Google__ The Missing Manual - Kevin Purdy [22]
Now you know how to view different streams and decipher posts, and you’re probably eager to do something besides just look at stuff. You’ll learn how to interact with other people’s posts later in this chapter (Interacting with Posts). For now, it’s time to learn how to write your inaugural post.
Writing a Google+ Post
ONCE YOU’VE WRITTEN A POST, shared it, and seen how it shows up in a stream, you’ll have a better sense of how the whole stream thing works. Plus, writing a post is a great way to announce yourself to the Google+ universe, and then you can watch the comments and approving +1s (Interacting with Posts) roll in.
To get started, head to your main stream page (if you’re not already there) by clicking the Google+ logo or the Home button near the top of the screen, and then click the “Share what’s new” box. The box expands to give you plenty of room to type. Decide what you want to tell everybody, and then type it in (“Hello world!” is always a good start). You may automatically see a blue rectangle labeled “Your circles” appear below where you’re typing; if not, click the “Add people or circles to share with” box and select “Your circles.” When you’re done, click the Share button. Congratulations—you’ve just written your first post and shared it with everyone in your Google+ circles!
TIP
If you start writing a post and then get a case of cold feet, just click the X in the upper right of the “Share what’s new” box to bail out and shrink the box back down to its original size. Just know that what you wrote won’t be saved. If it was quite witty, you could copy and paste it somewhere else for posterity, like a Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac) file.
Adding Photos, Videos, Links, and Locations
The icons in the lower-right of the “Share what’s new” box let you add extras to a post: a photo (or photos), a video, a web link, and your location. However, you can add only one of these extra elements to each post—a set of photos, a video, or a link. The one exception to this rule is that you can add a location to any post.
These extras can be a subtle footnote to the text you write in the “Share what’s new” box, or the text can serve as a caption for—or description of—the extra. For example, you could write a long post that thanks everybody for coming out to your fundraising event, and then attach a crowd shot to demonstrate the success; or you could write a short note about the event, and then attach a series of photos showing highlights of the night. Most links needs some kind of explanation—at least a blurb about why you find a site interesting or relevant—but most videos don’t need lots of text, as they usually speak for themselves.
Here’s how to add each kind of goodie:
Photos. Click the camera icon and a menu with three options appears. Click “Add photos” to browse your computer and select the photo(s) you want to upload; click “Create an album” to upload photos in a more organized fashion by dragging and dropping the files into the order you want; or click “From your phone” to post images from your smartphone (you need the Google+ app to do this; see Uploading photos automatically from an Android phone or tablet for details). Photos need to be in JPG, PNG, or GIF format, and no larger than 2048 pixels on their longest side (about 2 MB). You’ll learn more about sharing photos in Chapter 5.
Video. Click this icon, which looks sort of like a play button, to display a menu of three options. Choosing “Upload video” lets you do just that—upload a clip directly from your computer. You can upload