Google Plus Redesign
Google Plus redesigns for its 170M users (100M monthly): adaptive, fluid web design; http://eicker.at/GooglePlusRedesign
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus iPhone App
TC: After less than 24 hours the Google Plus iPhone app has hit the #1 free spot in the Apple app store; http://eicker.at/GooglePlusiPhoneApp
Gerrit Eicker 08:52 on 12. April 2012 Permalink |
Google: “More than 170 million people have upgraded to Google+, enjoying new ways to share in Search, Gmail, YouTube and lots of other places. It’s still early days, and there’s plenty left to do, but we’re more excited than ever to build a seamless social experience, all across Google. – A critical piece of this social layer is a design that grows alongside our aspirations. So today we’re introducing a more functional and flexible version of Google+. We think you’ll find it easier to use and nicer to look at, but most importantly, it accelerates our efforts to create a simpler, more beautiful Google. … Once you’ve upgraded to Google+, it’s easy to share with your circles from just about anywhere. We’re dreaming bigger, though. We’re aiming for an experience that fuses utility with beauty… Today we’re adding a dedicated Hangouts page that creates even more opportunities to connect in person… Today’s Google+ update extends beyond navigation, the stream and hangouts. For instance: there’s a new Explore page that shows what’s interesting and trending across the network. And a new profile with much bigger photos. And a new chat list that puts your friends front and center. And a whole lot more. … By focusing on you, the people you care about, and the stuff you’re into, we’re going to continue upgrading all the features you already know and love – from Search and Maps to Gmail and YouTube. With today’s foundational changes we can move even faster-toward a simpler, more beautiful Google.”
Guardian: “Google says 170m people have registered for its Google+ service since it was launched 10 months ago – and that 100m have ‘engaged’ with the service at least once in the past 30 days and 50m have engaged with the service at least once a day in the past month. … Since January, new users signing up for Google services such as a YouTube or Gmail account have had to create a Google+ profile: in the past three months, that has added 80m people, says Search Engine Watch. In all, Gmail has 350m users worldwide. … In the US, Google has pushed Google+ profiles into search results – with the effect that a search for ‘Mark Zuckerberg’ puts his Google+ page ahead of his Facebook page, a result which appeared distorted compared with previous Google search results.”
TC: “It’s interesting that Google+ has now changed its design, after its first efforts received such praise. But, after using the service for some time, it became clear that Google+’s navigational elements became a little cluttered. That ‘share a YouTube video’ feature, for example, which popped out a box on the right side of the screen, felt tacked on. … The new interface drops the static icons at the top and moves all the navigation off to the side, allowing users to reorder the icons as they wish. … Hangouts, which have always been one of the network’s main selling points, are now being better highlighted in the refreshed site, and now have their own dedicated page, featuring a list of Hangout invitations from people in your Circles, easy access to live and public Hangouts, and a rotating billboard showing popular Hangouts, and other information.”
VB: “Tough questions aside, the redesign appears to give those who use Google+ on purpose some handy new features and better visuals. First off, you’ll notice on the left side that there is a new customizable navigation bar that lets you drag apps up or down to create the best order for accessing content. You can even hide apps by moving them in and out of the ‘More’ panel. … The roll out appears to be moving slowly as many folks on Google+, including myself, are still waiting for the redesign to go live. Google expects all users to get the new digs in ‘the next few days.’”
GigaOM: “The key term here seems to be ‘applications.’ The sidebar is essentially an app launcher, and users can use it to get quick access to certain actions available through individual apps. Want to share a photo from your phone? Then simply hover the photos app and select the relevant action. … Apps can also be rearranged in one’s personal order of importance, or completely hidden from plain sight. All of this makes it easier to use the Google+ apps that are available today, including Hangouts, games and photos – but there’s really not that much of a point in constantly reorganizing a half dozen apps. Instead, this seems to be built for something much bigger.”
FC: “Google+ has failed to take off. And it’s not even necessarily a fault of the product: Facebook is the de facto social network of our time. … But that’s not stopping Google from announcing a major redesign of Google+ today. It’s better in almost every way, focused on real-time trends, customization, and playing to Google’s few advantages they have in the space. But, you know, it’s just a little too late for design alone to save the day. … A lot of what Google announced today was pure catch-up. It snagged a new ‘Trending on Google+’ function from Twitter. It now features a profile page with a top, landscape portrait that’s nearly identical to Facebook’s Timeline. But if Google is going to copy, at least they’re copying some good ideas. And at least they haven’t given up on the vast potential of the one ace up their sleeve: Hangouts.”
TC: “Instead of a traditional fixed-width design, responsive design adapts to the size of your browser window. So while your Facebook page always looks the same, no matter whether you’ve maximized your browser window or not, the new Google+ design actually changes as you resize your browser window. Right now, Google isn’t doing much with this capability, but it definitely built this redesign around this idea. … What Google will do with this space is anybody’s guess. As we’re moving to bigger and wider screens, though (which are actually rather suboptimal for the kind of news feeds that are at the center of services like Google+, Facebook and Twitter), it only makes sense for Google to experiment with wider layouts as well and to figure out how to best use them.”