Google announced it has exceeded one hundred and seventy million users registered to Google+ but particularly the company launched the new look of its social network.
After the official announcement given on Google Official Blog, the new look was slowly activated for its users. The intention is to offer a user experience easier and more beautiful but it’s only the initial step in building a new version of Google+ full of functions new or improved.
Now, in the left column there’s a bar with a variety of dynamic applications that allow for example to drag applications to create the order you prefer, hover with your mouse over certain applications to display the possible fast action and hide or show applications by moving them in and out of the “More” section.
You can now view photos and video in full screen and the stream of conversations is presented in the form of cards to facilitate consultation and participation. An expandable box highlights the activities of the community that revolves around your content.
There are also improvements in the hangouts, the videochats, which now have a dedicated page that offers an updated list of the invitations received from people in your circles, quick access to the public hangouts and a panel with the most popular hangouts, experts advice and more.
The news provoked many comments, both positive and negative. It’s normal: on Facebook, each minor change is followed by days of fierce criticism, threats of revolutions, promises to leave, petitions to return to the previous situation and other initiatives but after a while users get used to the changes and everything gets quiet again.
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The change that attracted the most criticism is the presence of white space to the right of the stream: As you can see in the image, at 1920×1080 resolution almost half the space is white!
Personally, I don’t keep the browser maximized so I don’t see that much white space but within a few hours among the hashtags present in Google+ trends besides #newgoogleplus there was #usesforwhitespace. Many users have indulged in finding a use for that space, often with jokes such as using it to illuminate an X-ray plate.
For those who just cann’t stand that white space there are already available add-ons for Firefox and Chrome to center the stream.
In a hangout, Google senior vice president Vic Gundotra said that white space will be used in the future. He didn’t specify how it will be used, only that there will be no advertising.
Another change that will have to be improved concern posts comments: the text in dark gray on a light gray background is pretty annoying to read. Changing the background color to easily recognize the comments can make sense but the text may well be black!
Beyond a few problems, in my opinion Google+ look is overall improved and probably when users get accustomed to it they’ll generally be satisfied. We just have to wait until the next news because Google wants to compete with Facebook so it’s not enough that the user base keeps on rising, they have to regularly use Google+.
