After almost a year of taking a battering from skeptical critics it seems that a majority are finally realising the potential behind Google+, especially after GlobalWebIndex released data that Google+ is now the second most used online service with 343 million members using the social network. With this rapid growth it is interesting to see how Google are crafting their social network in order to cater for these new users. The newest example of this is the re-branding of ‘Circles’ to the new coined name: ‘Find People’.
People joining the social network at this stage may have missed out on the initial hype and information on Google+’s features so terms such as ‘Circles’ and ‘Sparks’ most likely would have just caused newcomers to become confused. By renaming these features Google greatly reduce the risk of scaring these new members away and actually encourage them to interact with these features instead. In the case of ‘Find People’ interaction is exactly what Google wants as this will help increase their user base even further by encouraging individuals to invite their friends to G+ via other sources such as their Gmail contacts list. It is also a nice service for the public though as suggestions are provided according to your current and previous education, employment, etc, allowing you to quickly build and categorise your circles easily.
Another small but handy new feature worth mentioning is the ability to download all photos from a Google+ event. Previously this would be a long drawn out process as photos would have to be downloaded one by one but can now be downloaded at once by going to the particular event page, clicking on the Actions drop down menu and then selecting Download event photos.
1 comment for “Google+ Changes Circles to ‘Find People’”