A Guide to Google+

A Guide to Google+ - Google+ opened to the public just this morning, so with this beginner's guide you can be one of the first to start using Google+.

A screen shot of the Google Plus social network. (Reuters Photo)

There are four main tabs that you get upon your arrival in Google+: Home, Photos, Profile and Circles. The welcome page will let you complete your profile and build your circles. You'll then be able to send and read updates from people in your circles on the welcome page stream.

Google+ does not require mutual friendship. Instead of waiting for people to approve your request, you can immediately add them into your circles.

Google+ gives you five circles by default: Friends, Family, Acquaintances, Following and Work Friends. The idea is for users to feel comfortable sharing posts within limited circles, as well as sharing them publicly.

You don't have to follow people back if you don't feel like it.

There is no status update, but you can share thoughts, photos, videos and links on the share box.

Mention people by adding + or @ in front of their name.

You can't click on the share button unless you have picked the destined circle or person. Pick "Public" if you want to share with everyone. Mention your name only if you want to keep a post private, visible only to yourself.

Send a direct message by mentioning someone.

You can only share a public post. To prevent people from sharing and or commenting on your post, there are options to disable reshare and or disable comment. Just click at the arrow in your post AFTER you post it.

+1 is the same with Like. The +1 tab on your profile only records your +1s from a website. Example: Google search result.

Basic rich text format: *text* to bold, _text_ to italic and -text- to strikethrough.

Quick keys: J to scroll down, K to scroll up.

To hide your circles and people who have added you to circles, go to Edit Profile.

The Incoming page is where you can see updates from people who have added you to circles, but who are not in your circles.

To see all of your posts, mentions and tagged photos, go to the Notifications page under the stream.

Every photo you post on Google+ will be automatically stored in Google Photos (Picasa). Every album in your Picasa can also be accessed through Google+. To disable photos on your profile, go to Edit Profile.

Keep your profile link short by using this unofficial link shortener: http://gplus.to

If you are an internet news junkie, go to Sparks. You can save a keyword as an interest.

Hangout is a video chat feature for circles.

We will keep this post updated if there are changes. Meanwhile, have fun on Google+. ( thejakartaglobe.com )