A lot of people joining Google+ don’t know who to follow. Most of their friends and colleagues aren’t on Google+ yet. And having an empty circles kind of defeats the whole purpose of the social network. Gladly, there are many blog posts and directories on the Web already, that provide lists upon lists of who to follow, based on interests, popularity, geographical location, and other criteria. The most recent of such listings that I came across is the Unofficial Google+’s Recommended Users. This one has a variety of categories that cover everything from technology and blogging to food and music. Take a look, browse through the categories, and populate your circles. The more people you follow, the more interesting tidbits are coming your way.
P.S.: And if you are still not on the Google+ and need an invite, let me know your Gmail address, and I’ll send you one. I have plenty left.
Just curious. I added you to G+. That means that I follow you? Did you get a notification about it?
Yes. When you add someone to your circles, it means you are following them. When you add someone to your circles, that person gets a notification (I got one). They know that you follow them. But they don’t know in which circles you put them. Google explicitly said that they will never share this information. So you can have circles for ‘bosses who sucked’, ‘stupid idiots’, ‘morons’, and ‘annoying people’, if you want to. Google says it’s safe to do so. :)
Interesting. Thanks for the info. I begin to like the circles :)
Circles are awesome. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are some special circles:
– Incoming. These are posts from people who follow you, but who you don’t follow.
– Near by. These are posts that were tagged geographically close to your current location (good on the mobiles). These posts are from all the people, no matter whether you follow them or not.
– Games. Since Google+ got games, all gaming updates are published into a separate Games circle not to pollute your circle streams with silly messages like “John just bought a cow. Help him milk it”. :)
The other two features of Google+ that I think are very important, but which I don’t have a frequent enough chance to use yet, are Huddle and Hangouts.
Huddle is a group messaging for mobiles. You can create a new conversation, add people to it and then message them all at once. They will be able to reply to the group as well. The additional benefit is that you can have several concurrent conversations with the same people (or partially overlapping). Since messages belong to conversations now, it’s very easy to follow.
Hangouts is the video conferencing thing. You can use it like video calls in Skype . But it’s better than that. You can have a conference with a group of people – either add them one by one, or add a whole circle. And you can have a public video conference. Some journalists and tech people are using it already. They pre-announce the time and the topic of a public hangout. People then join and discuss a specific issue. Since it’s public and pre-announced, this gives you an opportunity to have a video talk with people that you don’t necessarily know or met before. I think this is huge.
Where are these special circles? I see a Following circle.
In the web interface:
Incoming is right under the list of your circles on the left.
Games notifications are in the Games. The icon is to the left of ‘Find people’ search bar at the top. Click the icon, it will take you to Games. Scroll further down on that page and you’ll see games notifications.
Nearby doesn’t show at all.
In the mobile client for Android:
Incoming: go to Stream and then swipe to the right.
Nearby: go to Stream and then swipe to the left.
Make sure to add me, Brandon Purificacion, in you circle! https://plus.google.com/113461442314940490556
I am a professional photographer who has had his work displayed at USC’s Fisher Museum of Art and USC’s Roski of Fine Arts building.
I also do birthday, wedding, street, freeway, and random photography and am based in LA County. I’m always looking to learn from others as well as having others learn from me so let’s help each other!
Hi Brandon,
thanks, cool. I’ve added you to my Photography circle. :)