The first major change is an entire upheaval of the Google+ stream on desktop from a single column to a multi-column design. Some photos and videos will take up multiple columns while smaller stories will take up one out of three columns.

Google is also introducing a new feature called related hashtags. In short, it tags stories based on contextual clues from photos and posts. One example is a photo of the Eifel Tower being tagged #eifeltower based solely on Google’s image algorithm recognizing the subject of the photo.

For Hangouts, Google is introducing an app called Hangouts that’s separate from Google+. It’s kind of like Facebook Messenger, but with all of the sharing and video chat capabilities found in Google+ Hangouts. Google says that those participating in the Hangout app will feel like they’re in the same room together.

Photos on Google+ will be adopting a new philosophy of “Your darkroom is a datacenter.” In other words, photographers on Google+ will be able to utilize Google’s cloud technology to make highlighting and sorting photos easier. The latter is especially impressive as Google+ can now automatically sort photos by landmark, human presence, aesthetics and other indicators. Photos will also be getting auto-enhance – a new application that automatically applies image enhancements without having to use complicated software like Photoshop.

The final feature is called “auto-awesome.” One of its applications is called motion – it will take photos that are taken in burst mode and turn them into animated .gifs. The motion application is only one of five new features comprising the auto-awesome feature. Some other auto-awesome features include HDR and auto-collage.

Most of these new features, including the new stream, will be rolling out to Google+ this afternoon.

Google announced today that it has launched a special Mother’s Day page to help sons and daughters everywhere plan an extra special day for their mothers. The page includes a gift guide (with the obligatory link to Google Offers), a guide to local florists, and an offer to send a tech care package to help your technologically deficient mother get on the Internet so you can chat it up in a Google+ hangout.

While it may reek of corporate shilling, Google is onto something here. You really should get your mother something nice on Sunday. That something nice can be as simple as a phone call (or a Google+ hangout) to tell her how much you really appreciate her.

If you want to get more creative than a phone call or a hug, however, Google will be hosting a number of events this week to share some ideas. The first will be an AskMen sponsored Google+ hangout with the editors of Parenting.com. They will be suggesting “creative ideas” to make this Mother’s Day “a day your mom won’t forget.” Google has also set up a Mother’s Day Guide Google+ community for people to share ideas and stories with each other.

In an update launched today, Google will now mute your mic when you’re typing.

Google’s Tim Haloun explains it as such:

Does anyone actually like the sound of typing in a Hangout?
click click clack clack click clack clack!

If you’ve done Hangouts, you’ve almost certainly experienced it. It’s hard to chat over that typing. Maybe you’ve accidentally been that typist, and didn’t realize it until someone muted you! That’s why we’ve added automatic muting when you type. Specifically:

- If someone keeps typing in a Hangout, their mic will be muted until they stop
- They’ll see an in-Hangout notification, so they know they’re not interrupting the conversation
- We’ll do this for larger Hangouts (4+ people).

We hope this feature makes your Hangouts experience even more enjoyable, and we welcome your feedback in the comments!

Users will be unmuted “within a couple hundred milliseconds of the end of typing.”

The muting is triggered by the typing sounds, not the mere act of typing. And if you’re a quiet enough typer or use a headset mic, you’ll probably not trigger the mute.

If you’re a person who types and talks a lot while using Hangouts, Google”s Chee Chew has this to say:

“There are indeed cases where people want to type and talk. we’ve been dogfooding this internally within google, where we often have people presenting and such, so we’re sensitive to this concern. We find that the vast majority of times that happens in smaller hangouts where one person is showing something to someone else…which is why we turned this on for 4+ hangouts only.”

This is part of the White House’s series of fireside hangouts. Biden will discuss reducing gun violence with mayors from across the country. Specifically, he’ll be joined by Karen Freeman-Wilson from Gary, Indiana, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake from Baltimore, Maryland, R.T. Rybak from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Steve Scaffidi from Oak Cree, Wisconsin.

You can watch it live here. It starts at 2:45 PM Eastern.

The series follows various hangouts this year from members of the Obama administration, including the president himself.

Google’s Ramya Raghavan writes on the official Google blog:

Over the past year, Google+ has been used across the globe to connect people and enable free expression—from Syria Deeply, an independent news site which regularly uses Google+ and Hangouts to report about the crisis in Syria to Tom Fletcher, the British Ambassador to Lebanon, who issues dispatches from one country to another via Hangout.

Today, the U.S. Department of State is building on this trend by announcing a new series of discussions called “Hangouts at State.” Each month, these conversations will bring people together across global boundaries to discuss the most pressing U.S. foreign policy issues, like democracy promotion, human rights, counterterrorism efforts, economic development, climate change and drug interdiction.

Kerry’s hangout will begin at 1:00 PM E.T. on Friday. You can catch it on the Google Politics and Elections page.

The video discusses how to better understand your users, increase engagement, and measure the success of changes you make.

Google+3 hours ago

Have you ever dreamed of meeting famous movie stars? Today you can Hangout with the award-winning actress Halle Berry live from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

The actress will talk to Brazilian fans about her new movie The Call. 

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Diamond Films Brasil originally shared:
Quer entrevistar a Halle Berry Ao Vivo para todo o Brasil?

Participe da promoção e concorra a fazer parte do Hangout On Air com atriz de Hollywood Halle Berry!

Acesse o site e participe! 106    1 Powered by socialditto

Last year, Berry was injured on the set of the film (which at the time was called The Hive). Now you have something to ask her about.

And of course, there’s always Catwoman.

So if you haven’t gotten your feet wet yet, you may want to pay attention to the webinars on Enhanced Campaigns that Google has been providing. We recently shared one that focused on Google Shopping and Enhanced Campaigns. A new one that Google has provided deals with Enhanced Campaigns on the Google Display Network:

This week, Google announced ad group mobile bid adjustments for Enhanced Campaigns.

It’s called Hangouts Capture.

“Google+ Hangouts bring people together, and when they do, all sorts of awesome can unfold,” says Google’s Jeremy Ng. “The challenge, oftentimes, is capturing your favorite moments as they happen, so today we’re introducing the new Hangouts Capture app. With it you can take pictures of your Hangouts-in-progress, including a number of features not available in the usual screenshot workarounds.”

What the Capture app does is add a camera button to the bottom of your Google+ Hangout screen. When the app is open, you can snap unlimited screenshots with a single click. Of course, you could just snap screenshots the old fashioned way, but this really is much more efficient.

Mainly because every “capture” you make is saved to a shared album which is only visible to the other people in the Hangout.

Afterward, the photos will be accessible in your own photo albums, or by finding the original Hangout post. Google says that Hangout participants will always know that the Capture app is in use, and whenever someone actually snaps a photo.

You should see the Capture option pop up soon, says Google.

Google’s Vic Gundotra participated in a Hangout with Norwegian social media news channel Sosial direkte to talk about the “project” (he says they call it a project rather than a product because it’s not complete).

“We had a couple hundred million active users…just in the stream…just on plus.google.com,” he says. “And those numbers are numbers that we issued last year. That growth and that momentum has continued, and we’re very excited about the progress we’ve made just in the last year and a few months.”

Actually, here are the stats Gundotra shared in December: “Today Google+ is the fastest-growing network thingy ever. More than 500 million people have upgraded, 235 million are active across Google (+1′ing apps in Google Play, hanging out in Gmail, connecting with friends in Search…), and 135 million are active in just the stream,” he said.

The Vic Gundotra part starts about 34 minutes in.

[via Google Plus Daily]