Many Social media junkies from the UK are screaming for an invite to try out Google+ but they may have to wait a little bit longer.

Despite the skeptics who referred to Google Wave and Google Buzz as an indicators that it wouldn’t take off, I believe it’s easily the best social offering from Google to date and  has become the hottest invitation you are likely to get for a while.

New – Check out our guide on how to Customise your Google+ Profile and our post that will take you beyond the Google+ Basics

Google had to stop inviting users to join its new social networking service less than two days after its launch in the US due to “Insane demand”. An early indicator that Google+ is going to be a big contender in the social media arena.

The message many in the US users were getting yesterday was

“We’ve shut down invite mechanism for the night. Insane demand. We need to do this carefully, and in a controlled way. Thank you all for your interest!

For any who wish to leave, please remember you can always exit and take your data with you by using Google Takeout.

It’s your data, your relationships, your identity.”

If you have been lucky enough to get a head start don’t forget to follow us on Google+!

Most of the people who are on Google+ so far in the UK are people with existing strong social networks. Google have admitted they have been accepting people who have strong social graphs.

UPDATE – If you know your way around but want some more advanced Google+ tips click here or check out our guide to the Google+ iPhone web app!

Why Google+ is different?

Google+ Circles

The brilliant thing about circles that is missing from Facebook is that you can choose to message everyone at the same time or you can send messages to groups (circles) that you have set up to include a special set of people.

This goes for following too you can see all the messages from your sets or circles separately. Circles in Google+ offer a unique a way of sharing content with an exact group of people.

For many who are frustrated with Facebook this is a chance to start anew as Facebook friend lists can be unmanageable. The word “friend” in existing social networks has really lost it’s meaning, now according to Google+ “Your real friends, the ones you feel comfortable sharing private details with.”

Your profile is public unless to edit your settings

Social networks can be private and/or public, defined by the default privacy setting. Facebook is meant to connect you with actual friends; they have to accept your invitation for you to see most parts of their personal profile.

With Twitter anyone can follow and see anyone else (if they haven’t blocked you).  With Google+ you can follow anyone, including Matt Cutts! You can see his stream, “like” his pictures, and comment on his posts. Beware though, it does attract a lot of comments and once you comment on a post expect an update a millisecond! Brilliant Google have a solution to this problem, another gem, you can mute a post to stop receiving comment updates – PHEW!

So far the only way to keep your profile private is to go to the privacy settings of your profile and un-check the button, I think they are all public by default.

Hangouts

Hangouts allow ten simultaneous users to connect with each other for video messaging. This is an original feature and Facebook has nothing in comparison. The closest comparison is Skype.

Instant Upload

A great time saving feature. Any photos or videos taken on a smart phone connected to your Google+ account can be instantly uploaded the moment they are taken and put into a private folder where they wait to be published. This is an improvement over Facebook’s very slow Photo Uploader which requires you to load the photos manually. We’ve written a guide to the Google+ iphone app

Sparks

Sparks allow users to type in what they are interested in and provides news and website suggestions. This is a unique part of Google+ that no other social networking site currently provides. It will be interesting to see how it decides what to recommend, and whether its suggestions are actually relevant to a user with less mainstream interests.

Huddle

Huddle allows a grouping of messages into one conversation. For example, if you were arranging to meet up with six friends for dinner, rather than having to juggle each friend individually you can group all the messages into one place so everyone can become a part of the organising of the event. This is being marketed more for the Google+ smart phone app. It is certainly a useful feature but not entirely original. It is very similar to the idea of Facebook  Event Pages.

You Can Get Your Data Back

With Facebook you are forced to make certain parts of your personal data “public”, and It is very hard to permanently delete your Facebook profile. Google, has made  it possible for you to pick up all the data you’ve ever banked with Google!. This is done through a Google+ tool called “Data Liberation.” You can download data from your Picasa Web Albums, Google profile, Google+ stream, Buzz and contacts, save it all and delete your account.

You can edit your messages

Hooray. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve cursed because Facebook doesn’t have that option.

Developer access is coming soon

Developer access is coming soon for Google+ users. Read this on Rafe Needlemans blog this morning:

“It’s simply a matter of time. As Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of social for Google, told me at a Web 2.0 Summit cocktail party tonight, “I’m a developer guy at the core. It is inconceivable I would build something without a platform.””

Sounds like Google are already celebrating their resounding success!

Google is collecting names from developers who want to know when the company launches developer tools. There’s an e-mail and Google Group sign-up online now.

We have just published a new post that will take you beyond the Google+ Basics

We are not the only ones who think its great:

You may be interested to know we provide some great SEO and Google Analytics Training Courses, Social Media, Project Management , HTML5, Ajax and JQuery courses.

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google, google +1, Google Plus, insane demand

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