The 28th of June 2011 a new social media website saw the light of day: Google+. The site was thought to be a true opponent to Facebook. But as it turns out, it’s the prefect complement. And a great platform for geocachers.

A stream of geocaching

One way of seeing it is that on Facebook, you follow your friends and people you know in real life. On Google+, you follow people you don’t know but who share the same interest as you. If you haven’t already, sign up for Google+ now. Then, you can check out this semi-old thread or search for “geocaching” on G+ to start adding geocachers to your circles. Don’t just add your friends, add anyone who’s writing interesting things – in an instant, every time you check your G+ stream, it will be packed with new photos, stories, rants and ideas from fellow cachers!

How does it work?

Google+ is based on a few main blocks:

• Circles – You can add the people you follow into individual circles, for example “family”, “coworkers” or “geocachers”. When you post something, you can choose if the post is public or if only the people in one or a few limited circles can see it.
• Stream – Just like Facebook or Twitter, your main page is built up by the latest posts and status updates from all the people you follow.
• Hang-outs – Start video conversations with other people, for example discussions about geocaching. Invite anyone to join! The person who is currently talking – or talking the loudest – is the one who will take up the most space on the screen, while the rest will be displayed as thumbnails – just as in real life, where the current talker is the one everyone turns their head towards!

Text editing

G+ encourages longer, blog-like posts rather than the short ones on Twitter and Facebook. To spice up your posts and make them easier to read, use these commands to add bold, italic and strike through text:

• *bold* becomes bold.
• _italic_ becomes italic.
• -strike through- becomes strike through.

See you on G+!