Google__ The Missing Manual - Kevin Purdy [19]
This chapter explains how to navigate and enjoy your stream: viewing what other people are up to and interested in; writing about your own experiences; and responding to the posts of friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers, even if only to give them a quick “+1” high-five. Once you know how it works, you’ll find that it’s quite easy to learn a lot about people in Google+.
Viewing Your Stream
GETTING TO YOUR MAIN stream is easy—it’s where you land whenever you log into Google+. Simply head to www.plus.google.com. If you’re already logged into your Google account, you’ll see your main stream immediately. If not, click the red Sign In button, enter your email address and password, and then click “Sign in”—voilà, your main stream!
TIP
If you’re using another Google service like Gmail or Google Docs, you can jump to your main stream by clicking the “+[your first name]” link on the left side of the black bar at the top of any Google page.
If you’re already in Google+, click the Google+ logo or Home button near the top of any page to see your main stream, which includes posts from all the people in all your circles.
Your stream is the busiest part of Google+. Think of it like a lobby in a college dorm with a big bulletin board where people have posted all kinds of messages, pictures, and notes about what they’re doing, where they’ve been, and so on. Viewing the stream for just a particular circle (which you’ll learn how to do in a sec) is akin to moving from the lobby of the dorm into a hallway, where you’ll (likely) to run into only the people who live there—in other words, the people in that circle. Unlike in college, though, you have a lot of control over who has access to each hallway, and you have the power to mute or boot bad or boring stuff.
The Anatomy of a Stream
WHETHER YOU’RE LOOKING AT your main stream or the stream for a particular circle, the Stream page includes the same basic features.
On the left is your profile image and first name (click either one to bring up your profile page.) Below that is a list that indicates what stream you’re looking at. This list includes all your circles, plus a couple of other items you’ll learn about momentarily: Incoming and Notifications. You can read about the Incoming stream in the box on The Incoming Stream, and Chapter 4 covers notifications. (If you have a lot of circles, you’ll also see a More link in this list, which you can click to view all your circles; when you do, the link changes to a Less link that you can click to collapse the list again.) If you’re looking at your main stream, the word “Stream” at the top of this list is in bold, red text. If you want to view a sub-stream that includes only posts by people in a specific circle, click that circle’s name in this list.
The center of the Stream page is where all the action happens. At the very top is a title that indicates which stream you’re looking at: It says “Stream” if you’re looking at your main stream, “Friends” if you’re looking at your Friends stream, and so on (this title is the same as the item selected in the list on the left side of the page). Just below that is a box prompting you to “Share what’s new.” You’ll learn all about this box starting on Writing a Google+ Post.
NOTE
If your circles aren’t very full or if your contacts aren’t all that active on Google+, you might see a “Not enough posts in your stream?” link section below the Share box. Ignore it if you’re just trying things out. Clicking the red “Find people” button takes you to the same page where you search out contacts and invite them to join Google+ (shown on Signing In and Joining Up).
Below the Share box is the top-most post in this stream. The items in