Google Plus…the Facebook Page

How do we know that Google Plus has really made it? It has its own Facebook page! On this new page, called “Google Plus Help, Tips and Tricks,” liked by a whopping 36 people so far, you can discover links to blog posts and other “tips” shared by Google+ fans.

But mostly, it’s being used to beg for invites.

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Thanks, Linda Lawrey, Google+ user extraordinaire, for re-sharing this somewhat hilarious new resource (via Amit Mehta’s original post), but, so far, we think the best tips are being shared right on Google+ itself.

And re-shared by you, come to think of it. Nice job.

Here’s a sampling:

Via Alex Quinn (Text Tricks)

• _ italic text _ ➜ italic text
• * bold text * ➜ bold text
• - strikethrough text - ➜ strikethrough text
•@Alex Quinn or +Alex Quinn ➜ +Alex Quinn (press @ or + to link to a person in a post or comment)
• After you post, click the little dropdown arrow (▽) in the upper right of the post to disable comments or disable resharing (i.e., for things you don’t want to spread beyond your specified audience).
• Press “k” or “j” to move up or down in the stream.
• Press Tab then Enter after writing a comment on a post to quickly submit it. (faster than clicking the Post Comment button every time)

Via Matt Cutts (Misc. Tips – be sure to check the comments for more)

A few Google+ tips:
– You can click on profile pictures to rotate through them. Nice find by +MG Siegler on that one.
– In the stream, you can click ‘j’ to navigate down to the next item or ‘k’ to navigate up. I think it’s the same keys that Gmail uses, which is probably in turn because +Paul Buchheit uses vi and created Gmail.
– If you’re sharing a post with a small circle of people, you can prevent resharing. Click the arrow at the top-right of the post and choose “Disable reshare.”
– If you’re looking for more fun things in your stream, the “Incoming” stream is stuff from people who are sharing with you, but who you haven’t added to a circle.
– One great one from +Frederic Lardinois is that “there is some basic text formatting, too: (*)bold(*), (_)italics(_) and (-)strike-through(-) are the ones I’ve noticed so far.”

Via Florian Rohrweck (Messaging Someone)

There are two main ways:
1.) +-reply them in the post itself (type “+” and their name)
2.) click “Add more people” at the bottom of the share box and type the individual’s name. Remember: “+ Add more people” works for circles and individual people!

Via David Gagnon (APK for those outside the U.S.)

For those of you unlucky folks like me, who cannot download the Android G+ app in the country where you live, you can download the APK file from there!! You don’t even need root access to do this. Just make sure you have “Unknown Sources” allowed in Settings/Applications.

Get your Google+ APK Here! – xda-developers

Via Garry Boyer (For Staying Private)

Some tips for folks who don’t want to be public all the time:

– Make “who’s in your circles” private. Go to https://plus.google.com/me/about/edit/nv and select “Your circles” instead of “Anyone on the web”.

– While still editing your profile, whenever you edit the individual fields on your profile, you can choose who can see it. I chose only to share my phone number with family for example.

– When sharing a post, choose specific circles. And don’t feel like you have to do “Your circles” — pick specific circles.

– Use “View Profile As” (after editing) to view the profile as someone else to see what they see.

Via Hashim Warren (Hidden Feature for Sparks)

Type a direct URL into Sparks, and it becomes a feed reader.

I checked out LostRemote.com in Google Reader, and Google+ Sparks. I saw the same items appear.

See for yourself:
https://plus.google.com/sparks/interests/lostremote.com

Discuss