Google+ has a new notifications sidebar

Posted by on Google+
Update: The changes talked about below have since been reverted due to negative user feedback. More information on this can be found here.
+Mr. Jingles is moving to a new home within the web interface of Google+, next to the 'Add People' and Hangouts icons.

When clicked, out will pop a new home for your notifications. The new notifications tray brings the desktop web version of Google+ slightly more inline with its mobile counterparts, where pulling notifications from the side has been a thing for a few years.
Mr.Jingles now lives inside a circle (on the Google bar at least)
Aside from the new go-to place for all your notification needs, the Google+ team has tweaked a couple of bits and bobs to make getting to notification 0 a little faster. First of all, thanks to support of a new dedicated area (a sidebar) for notifications, you can now see more and scroll less. If you're not a fan of seeing previously seen notifications (or just like to keep things clutter free), just hit the "Unread notifications" filter.


The icon in the Google bar has seen a slight redesign - A bell is still present but now snugly fits inside a grey circle. The cool thing about this is that the circle turns red and the unread notification count replaces the bell, making it easier to catch the eye. Something to note is that checking notifications this way is now limited to viewing your unread notifications, previously read notifications can still be found in the sidebar on the Google+ website (confusing eh?).

This is all good, apart from the fact that we now have duplicated functionality. We can still check our notifications the 'classic' way via the bell on the Google bar at the top (which doesn't appear to be going away anytime soon) and now the new dedicated placement on Google+ itself. A rather frivolous decision if you ask me, but I'm still holding out hope that not all the pieces of the puzzle have landed yet, so to speak.
2 notification buttons - Which one to click?
Although you should be seeing the new but somewhat smaller notification icon now, the side tray may take a few days to roll out.

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Thanks to +Sebastien Defrance for the tip