Google+ Comments comes to Blogger

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Watch out Facebook, Google is snapping at your ankles already. The search giant has announced that it is making Google+ comments available on Blogger now. Quite similar to Facebook comments, Google will allow the G+ comments to not only be shared on the blog, but also on the social network.

“Reading and responding to comments can be one of the most rewarding aspects of blogging. Not only do they help you connect with your readers, they can also inspire later blog entries,'" wrote Yonatan Zunger, Principal Engineer at Google. The challenge, Google says, is to be able to follow conversations around your content on both Google+ and your website.

If you have a Blogger website or blog, you can straight away go to your dashboard to enable Google+ Comments on it. Enabling the Comments feature will give you two “important benefits”, writes Zunger – you will be able to view your blog and Google+ comments, all in one place, and you will also be able to help readers comment and connect with their circles. Essentially, your blog’s comments section is about to level up.

Google sinking its fingers deeper into its own services

The Comments feature will allow you to see activity from direct visitors as well as people talking about your content on Google+, all while you’re browsing your blog’s comment threads. “For example,” reads the blog, “if there's a public Google+ discussion about one of your blog entries, those comments and replies will also appear on your Blogger blog.” Thus you’ll be able to engage with more of your blog’s readers, without having to scour multiple pages.

If you thought the Google+ Comments feature had nothing in it for the people who’re actually commenting, think again. Your blog readers will have the option to keep their comments public or restricted to just their circles on Google+. While browsing too, they will have the option to either view all of them or just the top ones made by people in their circles.

Both you and your readers will only see comments that you, as the blog’s owner has the permission to see. “Giving people these kinds of controls not only encourages more meaningful sharing—it can lead to more blog traffic,” explains Zunger.

Enabling these Comments is not default in Blogger, at least not yet. To enable Google+ Comments on your blog, head to your Blogger Dashboard and go to the Google+ tab. Check on “Use Google+ Comments,” and you’re set. Make note that the older comments on your blog will continue to appear in the new widget.

Google+ Comments is indeed an indication that Google is very serious about incorporating its social networking website into pretty much all their services now. Google had earlier enabled Google+ integration with its Android Play Store too. In fact, it is now compulsory to comment using your Google+ account on the Play Store. This serves the dual purpose of making users accountable for the comments they make while cutting down on spammy and fake reviews, as well as make users embrace Google+ faster.

Report by : Nishtha Kanal

Google+ Hangouts gets auto mic mute feature for those who type in a session

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Google's come to the rescue of those who don't quite enjoy hearing typing sounds in the middle of a Google+ Hangouts session. To end this, Google has now added automatic muting when there are typing sounds in a Hangouts session, Google's Tim Haloun confirms in a post.

So, if someone is constantly typing during a Hangout session, their mic will be muted (like in below image) until, of course, they stop typing. At such a time, the user will be able to see an in-Hangout notification, the post adds, so they know that the typing sounds are not coming in the way of the conversation.

This feature is applicable for larger Hangouts, i.e. ones involving more than four people. If you’ve been at the receiving end of such typing sounds (you know! the click clack, click clack sounds), you’ll surely appreciate this feature.

Get muted if you want to type in a session

Google’s definitely adding a world of good to Hangouts to improve the experience. Earlier this year, the company launched two features to improve the Hangouts experience in areas with slow Internet connections. First among those was the bandwidth slider. Users will spot a new slider at the top right of every hangout, using which they can adjust their bandwidth preferences in real-time. This way, users can keep their Hangouts going.

Then there is the audio-only mode that allows users to send and receive audio only – thereby reducing the amount of bandwidth required. On the other side of the Hangout, participants will be able to view only your profile picture, but hear you loud and clear.

It then introduced two accessibility improvements in Google+ Hangouts. The first one's a Sign Language Interpreter app for the service's deaf or hard of hearing users who prefer using sign language. They can invite interpreters to speak and/or interpret for them during a Hangout. Those using this app will always see their interpreter at the top right of the window, and they'll become the focus of the Hangout whenever their interpreter speaks for them.

Additionally, keyboard shortcuts are now available for those who prefer doing away with the mouse during a video chat. You can now press Ctrl+D (PC) or Command+D (Mac) to mute your microphone and start chatting with Ctrl+B (PC) or Command+B (Mac). To view the full list of keyboard shortcuts just type "?". Google said the features would be rolled out gradually.

Report by : Anuradha Shetty

Google+ Sign-In Is Your New Key to Apps and the Web

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Google hasn't had as much success building a vibrant social network as Facebook, but the search giant now seems far less interested in concentrating all social activity inside Google+ and much more keen on using it as social connective tissue throughout its network of products and services. Google+ Sign-In, a service revealed Tuesday, lets third-party developers build Google+ authentication, sharing and interaction into their services. And it makes perfect sense.

If Google+ users view the service primarily as an identity they carry through, say, Gmail, YouTube and Google Apps, then the ability to use it as a key in an ever-growing list of websites, clients, and apps may be appealing. (Last year, Google+ Lead Vic Gundotra described Google+ as Google 2.0.) Google+ Sign-In, however, is more than simply authentication.

The new global authentication scheme, which Google is rolling out Tuesday, lifts the Google+ identity of some 135 million active users from social network credentials to portable identities they can use to sign in to websites and services, Android apps and even iOS apps. And more than that, similar to Facebook Connect, it automatically shares activities on those third-party services with your Google+ community.

Google describes it as a new way for developers to connect the larger Google experience with their applications. If developers choose to enable Google+ Sign-In, their products can access virtually anything in the Google API. At a basic level, this includes full name, profile picture, Google+ ID, age range, language, people in their Circles, other public information and any other information specifically requested by the app. This can be combined with other Google APIs to access addition Google services (Gmail, Calendar, etc.) via a separate consent dialogue box.

Like Facebook Connect, this sign-in-anywhere scenario turns the exchange of information into a two-lane highway: with your Google+ information coming into the app, and activity flowing out of the app and potentially onto your Google+ social network.

For end users, the sharing will be somewhat familiar. Within apps, they’ll be able to set controls to share something specific with an individual or to make a broader set of your in-app discoveries visible to, say, a larger Circle in Google+. Google executives explain it’s all under users’ control.

Share It

One of the hallmarks of Google+ Sign-In will be the ability to ensure that those you share with actually get the message. Google+ users told Google, “We want to share to friends and to the right friends and to make sure they got it and not spam friends.” Not spamming is controlled via choosing who you share to (and when). Making sure they got it means a little red alert across all Google products (that they’re signed in to).

With your Google+ identity and activities now on the move, some may worry about privacy and security. Google insists there’s no cause for concern. On the privacy side, “We’re really careful on the consent dialogue. We gave users a level of control that I don’t think has been seen in [the] market yet,” said Seth Sternberg, Google+ Product Management Director. "We will not change what we do with your data without asking the user," added Google spokesperson Ryan Brack.

Your protection, Google execs explain, begins with the two-step authentication that will still exist when you sign in to Google+ on other websites and apps. Your control for who can see your app activity will be inside the app. By contrast, Facebook Connect doesn't always make it obvious what information you’ll be sharing to whom. Case in point: Social Cam by default shared your viewing habits with your Facebook friends.

Google+ Sign-In will offer you the option of keeping your activity to just you or to the Circles of your choice. If you choose to edit your sharing information, Google+ Sign-In takes you to an activity page where you can show or hide every single activity.

Along with Sign-In, Google’s introducing a new kind of share: Interactive Post. Essentially, when you share something through an app or website on Google+, your friends might also see, for example, “Review,” “Buy” or “Listen” buttons. Friends clicking these buttons either end up on the website or in the app where you took the sharing action or a place where they can download the app that will let them take those actions. Google calls these buttons new forms of interactions, but they sound quite a bit like commerce hooks.

A New Layer

The transition of Google+ from pure destination to a portable identity is perfectly natural said David Glazer, Google+ Engineering Director. “I think that's right in concept. The idea of Google+, right from the beginning, was to provide a social layer across everything Google did,” he said. Now, of course, it’s moving more aggressively into Facebook territory, where, just like your Facebook profile, your Google+ identity is potentially a layer over everything you do.

Not surprisingly, Android integration will, at the outset, be the most robust. When you sign into the recently updated Fitbit web client with Google+ Sign-In, for example, the site will recognize if you have an Android device and ask you if you want to automatically download the companion Fitbit Android app. If you say yes, the app is automatically added to your device, without any further interaction from you.

On the web client side, signing in with Google+ will auto-populate the account with all of your Google+ Sign-In information.

Fitting In

The popular health and activity monitoring platform is just one of nearly a dozen Sign-In launch partners Google’s announcing today (Banjo, Fancy, Flixster, Shazam and OpenTable are among them). Fitbit already has Facebook Connect sign-in on its apps (including iOS), but nothing for Twitter thus far. So why did they choose to go with Google+?

“It's one of the top three networks,” Fitbit Director of Engineering Peter Molettiere told Mashable. “We don’t like to dictate to users which platform they should be using. We support Facebook, though we do not support federated sign-in with Twitter.”

Molettiere said the automatic download mechanism is unusual and “contributes to that magical experience.”

Of course, that magical experience is somewhat short lived since the Android Fitbit app you do get through Google+ Sign-In is exactly the same one you’d get if you downloaded it via Google Play on your own.

Fitbit has been beta testing the new platform internally with a Google-approved set of accounts and goes live with an updated web client today. Molettiere, though, may not get to experience the magic. When we asked him what kind of phone he has he told us an iPhone.

Web, Android and iOS developers can start accessing the necessary development tools today.

Are you ready to spread your Google+ identity and activities around? Let us know in the comments what you think of Google’s new plan.

Report by : Lance Ulanoff