How Google+ turns the follower wars upside down

I found this quite interesting, and so will you! -Courtesy Mike Elgin, I encourage you to Circle +Mike Elgan

Twitter is like high school. The equivalent of being the popular captain of the football team or head cheerleader is to have a massive number of followers, but to be following very few. Some of the mega-celebrities, for example, have more than a million followers, but themselves are following like 12 people. Google+, however, which was built by math and computer nerds, turns that scenario upside down. If you think about it: Your potential reach on G+ is affected more by who you follow than by who's following you. Let me explain. The Extended circles button sends your post to all the people in your circles, plus all the people in their circles who have public follower counts on their profiles.

So if a mega-celebrity has been circled on Google+ by a million people, but themselves has circled only 12, then their posts will go to a million people, plus the 12, plus the people in the circles of those 12. But the theoretical maximum number of people who can be reached by the Extended circles button is 25 million. That's achievable if you follow 5,000 who each are following 5,000 people, assuming everyone is public with their follower lists. I can theoretically reach 25 million people, even if nobody is following me . If nobody is following me on Twitter, my tweets will reach zero people. So the show-off celebrities who want to demonstrate effortless aloofness by following few, but attracting many, can still do that on Google+. But they'll have a much smaller reach than the person who follows a lot of people who also follow a lot of people. Interesting.

My account has been suspended, what do I do?

If your Google profile account has been suspended Google's own Natalie Villalobos has outlined the steps to appealing the suspension. (FULL DISCLOSURE: My own account was NOT suspended, that is my real name and I've had my Google profile for more than two years-Darrel Sukhdeo)

Hi everyone,

We've seen some complaints regarding profile suspensions, and I want to let you know how to solve this problem. Typically this problem occurs when you edit your name in a way that we no longer accept. In these situations, you may find that your name requires review to confirm that it complies with our Community Standards. You’ll be prompted to request a review during the sign-up flow, this will lead to it being reviewed by our team. After 24 hours, your profile will either be live or require further appeal. To request further appeal, click on the link to our appeal form from your Google Profile. Here, you can provide additional information to support the claim that you are using a name in compliance with our policy. Once you file the second appeal your profile will be handled via 1-to-1 communication with Google.

To ensure the success of your appeal, please make sure you are adhering to our Community Standards: http://www.google.com/support/profiles/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1228271

In particular, Google Profiles no longer support mixed character language (for example Chinese and English) in a name, symbols in names (included periods), and nicknames. Google services support three different types of use when it comes to your identity: unidentified, pseudonymous, identified. Google Profiles is a product that works best in the identified state. This way you can be certain you’re connecting with the right person, and others will have confidence knowing that there is someone real behind the profile they’re checking out. For this reason, Google Profiles requires you to use the name that you commonly go by in daily life (both online and offline).

Note: Once your profile has been suspended, you cannot move it out of the suspended state by any means other than appeal. Deleting your profile and then creating a new profile will merely allow you to continue the appeals process that was started with your previous profile.

Natalie, Community Manager for the Google+ project. I encourage you to Circle Natalie.

Hangouts: 9+ Creative uses for Google+ Hangouts

As I predicted a few weeks ago, Google+ Hangouts is driving usage stats for G+ and seems to be growing exponentially. One group is trying to set the longest G+ hangout ever which is now well over 4 days of a continuous hangout kept going by scores of people. Hangouts is also being used in many other creative ways. I stumbled upon a cooking hangout recently and was tickled by the variety of live feeds. Yesterday a friend posted a concert Hangout conducted by +Daria Musk, I checked it out for a bit. Other unique ways Hangout is being used include Teaching, Meditating together, language learning/practice, press conferences, job interviews, customer service and as I mentioned in a previous posting home surveillance. I expect that by the time GooglePlus is opened to all the Google+ team would increase the number of users per session.

One limit set to Hangouts by Google is the number of G+ users who can Hangout at once, which I think is around 10, but many people have got around that by Live streaming the Hangout on Broadcast platforms like Ustream, JustinTV and Veetle. Hangouts open in a new window and with just a few clicks you are hanging, provided those you invite respond in a timely fashion. Many folks on Google+ have been scheduling Hangouts and asking people to "Register" in advance either by commenting on their post, adding their name to Google Calendar or on a website. I feel the best ways to register people for a Hangout is via a public Google Calendar or if you want more information from them, create a Form using Google Docs. You can open your Hangout to the Public, just your Circles, just a few Circles or Just a few friends (provided they are in your Gmail Contacts) exactly as you do when posting to your Stream.

Read more about creative uses for GooglePlus Hangouts here: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-9-creative-uses-for-google-hangouts-you-didnt-think-of-2011-7