- Google+ getting custom, pretty URLs Google+ has begun to introduce custom URLs to a "limited number of verified profiles and pages", but promises platform-wide availability to all of its 170 million or so users in the future.
- Eric Schmidt defends Google+, says it's "absolutely" a success Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt has defended the company's social strategy at its Big Tent event in London today. When questioned whether he believed that Google+ was a success or not, Schmidt replied "absolutely".
- Google+ gets a share button Google+ has just rolled-out a dedicated embeddable share button that Google hopes will encourage users to post more content to its developing social layer.
- Coldplay most popular brand page on Google+ Coldplay is the most popular brand on Google+ after becoming the first Google+ page to be circled over one million times. The long-formed British rock band has rocketed to the number one spot, having increased their following by some 360,000 Google+ users this month alone.
- New Google Account sign-ups are forced to join Google+ Web users creating Google Accounts for the first time are automatically dispensed with associated Gmail and Google+ accounts, with no option to opt-out, further enforcing the emerging paradigm that Google is Google+.
- Hangout with David Beckham on Google+ Google are offering Google+ users a chance to hangout (live multi-user chat) with David Beckham, internationally renowned soccer player, later this month - if that's your sort of thing?
- Google's latest social search update further integrates Google+ Google has today announced the biggest social update to Google Search in over two years, integrating public and privately shared Google+ posts and images into search results.
- Google+ adoption rate accelerating, reaches 62 million users Google+ user adoption rate has accelerated to 625,000 new sign-ups each day, with the social network reaching 62 million users in total by December 27th, according to unofficial Google+ statistician Paul Allen and his team.
- Google+ quietly introduces Twitter-like trending topics Google+ on Thursday night quietly introduced Twitter-like trending topics to its progressing social network. 'Trends' as they are officially known on Google+ appear on Google+ Search pages and function very similar to Twitter's Trending Topics.
- Google bans promotions and competitions on Google+ Pages for brands As the dust settles on Google's launch of Google+ Pages for brands and businesses yesterday, we've dug a little deeper into the terms of service that each brand must adhere to on the network and found something very interesting.