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The brighter, more colorful Google+ (Gallery)

Google has radically reworked the Google+ interface. Here's what it looks like in 2013.
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The old, 2012 Google+

This is what Google+ used to look like. A perfectly ordinary social network page, and though you can't tell it from this image, on a big enough screen it had lots of wasted white space. 

Related:

Love and hate: the new Google+ look

Thank you, Google, for the new homework assignment: Hangouts vs Chat

 

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The new, 2013 Google+

And, this is the new Google+. It has two to three content columns, and an optional video/VoIP/instant messaging column on the right. If it reminds some of you of Pinterest or WebOS, that shouldn't be a surprise. The Pinterest look is clear and Google+ designers now include some of the old WebOS team. 

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Google+ integrated photography

Google+ is now integrating your images even more closely into the system. Besides just collecting all your Google online photos into one interface, it also now includes automatic image fixig tools. With this move, Google is putting Facebook and Instragram on notice that they're playing in the photography space as well. 

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Google+ Circles

Google+'s secret sause continues to be Google+ circles that gives you easy, precise control over who can see, and who can't see, any given post. 

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Google+ Communties

If circles don't always work for you Google+ communities enable you to focus on talking about the issues that matter to you.  if you follow me, for example, you'll get Star Trek posts as well as Linux stories

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Google+ Controls

If you want to adjust what's happening in Google+, you'll find all its features and controls in a drop-down right-hand menu bar. 

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Don't like all those Google+ columns?

If you really can't stand the Google+ multiple columns, you can switch to a single column look. As you can see, however, it's not very attractive. 

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The new Google+'s one real weak point.

Linus Torvalds, inventor of a little thing called Linux, points out that Google+ has one real weakness: It's current default font is awful. 

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Google+ now includes automatic hashtags

Hashtags, as any Twitter user knows, can be very useful. Trying to figure out the right hashtag can be a pain, so Google+, under the direction of the developer who came up with the notion for Twitter, has automated hashtag selection. You can still add them in by hand, but this new mode will make hashtags as important on Google+, if not more so, than they are on Twitter. 

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