Google+ Has 'Post by SMS' Feature in India

Google+ is just getting under way. Google has only let a few users in, if you can call five million a few, but it is slowly opening up the service. While it's probably looking to get traction in the developed countries first, in the US, Europe and so on, it looks like Google is very keen on the developing markets as well.

For one example is a post by SMS feature of Google+ which is now only available in India. Granted, there are some obvious reasons for this.

One, Google+ is just starting out and it will be a while before all features are available to all users. Second, the feature makes much more sense in India and, indeed in other developing countries, where smartphones are rare.

But even there, everyone has a phone. All users can already enable SMS notifications, informing them of activity on Google+, when someone shares a post or when the user is mentioned by someone else.

In India, users also get the ability to post updates from their feature phones, by sending a text message to a dedicated phone number 9222222222.

Doing so will post an update on their profile. By default, the updates are visible to all of your circles, but you can restrict who has access in a few ways. You can specify the circles you want to share with by adding "@circlename" to the message.

Alternatively, you can share with your extended circles, friends of friends being the Facebook equivalent, by adding "@extended" to the text. If you want more control, you can pick a single person to share with "@email address."

It's interesting to point out that India is one of the few places where Orkut, Google's other social network, is still very popular. It has been overtaken by Facebook recently, but it will be interesting to see how Google merges the two social networks, which it will probably, eventually do. [via TNW]