The New Google+ & Personalised Home Stream

The new three column layout opens up a lot of opportunities for Google to personalise your stream. Three column spanning posts are there to grab your attention and this is where personalisation will play an important part. If Google uses its knowledge on your interests, Google can start pushing the posts you will most likely and enjoy to the front and centre of your stream.

How is Google going to benefit from this?

If Google had to push interesting content to the relevant persons the interaction rate will increase substantially creating a very lively and close communities in Google+. Google already does something similar in Google Now where it suggests you movies to watch, automatically knows which sports team you follow and several other things.

At the end of the day one of the fundamental aims of Google is to provide people with relevant information and data. In the past the main aim was to provide you data according to what you searched for. Today the main aim is to provide you with data you want or like before actually searching for it.

Is Google already doing so?

If I had to guess I would say YES! Formula One one of my favourite sports features heavily in the three column posts Google+ is offering me. Apart from this I can also see a number of shared YouTube videos of bands which I recently search for on YouTube or Google Search. This might be coincidence but I believe Google are already doing so. If not I'm sure it will be introduced in the very near future.

How can it be done?

One of the key tools in doing this is by matching hash-tags  These can be user inputted or automatically generated hash-tags. Hash-tags are the essence of the posts and they are on the increase especially with those created automatically. More hast-tags could be being generated and associated with the posts without being shown to us.

By linking related hash-tags with your posts and those posts you +1 and comment on, Google can present you with an incredibly personalised home stream without having to go through the noise generated. Let us remember that this is not an issue of giving prominence to one particular user in your circles. We have different hobbies and interests. We might have circled each other for a particular interest but we are not interested in the rest.

Photo Tools

Google will also without any doubt use the photo tools they introduced to identify those beautiful images and push them in the centre of your stream by offering them in the 3 column spanning posts. My steam has over the fast days been full of beautiful and high images colouring my feed.

This is Just the Start

Without any doubt this is just the start. Given the quick and high developments occurring in Google+ and the other Google Products optimisations to these models and features will be rolled out frequently. From all of this we are set to benefit from tailor-made home streams full of interesting posts and comments.