REVIEW: We ♥ Google+

Farewell, Facebook. Cause we got Google+! Kerana kami sekarang ada Google+! The +1 GETTING AROUND This is how your profile will look like, n' won't you take a look at all those tabs? =) ★ It's CLEAN. Really simple, easy, spacious, straight to the point, and you can access all your features anywhere (tons of tabs from the bar above!). On your top left, you're connected to your Google related accounts like Gmail, organizers like Calendar; Documents, the Web (Google's Home & others) & more! On your right top is your customization for your Google+. And yes, you can update your status or share things even with that bar! We can just say it's PACKED yet it's ORGANIZED. No lag or heavy loading time at all, so far. Very smooth. FAST. (JOHAN likes this! XD) Also, the little colors (like green, red, blue) is making it more colorful, friendly n' we've gotta admit: cute. ^^ ★ Realized that only in HOME, Google+ will bring up old posts that have latest activity (eg: reply; edited content), but in your PROFILE, your posts remained as original timeline. We don't know about you guys, but we find this very convenient to us. We don't have to freakin' scroll back down or track back thru notifications (n' bring potential lag urgh) in order to get news on previous stuff. Think of it this way - why "spamming" (multiple) posts were created by ppl from other sites in the first place? Because they wanted to share something "up-to-date", making it "top" in your news feed, cause they know otherwise they will less likely to be heard. With G plus way, that can be cut down, all ppl gotta do to keep their circles updated, is to just EDIT (or comment to) their posts. (if they're creative, they can separate them to categories like "my life; review; for the LOLs". Thus making less "crowded" posts in their PROFILE and YOUR Home. GET I+ ? X) PROFILE ★ LOVE the About (your info) section! You can even customize who gets to view certain info on it! The info that got us laughing our asses off is "Bragging rights". XDDDDDDDD ★ Wow. We're IMPRESSED with the profile photos feature! We can flip it on our profile, switching between the new or previous! Not limited to users, everyone is allowed to click on your profile picture in your profile to get instant browsing! (if you want to see bigger resolution n' captions, you just visit the Profile Photos Album, if the users allow it to be viewed for Public) It's so interesting! It also auto re-fill your caption. Cause we uploaded photo 2.1, but not satisfied with the resolution, so we uploaded the same photo again (photo 2.2), and deleted the photo 2.1. Went to photo 2.2 to fill up the same caption as photo 2.1, to realize Google+ already did it for us! This means that they can detect same photo n' transfer your previous version data to your new version file? This is...THIS IS AMAZING!! ★ If you have a Google+ account, you will realized that in your PROFILE, you have the +1's tab. (usually listed as the last) Your +1's that you +1 around the web (things you like, agree with, or want to recommend to others), will be listed there ONLY for your circles to view. It collects all your +1's (for outside Google+ only), isn't that neat? ACCOUNT ★ It's VERY convenient to change your username. Though when we clicked on it, they stated that if you do change it though, it will affect the name of all your Google related accounts (eg: Gmail), so we clicked Learn More, it stated that you can separate the display name by going to Gmail options if it happens. Then we went to Gmail, found out currently Google+ name did not affect it (we did not change yet, but thought maybe it did since we first registered). So once Google+ is open for public, we shall rename this account to our club instead (which is RE-MEMBER²). ^_^ (yes, we forced made MITCHEL to get used to online culture, n' test it for us, as usual XD) ★ We also saw the "multi-sign in" feature at the account settings, it will be convenient for people to share or login to one (1) Google+ account from different Gmail/email and/or other Google related accounts! Perfect for us. =) POSTING ★ You can customize/edit your posts, even after it's posted! Love this! It comes in REALLY handy. No need to worry about deleting entire entry just to fix a typo or error. You can even edit your comments too! Brilliant! XD Just realized something too. UNLIMITED WORDS COUNT FOR POSTS! HOLY FREAKIN' PIZZA, THIS IS TOO AWESOME!! WOOOOOOOO~ ★ Nobody can post stuff to your profile, except yourself. Some may find this unfriendly, but to us, this is GOOD. Why? Because if you wanna talk to your friends, all you can do, is just mention them (eg: @their name) in your posts, and they'll get notified about it, and able to see it in your posts! You can also customize the privacy, whether you want only the person or ppl you mentioned to view it, or let certain circles see it, or for public, it is totally up to you. That, or they can just directly email you, or better - invite you to hang out! (we will get to this Google+ only feature later) This will totally improve people who have the lack of controlling privacy n' prioritizing between "PMs" and "walls". Not only that, this will also strengthen the relationships between people. It is also to avoid unwanted spams or messages in your posts. If anyone wants to "advertise" or "shout out something" to you in your posts, they gotta directly contact you first before you agree to help them post it in your posts. The most important highlight of all, there is NO room for virus spams n' any potential online threats! No more accusing your poor friends for giving you the virus links when they unintentionally got it n' never actually posted those on your profile. Your posts just became unpredictable-free! That's the way, aha aha, we like it~ ★ You can bold your words in posts! Add the star signs (shift + 8) around your word (eg: *bold*), and it will auto-bold it! (it's like Google Talk) SHARING ★ For video sharing, you can manually upload your video, share a vid from YouTube, or upload a vid instantly from your phone! The options you can choose when sharing a YouTube video! If you select to share a video from YouTube, you can directly search for it, enter a URL, or choose from your uploaded YouTube videos list. Know what's best? As long as the video is from YouTube, it will display successfully. (we notice in Facebook, sometimes it cannot function either because a number of ppl reported a link as harmful although it is not, the link is not compatible with FB, or embed is disabled) CIRCLES ★ Because of the wide range of group customization from scratch (n' for all time), privacy settings can never get any more convenient than this! It makes Google+ like a combination of Twitter + Facebook. Why do we say so? Because you can easily add people, and you organize which "circle(s)" to put them in. This means if you stumbled upon interesting profiles or accounts that belong to your role models, you can put them under your "Following" circle. You can view their public posts, much like subscribing or following them like how you do with people in Twitter or from Facebook Fan Pages. There is no need for mutual connection. As for friends and family, they will be able to access your personal posts, while public can just view your general posts. With this, you are in control of whatever you share on your posts. No more "all locked" or "all open", it's "some locked, some open". Pretty much like LiveJournal. HANGOUTS ★ Instead of just the usual "text chatting" among online users (you already got Google Talk for that, hahaha!), G plus took chatting to the next level by implementing a very Skype style online meeting among you G+ circle(s)! You need a webcam, and a working mic n' speaker (or headphone) in order to have a virtual meet up! PHOTOS ★ You can right click our profile picture, copy the image URL, and link it on any site (that allows HTML), the linking n' image display actually works! (try it with yours, if you have G plus!) Regardless if you change your photos or not, the URL you got will auto refresh itself to your latest/current profile pic! Not many servers manage to maintain a photo link this way, but with Google+, it's possible! ★ You'll realize there's an application to edit/stylize your photos. It's gnarly if you want to give your photos some retro-ish effects and all! (convenient for us, as we don't need to open Photoshop as often just to manually get that retro-ish feel XD) ★ The photo details feature is insane! Definitely for photographers who are into details or ppl who are keen in learning more about the technical side photography. You can check what camera model was used, what time & date the picture was shot, what functions was used and etc. ★ Posting GIF works! (in posts. we haven't tried it yet for photo album, we'll let you know about this!) CONNECTION ★ We're not sure about other Google related sites, but if you have Gmail, you'll have the exact top bar as how you have it in your Google+ account. It's really convenient cause you can get notifications about your G+ account while you are looking through your mails, or GTalking with your G-buddies. ★ If you had any files (eg: photos; videos) in your related Google account(s) or phone, Google+ will auto import them under your private album, no matter what the size is! (how does a 12GB sound to you?) No freakin' kiddin'. And they have the courtesy to keep them all for your eyes only. If you want to show it to others, all you have to do is just share it. Too awesome for words. SECURITY; PRIVACY ★ Notice when you're visiting a Google+ account ignore the freakin' looooooooooong URL XD, there is a locked icon AND "httpS" as its starting address? In case you have no idea what it is - "Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is a secure version of the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (http). HTTPS allows secure e-commerce transactions, such as online banking." This means you are on a VERY safe server. At least, "safer" than ones with just "http". ★ Yup, that means unlike other sites *coughlikeFBcough*, whenever you feel like leaving Google+, you have the rights to take all your data with you. Although yes, everything online will have part of your data/cookies, but knowing you are in the https zone (see above) just feels more secured. In Facebook, no matter what stuff you deleted, shared through PM, or deactivate/delete an account, your info will still remain in their database, and that's scary! ★ Google+ have the courtesy to give you friendly reminder note on most things you're about to do. Before you decide to do or view something, they will let you know the general info about it and/or suggest you to Learn More. This is very considerate n' polite of them. This is our fave sticky note. Why? What stays as Limited, STAYS AS LIMITED! FEEDBACK ★ We think the most exclusive, special feature of all for being the "beta" users for Google+, is that we can send them feedback any time we want. Whether it's reporting for errors, pointing out problems, suggesting things or feeding compliments - we find that this is a very simple caring effort they made for users. Doesn't matter whether our feedback will actually reach to them or get replied or not, at least this makes us feel that we have the rights to voice out. This really shows how much they're concern in improving their product/project to the max, before being confident or gain as much data enough, to finally launch this for public. It's like a win win situation. It's a place made by people, for the people. We're very much honored to be a part of this prior improvement movement! We hope that our feedbacks to them will be taken into consideration, and once everyone is allowed to join Google+, it's happiness for all. =) The "send feedback" button is on your bottom right at. all. times. When it pops up, you'll realize they're getting ready to print screen while you fill in the blanks. You can actually highlight your feedback's issue AND get this: black out your personal info, or things you don't want the G+ staff to see. Sending feedback in text AND picture format is top notch, man! Google, you are so thoughtful! ;_; The -1 which Google+ is most probably aware of it and that is why, as exclusive invited users (meaning the peeps who were lucky enough to have a G+ account), we get the privilege to send them feedback. How cool is that? PHOTO ALBUMS ☆ For the moment, you cannot rename them, rearrange them in order, and download them. (this is the only current major problem to us. the rest listed below are minors n' we actually wouldn't mind if Google+ didn't change anything about it) ☆ For photos alone from photo albums, you cannot share individual photo or make it as your profile photo. (You however can share the entire photo album) POSTING ☆ Tested that the only thing you can't edit is the privacy for your posts AFTER it's posted. Was wondering what if after posting a public post, and later you feel like turning it to limited instead, and vice versa? (Hope it'll be as convenient as LiveJournal!) SHARING ☆ It seems that it cannot detect a non-YouTube video link to display your video URL as a video, but as a plain link. But you know what? We've tried going to non-YouTube sites to get the vids n' all, the servers itself are so inconvenient! Plus there was nothing much of shares as compared to YouTube. So as long as a link can be displayed, it's all good enough! ☆ You can't make a photo a viral share, unless you upload them by post method. PROFILE URL ☆ There is no option to personalized and set your profile URL (sample only: "https://plus.google.com/your_username") or even a simple URL (eg: "https://plus.google.com/user123456") that represents your G plus profile ...yet. We believe that we will be able to once Google+ is open for everyone! Although, we have a feeling that maybe you can't, due to the "https", however, for tips to get a shortcut URL - 1. select the entire address (just one click or double clicking will highlight all), press Ctrl + C or right-click for copy 2. Go to a shorten URL website, eg: http://bitly.com/ (there are many out there, just search for "shortcut URL" n' related), paste in the Google+ URL into the bar, generate it - there you go! A short URL. Remember to copy it n' save it, so you can always re-use it or direct others to it. Ours is http://bit.ly/gplusrm2 Feel free to use it to link us to our Google+ account! (• ‿ • ) We nearly wanted to make our own Google+ vs. Facebook comparison chart, but decided to drop it, because based on our overall points above, we believe it speaks for itself. If you've used Facebook, you'll notice the HUGE gap difference. (we however, might take another time to post our dissatisfaction towards it, because we've been using it long enough n' feel like if Facebook could not care about our feedback, we mind as well voice out the horror we had to go thru in our blog here, it is after all a place to express) If not, you'll discover Google+ as a new online wonder. In no way are we claiming that Facebook should be abandoned (it's up to you, but to us, we hell know we want to for good! =P), we're just making honest comparison based on our experience n' preferences. To us, we prefer Google+ than Facebook, because it suits us more, that is all. We will still have our Facebook Page (in order to interact with those who do not have Google+...yet), but we will cease usage of Facebook from now on. Don't have Google+ yet but want to try it? If you would like to be one of the lucky peeps to try out Google+ before it's officially open, leave a comment with your email address (any will do, doesn't necessarily needs to be a Gmail, but if you do have Gmail, that will be the top option to list) and answer the following questions: 1. Why do you want to be the first to experience Google+ ? 2. What do you like about RE-MEMBER² (that's us!) ? No word limit. Comment away! =D Please note that we reserve the rights to select who to send invitations to according to the most enthusiastic n' creative answers, and we cannot guarantee if you will be accepted to register for Google+ even with an invitation, because Google+ is very strict in allowing who to use it for now. All we can say is - GOOD LUCK! Already have Google Plus? Feel free to leave your account link in our comments, we would love to check your profiles out! =) TERIMA KASIH (Thank You), Google for creating a revolutionized social networking site that we all have been waiting for! Again, we wanted to express: WE ♥ GOOGLE+WE LOVE GOOGLE+ We will keep updating this entry when we discover new updates from our experience with Google+ ! Man, we can't help but to feel geeky. (• ‿ • ) Print screens are just samples. We love Google+ ▼ See this? Ain't our review awesome? Push the +1 button! Tweet Official RE-MEMBER² Blog

Recorded on Sundae, 3rd July 2011 at 11:09AM for Mitchel y'all.