Google’s annual developer conference, Google I/O, is currently underway at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco. The first day’s proceedings concluded a couple of hours back and the updates are simply overwhelming. From Google Glass to Google+, a lot of upgrades were introduced and our team here at solomoIT had a tough time keeping up!
With social media being the most relevant to us, we thought we’ll take a small bite out of the chunk of information and present to you how the world of social media has been rocked by Google+ announcements. At the time of writing, a total of 41 changes have been rolled out, resulting in a complete revamp! Although not immensely popular here in Australia, Google+ currently has 390M monthly active users and 190M directly on the stream. With Google pushing out amazing upgrades it will pay dividends to incorporate Google+ into your organisation’s social media strategy. Now, let’s have a look at a few of the most important developments from Google I/O 2013.
Stream – Fresh design catering to multiple devices and gives users much more to explore
- Multi-column layout depending on the size of your screen
- Photos and videos are awesomely sized allowing for a visual treat
- Cool animations – menu slide, share box bounces, cards flip and fade and so much more!
- Google will look at your posts, determine what it’s about and tag it accordingly
- Click on a hashtag and the card will be flipped , letting you browse related content
Hangouts – Just got better
- Messaging is more responsive and provides a richer experience
- Relive your previous conversations by browsing through the history
- No more notifications
- Whether you are conversing 1-to-1 or with a group of people, you are now able to make a free video call to everyone you’re with
- The Hangouts app is widely available through Google Play, App Store and the Chrome Web Store.
- It’s a part of Gmail and Google+!
Awesome Photo Experience
- Instant upload – With your permission, all of your mobile photos are backed up. To add to that you get 15 GB of storage space too!
- Auto Highlight – Helps locating the best images by filtering through duplicates and poor exposures. Simply visit your Photos page and your Highlights are ready to be shared!
- Auto Enhance –Google+ now enhances your photographs automatically by improving the brightness, contrast, saturation etc. automatically, giving you professional quality images.
- Auto Awesome –A brand new image from a set of photos in your library; nothing short of awesome!
There you go! We’ve scratched the surface of Google+ upgrades following the conclusion of the first day of Google I/O 2013. You can visit the following sites for up-to-date information on all the latest developments. Keep an eye out on our Facebook and Twitter pages as well!
http://googleplusproject.blogspot.com/2013/05/new-google-stream-hangouts-and-photos.html http://mashable.com/2013/05/15/google-io-announcements-2013/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/interactive/2013/may/15/google-io-developer-conference-live http://www.cultofandroid.com/?s=Google+I%2FO