Google+ Updates App For iOS And Android, Allows Web Users To Have GIFs Instead Of Profile Pictures

Google+ has launched new versions of its iOS and Android apps, with improvements to photos, posts, profiles and communities. Meanwhile, both the desktop and the mobile versions of the site now allow users to have an animated GIF in place of their profile picture.

The most interesting new feature added to the Google+ app is photo filtering. There are nine different filters to choose from, based on photo editing software created by Snapseed, an app Google purchased last year. Users are now able to rotate and crop their photos, as well as adjust saturation, contrast, brightness and lots more. A tweaked photo can be compared with the original at any time with a single tap on the screen.

Posts on the mobile apps have been streamlined to include more content and to make navigation easier. There is “more text up front” included in posts and “image previews are rarely cropped”, according to Google+’s announcement of the update. tapping links to videos, photos or websites will take you instantly to a viewing page, a lightbox and the site, respectively. Also “key actions like +1, reshare and comment are displayed more prominently in each post” and users “can swipe through photo albums inline”.



Google+ users can now share their current location, which will appear underneath their name on their profile page. Users choose who gets to see this information, deciding whether to make it public or private, for only their close friends or those within certain circles to see. To try the feature out, users can go to their Google+ settings and switch on “Location Sharing”. Or, according to Google+:

You can also visit +Chris Hadfield’s profile—the Canadian Space Agency astronaut is sharing his current location (the International Space Station!) with all of us here on Earth

Finally, mobile app users now have access to some of the communities management tools which have been introduced to desktop users over the last few weeks. There are three new abilities for both community moderators and members:

• The ability to adjust the volume of community posts in your Home stream
• The option to invite people to a community, or reshare items with a community
• Member search, content moderation, and report-remove-ban support for community managers.

The updates are available on the Google Play and the iTunes App Store.

Google+ has also updated their profile picture options, so users can now have an animated GIF instead of a profile picture. The GIF will only be animated on the profile page and not in the stream, solving the problem that Twitter had when they introduced a similar feature to their site: A whole stream of tweets with dozens of animated GIFs proved to be very annoying. Here is an example of the new profile GIF option, on the profile of Google software engineer Matt Steiner.

Do you think profile GIFs are a good idea?

Facebook Begins Rolling Out Ranked And Threaded Comments

Today, Facebook page administrators who run pages with over 10,000 followers will be given the option to use the brand new comment features that Facebook tested in November last year: ranked and threaded comments.

To improve the quality of conversations and interactions on brand, company and personal pages with large numbers of followers, Facebook has introduced a threaded comments feature, allowing users to reply to specific comments in a thread. Each comment on an original story or post will contain a “reply” button beneath it, beside the usual “like” button. If a user replies to a comment, their reply will appear beneath the comment, tabulated slightly further to the right-hand side of the page. Or, if someone has already replied to the comment, beneath the previous reply.

Threaded comments will make it easier for users and page owners to join and follow specific conversations beneath posts. For example, if someone asks where a posted photograph was taken, the photographer can post an answer immediately underneath, while other users can post that they recognised the area or they appreciate its beauty.

Facebook has also created an algorithmic sorting system which ranks comments based on the amount of interaction they receive, i.e. how many replies and likes they get. This system will help promote the most engaging – both in terms of interest and in terms of how much users engage with them – comments, hence making further engagement more likely. The ranking system will not only help page administrators increase page engagement, it will also help users to find the conversations which most appeal to them.

The algorithm also takes into account the user’s contacts, promoting comments from people within their friendship group and network. Comments labelled as spam, however, will be demoted lower in the comments list, while the comments of frequent spammers might also be down-ranked, says Facebook.

“We think this update will allow for easier management of conversations around posts, which is a better experience for people interacting with Pages and public figure profiles,” a Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch in a conversation last week.

From today, page owners with over 10,000 followers can opt in to the new comment service, but Facebook plan to make it compulsory by July 10th. Threaded and ranked comments are not yet available on mobile, an oversight which, considering they are a self-proclaimed mobile-focused company, does not reflect particularly well on Facebook. Replies will appear on mobile devices, but just as regular comments.

Overall, threaded and ranked comments should prove to be very useful features for Facebook page owners, allowing easier interaction and helping to provide metrics on the success of posts.

Have you opted into the new comments service? What do you think?