PRLog Nov 28 2010 3:53AM GMT

Google+ is seemingly full of surprises. After all the features they introduced over the past months, they are now back with more. The new features include a photo retouching tool, a network visualization tool and Google Apps integration.                 The first one called ‘Ripples’ is a resurrected feature from the now defunct Google tool ‘ Wave ’. It is essentially a playback feature which enables you to visualize and relive every post, update and conversation that you or others have had publicly. This is a very cool feature to track and analyze your connections and the way your post has circulated within the Google+ ecosystem. Its exciting to note that this feature will make analysis and visualization very simple when Google+ launches its brand pages. Google says that the ‘Ripple’ is still an experimental feature and improvements are in the horizon. Here is a video showing how it works. Click here to view the embedded video. The second feature is a photo-retouching and editing tool called ‘Creative Kit’. It is essentially a quick editing tool you can use while clicking and uploading pictures to the network on the fly very much like Instagram on the iPhone. But this editing kit is much more feature laden than that. You can edit, crop, sharpen, resize, rotate and correct all your photos and add a effect to them. You can then save these photos on Google+ and share them to the world. Creative Kit is essentially an integrated version of Piknik , a startup which Google acquired last year. For the upcoming Halloween, Google+ has also integrated Halloween effects into Creative Kit. You can read the original blog post from Google here. And finally, all Google Apps users can now register for Google+ and use all the cool new features the social network has to offer like Hangouts, Ripples and the like. This is a promising improvement to the Google+ platform and has the potential to make sharing with people much easier. All these small features that Google is adding will surely help make the platform relevant and competitive with the likes of Facebook and Twitter. What do you think of these new features? Will it help boost the popularity level of Google+ ? Share your thoughts with us.      Looking For A Social Media Agency?? - Contact WATConsult - India's Leading Social Media Agency ...

Google Releases Site Performance Tool

As mentioned by Matt Cutts at PubCon Las Vegas, Google may be introducing page loading time as a ranking factor. Right now, it’s not clear just how much significance will be placed on page speed, but the release of the Google Page Speed tool and the inclusion of a new Site Performance graph in their Google Webmaster Tools suggests that Google intends to help speed up the Web. Be sure to check out Jon Henshaw’s article on how to speed up your website for Google . You should also check out Rhea Drysdale’s article on The SEO’s Guide to Page Speed .

Bing Introduces New Features for Maps

Bing announced this week that Bing Maps would be introducing a street side view in 56 locations with the hope of going global in the future. In direct competition with Google’s street view, Bing hopes to capture some Google users who may be looking for a richer experience. However, there is one caveat - you need to install Microsoft Silverlight for it to function (something Mac users need to be aware of).

Google Launches Public DNS

This week Google launched it’s own public domain name system resolver in an effort to speed up web browsing and improve security. However, it’s not without it’s critics. David Ulevitch , Founder of Open DNS had the following to say: it’s not clear that Internet users really want Google to keep control over so much more of their Internet experience than they do already — from Chrome OS at the bottom of the stack to Google Search at the top, it is becoming an end-to-end infrastructure all run by Google, the largest advertising company in the world. I prefer a heterogeneous Internet with lots of parties collaborating to make this thing work as opposed to an Internet run by one big company. You can use Google’s Public DNS now by adding one or both of the following IPs to your computer’s DNS server settings. 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4

Google Replaces Answers.com with it’s Own Dictionary

When looking up definitions for words in Google, Answers.com was the website linked to in the definition link. However, Google have replaced that link, with (you guessed it) a dictionary of their own . The old definition link to Answers.com is moved way down in the SERPs.

Taylor Pratt Joins Raven as “Product Marketing Manager”

The entire Raven team is delighted to welcome Taylor Pratt as Product Marketing Manager . We can’t wait for Taylor to get started and we’re all very excited for him to be joining us. Product Manager and Co-Creator of Raven, Jon Henshaw, has more to share on the hiring of Taylor. Raven provides an advanced multi-user Internet Marketing toolset for Researching, Managing, Monitoring, and Reporting on SEO, Online PR, and Social Media. Free 30 Day Trial ...