos that are shared with you on Google+ will appear on your Youtube homepage, as sort of a stream under “Recommend Videos”. It is important to note that initially after adding your account to Youtube, videos may not appear for a while until new videos are shared with you. Here is a look at the new homepage setup: