Introduction

There was a time when social networking was seen as a fun, slightly frivolous, and generally unimportant thing to do: a good way to waste time online. And it can still be that if you want it to be. But there’s never really been anything that frivolous about keeping in touch with friends, family, and the world in general. Communication is one of the most fundamental parts of being human; I’m just surprised it took the Internet so long to catch on.

Social networking is the Internet with a human face. It’s about real people talking about the things that are happening to them, sharing pictures and video, and above all, retelling each other’s stories.

So what makes Google+ so special and why read a book on it? Google+ is a powerful social networking service that packs features many other social networks lack. It offers great potential to those willing to learn its many nuanced features. In this book, you’ll learn how to manage Circles (Google+’s powerful new way to organize groups of people); how to set up really effective, eye-catching profiles; how to share movies and images that integrate with Google+’s powerful mapping and tagging technology; how to manage your privacy settings; and how to use Google+ to promote a business, brand, group, or band.

A guy in my Google+ Circles named Vago Damitio said this:

Facebook is like college. You are connected with the people you grew up with, people from the same town, people who are in your classes — and think of classes as being the different facets of your life.

Twitter is more like the radio. You tune into it to see what is happening, to hear gossip, famous people making sound bites, or to perhaps catch up with friends — but only in a text message kind of way.

Google+ is more like a huge metropolitan city. There are different neighborhoods (like the photographers’ neighborhood or the writers’ neighborhood, the techy neighborhood). Sure, you can be connected with the people you know, but the real joy comes from taking walks through the city and finding interesting people that you don’t know.

I can’t think of a better way to sum up Google+. So in true social networking style, I’ve just shared his post with you here.

Social media enables you to find and chat with hundreds of thousands of people from around the world who share your interests, ideas, and beliefs. And you can agree with each other all day long. I think it’s important to take time to add people to your Circles who have views that you wildly disagree with (or at least grumble about).

Google+ enables you to find a myriad of different people from all over the globe and all walks of life. Take time to discover people who aren’t like you. They make the world (and your social network) much more interesting.