Adam Grant

Facebook and its latest competitor Goolge+ have both introduced new features for users to explore.

Aside from getting out of beta mode and opening its doors to all Internet users, Google+’s Hangouts feature (which allows up to nine people to link up and chat with a user on video), is now available on camera-equipped Android smartphones. Apple device users will have to a wait a little bit on this.

A user can also now host an online broadcast using Hangouts, by recording the session and then airing it live across the web for anyone to see.

Facebook introduced a “ticker” function onto its users’ home pages that offers real-time notifications of what friends are doing within the service. The main news feed page has also been revamped, to flag important items so that users who haven’t been online for a few days won’t necessarily miss out on a big announcement (like a wedding date). Photos displayed in the news feed are also larger than before.

Facebook has over 750 million users, while analysts estimate that Google+ is currently at about 25 million