Google has added three new features to the Google+ in an effort to keep the social network competitive. The first is a section called "What's Hot" that shows trending topic. Google has also beefed up its photo editing tool within Google+ to include more photo effect filters and some overlay graphics as well. Google has rebranded the feature "Creative Kit" and is hosting a Halloween-themed contest to promote the new tools.

The most interesting feature is "Ripples," which creates a visual timeline of how any given Google+ post is spread throughout the network over time. As you can see in the video below, it allows you to zoom in on any portion of a post's sharing graph to see which users have spawned the most re-shares and generally gives you a feel for who has the biggest network. That might not be the most productive feature ever, but this is social networking, so we suppose "productivity" doesn't really enter into it.

Finally, Google+ will now work with Google Apps, so users can sign up with their custom-domain email addresses and it promises to build a migration tool for users to move their personal Google+ accounts to their Google Apps accounts.



