Google+: New Google+: Stream, Hangouts, and Photos

See the full post for more Google+ news, e.g., what Google did with the huge white space that used to be in the middle of the Google+ user interface; for more on Google's consolidated real-time tools, see Exclusive: Inside Hangouts, Google's big fix for its messaging mess (The Verge)

"Today’s real-time communication products make conversations difficult. Some require everyone to use the same operating system. Others support video calls, but not photo-sharing. And still others enable mobile messaging but ignore the web entirely. Patchy solutions (including our own) preclude meaningful connections online, and we aim to fix this.
Today we’re launching a stand-alone version of Hangouts that combines text, photos and live video across Android, iOS and your computer."

Google+: New Google+: Stream, Hangouts, and Photos