Google Plus officially opened to the general public yesterday after being invite-only for nearly three months.
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As the debate over the merits and pitfalls between Facebook and Google+ rages on, Facebook announced today a wide array of upcoming features that will give users better control over the content they share. In Facebook’s own words:
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Two weeks ago, Google released the official Google+ app for the iPhone. Despite a couple of minor hiccups, most users seemed pretty pleased with the release. One glaring problem however, was that the app was only available on the iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4 running on iOS 4.0 or later. In other words, iPod Touch and iPad owners were left out of the picture.

No sooner had people started complaining did a resolution pop up. At Redmond Pie, the writer provided a tutorial on installing the Google+ app using a workaround involving the iPhone Configuration Utility. Unfortunately, since the app is not optimized for the iPad’s larger screen resolution, that meant that you would see an iPhone-sized screen or an enlarged to fit screen.

Luckily, there’s a far simpler alternative: use the Google+ mobile web app. Just head to Safari on your iOS device and visit plus.google.com, and then from there add the site to your home screen. The same technique can be accomplished with any other Google service like Gmail, Calendar, and Docs. I admit that this is not as optimal as using the native app, but alas, plead your case with the Google+ team to roll out support for the other neglected iOS devices.

Update: Google just released an update for their Google+ app that now supports iPod Touch and iPad users! Rejoice! Download from the App Store.

Google Plus icon by Theme.fm

Google Plus was released as a private beta late last month and since then the service has grown exponentially, with some proclaiming that Google had finally gotten social right. However, as more users continue to signup for the service, they will not come from the early-adopter tech crowd which has constituted the majority of the folks who joined in the first month. Some will wonder why there is yet another place to share things with your friends and family. How is it any different? Why should I care? I’m sticking with Facebook!

Those questions are addressed in a slideshow presentation created by a Google+ user, Saidur (Cy) Hossain. In it, he introduces Circles and explains how sharing on Google+ is different from other services. So, if you have a friend or cousin who complains that they have no clue what Google+ is for, direct them to the presentation.

View the slideshow presentation here.

Photo by The Oatmeal

According to a PC Magazine article yesterday, Google’s social-networking extravaganza Google+ could reach 20 million users by the end of this week. Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen (not of Microsoft fame), used data from the US Census with the surnames of Google+ users.
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By now, you are probably sick and tired of all the news about Google+, especially if you weren’t lucky enough to receive an invite before they were temporarily closed off on Wednesday. Luckily, thanks to @prithi, I was able to obtain an invite. So far, Google+ is definitely a step ahead of its predecessors like Buzz and Wave. Will Google+ eventually dominate the social networking sphere and turn Facebook into Myspace? That’s for another post, but for now, let’s take a look at some of the things you should know about when you first start using Google+.

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