You've managed to snatch up an invitation to Google+, the shiny new social network that everyone is talking about lately? Congratulations! Now how will you get all your Facebook friends to follow you to this corner of the Internet?
According to ZDNet, it'll take a clever — and slightly strange — trick.
You see, actually inviting your Facebook friends to join Google+ is mostly painless — once Google reopens the invitation process, at least — but there is one rough part: You have to enter or copy-and-paste the email addresses of your thousands of Facebook buddies into a pesky little form. That's a lot of clicking and typing!
So what's the alternative? A little workaround which will automate most of the process:
- Sign up for a Yahoo! Mail account, and import all of your Facebook contacts. Click "Contacts” at the top, and then "Import Contacts." Authorize Facebook access to your Yahoo! address book.
- Log in to Google Plus (http://plus.google.com) and navigate to your "Circles" (https://plus.google.com/circles).
- Click "Find and Invite", and then click Yahoo! Import your Facebook friends to the "Suggestions" section.
Ta da! All your Facebook friends will now be listed on the screen and you'll be able to invite them to Google+ or drag their names (and faces) into the appropriate groups or "Circles."
Please note that Google has been sporadically shutting down the Google+ invitation process, so don't think you're doing something wrong if your friends appear in a new tab called "Selected" instead of instantly calling you because they've received an invitation email. That's just a waiting room of sorts. There you'll be able to double-click their names to see a prompt that allows you to send an invite.
Related stories:
- Google faces uphill climb vs. Facebook
- Google to launch Facebook wannabe
- Chrome extension shares Google+ on Twitter and Facebook
Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She's obsessed with Twitter and loves to be liked on Facebook.
