Google

Considering that President Obama is on just about every major social media service, it should come as no surprise that there is now a Google+ account for the White House as well.

Deputy director of outreach for the office of digital strategy — yowza, that's a long job title — Kori Schulman revealed this news on the White House blog on Friday.

"On day one, President Obama made clear that this Administration is committed to public engagement and participation," Schulman writes. "That’s why [this administration] launched the 'We the People' petitioning tool and why you can find the White House on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other places around the Web."

The newly created White House Google+ page will be used to share news from the official White House blog, behind the scenes photos, and videos, Schulman says. In addition, there will be regular "White House Hangouts" with administration officials. (Only some users will be invited to join these Hangouts, but everyone will be able to watch the entire events live on WhiteHouse.gov, the Google+ page or on the White House YouTube channel.)

Related stories:

• New Google account users forced to join Google+
• MySpace co-founder: That place was 'a cesspool'
• Google+ adds meme-generating tool

Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Google

Say goodbye to your productivity and hello to a wave of silly memes. Why? Because good ol' Google+ has added a tool which will allow anyone to add captions to photos in seconds.

The tool doesn't help you do anything that you couldn't do using the most basic of image-editing applications — it just simply speeds up the process of adding text by letting you do it as you upload an image.

According to Google software engineer Colin McMillen, all you'll have to do is "drop a photo into the sharebox on Google+, then click the 'Add text' button underneath the photo." A quick bit of typing later and you'll have a delightful image worthy of your favorite meme sites.

It's worth noting that the feature is being gradually rolled out to users, so it may be a few days before you can use Google+ to cleverly caption all your favorite cat photos.

Related stories:

• Google+ interest on the wane, say search statistics
• MySpace co-founder: That place was 'a cesspool'
• How to make phone calls through Google+ Hangouts

Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

MySpace

Remember your dear ol' buddy Tom Anderson? I certainly hope you do — he was the first friend you had on MySpace.

Anderson left MySpace back in 2009 and nowadays he's seeing other social networks — and sharing his thoughts about them, as well as the site he co-founded so many years ago.

In a recent Google+ post, Anderson discussed the photo-censoring habits of social networks and the importance of removing offensive photos. He specifically called out TechCrunch columnist MG Siegler for complaining about having a profile photo — in which he is addressing the camera with a rude hand gesture — removed from Google+ without any warning before discussing how MySpace dealt with questionable images:

I would respectfully submit that we, the users of Google+ (and Facebook or Twitter) don't need to see you flipping us off, nor do we need to see you naked, or displaying something else generally considered offensive. When a social network let's that stuff slide, it turns into a cesspool that no one wants to visit ... sorta like MySpace was. 

Ouch! That's a pretty harsh thing for a man to say about his abandoned virtual child. But Anderson had a good justification for the criticism:

It was very difficult [at] MySpace to keep up with the "offensive" photos, and we had decent technology and many warm bodies on the case. (In fact, I'd guess the average person would be shocked how much time and resources we had to put into trying to stop that.) [...] Things that seem simple are not as soon as you have 10s of millions of users.

This isn't the first time Anderson has said something about MySpace that made us gasp. Previously he pointed out that "like most of you, [he doesn't] like using [MySpace] anymore" after being questioned as to why he has a Facebook profile.

Related stories:

• Google+ interest on the wane, say search statistics
• Say goodbye to Google's black bar
• How to make phone calls through Google+ Hangouts

Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Google

Google+ Photos just got a new feature: Find My Face. This face-recognition tool will help you tag — and get tagged in — photos faster than ever. And the best part? It's opt-in so there won't be any creepy accidental tags.

Matt Steiner — the engineering lead on the Google+ Photos team — announced Find My Face in a Google+ post on Thursday. He explained that if you turn the feature on, Google+ will prompt people you know to tag your face when it appears in photos.

It's worth noting that you continue to have control over which tags you accept or reject. And of course you can toggle Find My Face off at any time if you decide you don't like it.

Doesn't sound so bad, right? Unlike Facebook's photo-tagging feature, Find My Face doesn't automatically allow you to be tagged if you forget to toggle some settings. Instead it defaults to keeping you as safe and protected as possible.

Google

The new feature should be rolling out to users in the next few days, so don't fret if you're not spotting an option for it in your settings just yet.

Related stories:

• Google+ iPhone app gets search, photo improvements
• Say goodbye to Google's black bar
• How to make phone calls through Google+ Hangouts

Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Google

Google+ Hangouts let you set up group video chats in seconds, but what happens if you want to invite a friend who isn't near a computer or a webcam? Until recently, that buddy would've been left out — but now you can simply add him or her as a voice-only participant by making a phone call through the Hangout.

Google employee — and inventor of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) — Jarkko Oikarinen announced the new feature in a Google+ post on Thursday. He explains that the addition of phone calls to Hangouts is supposed to make arranging party lines and conference calls even simpler.

All you have to do to add a telephone participant to a Google+ Hangout is tap the "Invite" button at the top of the Hangout's interface, click the "Phone" tab on the left, enter a phone number, and click "Call Now." That's it! 

It's worth noting that this new feature is initially available only inside Hangouts With Extra — which is simply a version of Hangouts with a handful of additional tools. It currently only supports calls in the U.S. and Canada.

Related stories:

• 24-hour high-def porn channel coming to Google TV
• Say goodbye to Google's black bar
• Google Street View now takes you inside buildings

Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Google+

Halloween is right around the corner and odds are you're scrambling to put together a costume. Well, put down the witch hat and drop the clown nose — it's time to take a break from the real world and to give your photos a Halloween makeover.

Thanks to the Creative Kit feature found in Google+, you can vamp out or zombify your (or your friends') photos in seconds. Just upload a photo, open it on Google+, and select the "Creative Kit" option from the "Edit" menu. You'll be presented with all sorts of basic photo-editing tools — and a wonderfully enticing "Halloween" tab.

Click on that tab and you'll have options to add masks, Halloween props, accessories, face paint, textures, and most importantly: Zombie and vampire effects.

And before you even ask: No, the vampire effects do not include an option to cover everything in glitter.

Google+

The Halloween effects in the Google+ Creative Kit let you add zombie or vampire effects to photos. You can be pretty dramatic and go all out with the ghoulish effects or you can stick to subtle touches.

Beyond the vampire, zombie, and accessory effects, there are textures which can be applied to photos. They are a bit more subtle — like creepy photo filters — and take just a click to slap over an image.

Google+

For those who want to get their Google+ profiles into the Halloween spirit without becoming one of the undead, the Creative Kit offers texture effects.

But what if you're not into the whole Halloween thing at all? Then you can still use Creative Kit to tweak photos. There are options to crop, rotate, sharpen, and resize photos as well as tools to add vintage effects or text:

Related stories:

• How to start a Google+ Hangout on YouTube
• Google co-founder finally most popular on Google+
• You can now share your Google+ circles

Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Google+

The mood at Google Headquarters must be celebratory right now. After all, one of the company's co-founders is finally more popular on Google+ than Mark Zuckerberg, the man behind Facebook.

It was slightly amusing — at least to those of us who enjoy simple irony — that Mark Zuckerberg managed to stay on top of both Larry Page and Sergey Brin for so long, but a site called Google+ Statistics reveals that the joke's over.

Google+ Statistics has been tracking the popularity of Google+ users based on how often they're "circled" from the very start and while its numbers lag a bit behind the action, it does already show Page as the champion of the leader board:

Google+ Statistics

Zuckerberg is in a close second, followed by musicians Britney Spears and Snoop Dogg. Google's other co-founder, Brin, is stuck in fifth place.

No word as to how Page finally beat Zuckerberg or why Brin is less loved than a guy who likes to end words with -izzle and a gal who spends more time on tabloid covers than concert stages.

Related stories:

• How to start a Google+ Hangout on YouTube
• The unofficial Google+ theme song
• You can now share your Google+ circles

Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Your Google+ circles — the neat groups into which you organize your friends, acquaintances, and heroes — are kept hidden from everyone else. No one gets to see whom you've put into which circle.

Until now.

Now you have the option of sharing your Google+ circles with other people.

Google engineer Owen Prater explains — in a Google+ post, of course — that you might want to share your favorite circles with friends (or strangers) to save them time and in order to "connect them with interesting people and content."

Interested? Give it a try! The whole process of sharing a circle is pretty simple, according to Prater:

From your circles page... select the circle you want, add a comment, and then share it. 

When your friends receive your circle, they can then pick and choose who to add to their own circles.

Note that when you share a circle, you're only sharing its members at that time. The circle name is always private to you, and any changes you make to your circle afterwards are private as well.

Related stories:

• Google+ now open to all -- no invitation required
• How to start a Google+ Hangout on YouTube
• The unofficial Google+ theme song

Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Google

After being an invitation-only club for three months, Google+ has finally fully opened its doors to the public.

In a blog post announcing a series of improvements to the social network, Google's Senior Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra revealed that Google+ is finally moving from "field trial" to "beta" — and ditching the requirement for invitations in the process.

Now anyone can visit google.com/+ and sign right up for the service.

Awesome, right?

And, as I mentioned, this change is only the cherry on top of the improvements being made to Google+ or, more specifically, to the Hangouts feature. Those include the ability to use the video chat feature on mobile devices running Android 2.3 (or higher), the ability to have more than eight individuals watch a Hangout, and more:

• Screensharing: for when you want to show off your vacation photos, your high score, your lesson plan or whatever else is on your screen
• Sketchpad: for when you want to draw, doodle, or just scribble together
• Google Docs: for when you want to write, plan or present something with others
• Named Hangouts: for when you want to join or create a public hangout about a certain topic (like fashion or music or sports...) 

Additionally, Google is allowing the Google+ search function to sift through posts — and not just user names — from now on.

Related stories:

• 'Anti-social network' video spoof mocks Google+
• How to start a Google+ Hangout on YouTube
• The unofficial Google+ theme song

Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Google is working on further integrating Google+ within its other services. One of the first steps it's taking in order to do that involves showing recent Google+ posts within Gmail.

Mark Striebeck/Google

According to Gmail engineering manager Mark Striebeck, a "Gmail people widget" will begin appearing when you view emails from individuals who happen to be sharing posts with you on Google+. That widget will show you their most recent Google+ posts — or at least the most recent posts which were shared with you or a Circle you're in.

This new feature is going to be rolled out to users gradually, so don't fret if you're not seeing it just yet.

Related stories:

• 'Anti-social network' video spoof mocks Google+
• How to start a Google+ Hangout on YouTube
• The unofficial Google+ theme song

Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She's obsessed with Twitter and loves to be liked on Facebook. Oh, and she can be found on Google+, too.

YouTube

The option to start a Google+ Hangout now appears in the bottom of the "Share" menu on YouTube videos.

A Google+ Hangout — a video chat with up to ten participants — can be a great way to watch YouTube videos together with friends who are spread across the world. But what if you don't feel like heading to the Google+ website every time you want to start a chat like that? Can you kick things off directly from a YouTube clip?

Sure!

As TechCrunch reports, YouTube has added an extra button to the "Share" menu which pops up underneath video clips — a "Start a Google+ Hangout" button. All you have to do is give that shiny new button a click and select which of your Circles you want to share the Hangout with.

Just try to avoid tricking your friends into watching too many videos of Rick Astley using this method. I suspect they might get tired of it rather quickly.

Related stories:

• 'Anti-social network' video spoof mocks Google+
• Google+ app works on iPad now ... kinda
• The unofficial Google+ theme song

Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She's obsessed with Twitter and loves to be liked on Facebook. Oh, and she can be found on Google+, too.

OK, Google's done foolin' around with you folks who don't want to use your real name on Google+. From here on out, if Google learns the name you're using is not your real name, you've got four days to make amends. After that — you're kicked off of Google+. That's how the hottest new social networking site rolls.

A not-very-happy looking Saurabh Sharma, product manager on the Google+ team, made the announcement late Thursday in a video shared on YouTube (above) and on Google+. He must have sensed how well this was going to go over with users.

It was presented as an "update to how we handle potential violations of our common name policy."

One of the things we strive for on Google+ is to make connecting with people on the web more like connecting with people in the real world. So as part of this effort, we’ve asked that those signing up for the service use the name they commonly go by in the real world.

In the past, when we found a profile that was not in line with our Names Policy ... we used to suspend the profile and then let the user appeal.

No more appeals. Effective immediately, "if we find that your profile name does not adhere to our policy, we’ll give you a 4-day grace period to fix your profile name before we take further action." Taking action means your account gets dumped. But you will be allowed to "take all your content with you, even after your profile is suspended. Visit Google Takeout for more details."

Angry comments poured in in response o Sharma's posting and on YouTube (which Google also owns):

"I will be removing Google+ from my online activities. There are many reasons for the use of pseudonyms, including personal safety. For years, we have instructed children and others to not use their "real names" online for privacy and safety concerns. Now Google, in its INFINITE UNwisdom decrees that only "real names" will be used," said "gwyddonaid" on YouTube. "Goodbye, Google. So much for 'do no evil.' "

Emilio Osorio wrote: "What about the necessity of those involved in risky political environments and the use of Google+ as a reach out medium? How's google+ going to handle those real needs of the rest of us that are living in unsecure places (like Mexico)? Or google+ just needs to be considered as a "linkedin/facebook" thing with only rosy politically correct content?"

And said another: "No. I'll gladly give you my real name, you can keep it, give it to advertisers, I really don't care, that's OK with me, its part of the service and I understand that, but, I will not have my display name as my 'real' legal name, I just simply don't use that name with people, I don't use it on the web, its not me, I don't like it, I won't do it."

Related stories:

• A guide to controlling privacy, info on Google+
• LinkedIn says it won't use members' photos in ads
• Google+ social network gets games
• Google+ 'screwed up' when it cancelled your account
• Kickoff of Google+ stomps Facebook, Twitter

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.