Google+ Social Networking and Chat

What is Google+? It’s the super top-secret social project that Google has been working on for the past year.

Google+ (pronounced, and sometimes written, Google Plus, often abbreviated as G+) is Google's latest attempt at building a social network that people will adopt and find to be part of their daily lives. Google+ also provides integration with other Google applications like Gmail, Calender, Documents etc.

The growth of Google+ has been astounding, gaining well over 10 million members in just two weeks. The service launched on June 28, 2011 in an invite-only "field testing" phase. The following day, existing users were allowed to invite friends, who are above 18 years of age, to the service to create their own accounts. However, this was quickly suspended a day after there was "insane demand" for accounts. The ability to invite people to Google+ has since been restored.

Features of Google+

Circles - Enables users to organize contacts into groups for sharing, across various Google products and services. Although other users can view a list of people in a user's collection of circles, they cannot view the names of those circles. The privacy settings also allow users to hide the users in their circles as well as who have them in their circle. Organization is done through a drag-and-drop interface. This system replaces the typical friends list function used by sites such as Facebook.

Sparks - A front-end to Google Search, enabling users to identify topics they might be interested in sharing with others; "featured interests" sparks are also available, based on topics others globally are finding interesting. Sparks helps to keep users posted on the latest updates on the topics of their interest.

Hangouts - Places used to facilitate group video chat (with a maximum of 10 people participating in a single Hangout at any point in time). However, anyone on the web could potentially join the 'Hangout' if they happen to possess the unique URL of the Hangout.

Huddle - A feature available to Android, iPhone, and SMS devices for communicating through instant messaging within circles.

Instant Upload - Specific to Android mobile devices; it stores photos or video in a private album for sharing later.

In the Stream - Users see updates from those in their circles, updates similar to Facebook's news feed. The input box allows users to enter a status update or use icons to upload and share photo and videos. The Stream can be filtered to show only posts from specific Circles.

More:

Unlike Twitter and Facebook, there is not yet an API that enables software developers to interact with Google+ programmatically.

At this time, there is no official way to import Facebook contacts into Google+, such as Yahoo!'s Facebook Connect.

Google+ - Articles and Reviews

ChatWing for Google+ Circles Chat - Chat Wing has now branched out to Google+. The chat box is ready to help Google+ users expand their social circles. Chatwing is also gaining popularity in the blogosphere.

Project Glass Google Glasses from Google X - Videos and images of the Google glasses show an augmented reality concept integrated with Google's services, with voice commands, video chat, location check-ins, maps, and more.

Google Launches Gmail Chat SMS - Google has launched Gmail Chat SMS that allows users to use Gmail chat to communicate between all mobile phones and platforms.

Google+ Chat System How to Add and Block Chatters - Information on the Google+ chat and IM system used in the Google Plus social networking web site.

Link To "Google+ Social Networking and Chat"