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Auto Awesome Adds Another Dimension

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Over the past couple of weeks I have noticed something very strange happening with photographs being synced from my phone to my G+ account; I would login on a computer and then see strange animated versions of burst shots right through to panoramas, the feature apparently, is known as auto-awesome. I was instantly impressed, the standard of the photos produced automatically without any kind of deliberate action was good, but when I realised that Google had added an edit button to the gallery, then I saw the potential and another dimension to G+ that surely cannot be ignored.

I would suspect that this is an attempt to pitch G+ right up against Instagram now, and with the additional bells and whistles it is definitely a contender in that court, as before against Facebook and Twitter alike. Google don't do things by halves, G+ is maturing into some kind of super hero social network; they have the resources, you can't fault them for using them to stay ahead.

The thing is, having only used it for a couple of shots to play, I would consider this a real alternative to Adobe Lightroom for the novice opportunist photographer with no usual inclination to delve into their creative personas. I can see myself using this for playful stuff that I might not intend to use professionally, then I would get the big boy tools out, but certainly as something in the box for working out ideas and for things to simply share with friends and family - this is certainly an interesting development; even your Gran could use it!

And perhaps that is the point, could it prove to be the key piece of the jigsaw in the eventual success of G+ as a social platform?

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