GooglePlus

Join up to GooglePlus (or G+ for short) at https://plus.google.com/ and click to create yourself an account. But what can it be used for?

• G+ Circles is like a distributed mailing list. You can add people to a circle and see everything they share publicly. If they choose to follow you, they'll also see what you are sharing in that circle.
• In G+ you can choose to follow a person and they don't have to follow you back, but all you will see from them is anything they post publicly.
• G+ has no character limit (unlike Twitter) and you can also broadcast to specific lists within G+.
• G+ has a 'hangout' feature which allows you to have a video chat with up to ten of your friends at once - you can inform a single circle that you are starting a hangout and people can join you. (Facebook video feature is just 1 to 1)
• G+ will check your Gmail account if you have one and will suggest names to you. You can invite people or view their profiles to see who they follow or who follows them. There is also a search engine at www.findpeopleonplus.com/ which you can use

It's unlikely to replace Facebook, Twitter, other social networks, or blogs but provides a further alternative to them. One option is to keep professional / work contacts in G+ and keep Facebook for friends and family.

Phil Bradley in CILIP Update August 2011