Google takes on Pinterest with Google+ Collections

Google is taking cues from services akin to Pinterest with the launch of Google+ Collections - A new way to bundle and share content based on your interests.

After many rumors, Google+ has officially announced Collections. With Collections, arguably the biggest update to Google+ in what seems like forever, users can create, discover and keep up-to-date with bundles of content based around interests such as Street Photography or Rock Music, for example.

With its hyper-colourful interface, Collections gives users a new way to share across Google+, and if you're a fan of scrapbooking sites like Pinterest, you'll feel right at home here. You can create as many collections (posts grouped by topic) as you like, and posts that you share to your collections can be of your own or others. Like-minded individuals may follow your collection (if you have the setting enabled), which allows them to see new content as you add it.

You'll find that you're already following a bunch of collections from people you have in your circles, this is something that Google+ has on by default. Not to worry though, following or unfollowing takes one click, and we'll show you how that works below.

Creating Your First Collection

Find Collections in the menu

Creating a collection is very simple. Once you have thought of a topic of interest, click on the Collections tab from the Google+ menu and click on Create a collection. Then, enter a name for your collection and who you want to share it with (publicly, your circles or select people). That's it!

To customise your collection, hit the dedicated button next to the gear icon

Your newly created collection will appear plain, but you can pick a splash of colour and select a cover image  (or upload your own) to stand out from the crowd. If you want to do that, click on Customise, next to the share and settings icon.

If you want to create an image specifically for Collections, the dimensions you need to make it fit like a glove are - 1920 x 1080.

There are many high quality collection photos to choose from, but you can also upload your own

Your collections can be found at plus.google.com/collections as well as a new tab on your profile or +Page on both the updated Android app (rolling out now) and the desktop web.

Meet Share Button 2.0

Reshare or move posts into your collection

For the first time since the launch of Google+ in 2011, the share button found on posts has received its very own update, and of course it is focused on Collections. The button now has a tacked-on chevron menu which allows you to Reshare or move the post into a collection of your choice.

Hitting the Reshare button does what you'd expect, and copies itself to your desired collection, leaving the original post intact. One thing to note is that the reshared post will show up in the stream as it is creating a new post from the original.

Moving a post takes the original content and moves it into a collection of your choice. Because with this action you're not creating a copy of the post, it won't show up on the stream like a reshare would.

Of course, you don't have to use the share button to add content, you can share original content using the Sharebox as normal.

Share original content with the share box, just like you would with Communities

Content Aggregation

When you're creating or resharing into your collections, don't worry too much about spamming your followers, because Google+ will automatically roll up multiple posts added to a collection into a singular post. A label at the top of aggregated posts will be displayed which links to the collection.

I'm hoping this is something that will expand to other shared content soon.

Discover Collections

You can see what collections the people in your circles have created by visiting the main Collections page. If the creator (in your circles) has enabled, you'll be following their collection. You'll find these placed in the "Collections from your circles" section. Collections you follow manually will be in a "Posts you follow" section. As people share and reshare into their collections, you'll see them in the stream, as long as you're following them.

To spread the word, you can share your own or other's collections thanks to a handy share button that you'll find when you look at an individual collection. When you share, the post includes the name and collection cover as well as a "Follow" button.

Notification Settings

Just like with Circles and Communities, you can subscribe to notifications for individual collections. This means you'll get a Google+ notification every time the collection you've subscribed to gets updated.

Get notifications for collection updates via the gear icon

As with the other major Google+ features, you can modify your email and push notification settings for Collections within Google+ Settings.

Final Thoughts

Google+ Collections is rolling out to everyone over the course of a day or so, on Android and the web. Talking about Android, we've got everything covered as far as Collections goes on the Google+ Android app.

I'm really excited to see how the community will react to this game-changing feature, and if it'll attract new users to sign up to Google+. At the very least, it's a confirmation that Google+ is alive and well, which will hopefully fend off the clickbait articles for a few months (hopefully longer).

We've already created two collections for you to follow (and even subscribe to) - "Biggest Updates" and "GPD Exclusives". Both will be updated regularly with our best content.

What do you make of Google+ Collections? Share your collections with us, we'd love to see them!