We recognize that users aren’t just using one device to interact with your app. They switch between laptops, tablets, and mobile devices daily. We’re focused on making desktop and mobile work better together so users have a seamless experience between platforms. And today, we are launching another step in this direction -- cross-platform single sign-on (SSO).

Cross-platform SSO lets you stay connected to users and more easily keep them engaged across devices, removing the friction of consent and authentication. Now, when a user signs in with Google on one device, they grant consent once and can continue their experience seamlessly between web and Android devices. For example, if a user signs in with Google on the web and adds items to their cart but doesn’t get around to completing the purchase, if they switch to your app on their Android device, Google+ Sign-In will automatically authenticate the user, so they can be taken directly to the same state and resume their purchase.

We are rolling out this feature on the web and via the new release of Google Play services v3.1 on Android over the coming days. It will be automatically enabled if you integrate Google+ Sign-In.

Get started and learn more about Google+ Sign-In at http://developers.google.com/+.

Google+ platform at I/O:
With Google I/O underway today, we have a lot in store for developers. In addition to over 15 exciting sessions and code labs, we have a packed sandbox with over 50 partners showing off integrations with Google+ Sign-In, mobile recommendations, and Hangout apps.


Posted by Francis Ma, Product Manager, Google+

When you help someone find a great article on your site, you’re not only making them happier, you’re inspiring deeper engagement and loyalty. That's why today, we're bringing together elements of Google+ and Google Search to suggest the right content from your mobile website, at just the right time.

For example: Forbes visitors can now more easily discover other Forbes articles based on Search Authorship signals and other articles with lots of Google+ activity (including +1's and shares). In all cases, recommended content is based on the specific page the visitor is viewing, to boost the relevance of recommendations. And they only appear when people tap for more, so as not to interrupt their browsing experience. Here's how it works:

Recommendations can appear regardless whether your visitors are signed in to Google. But when they are, they'll see content that was +1'd or shared by the people in their circles:

We're also making it easy to add and configure these content recommendations. Just add a single line of javascript to your mobile website, and from there you can make changes in the "For your site" section of your Google+ page dashboard -- no web editor required.

To give today's features a try, feel free to visit any article page on Forbes on your favorite iOS or Android device. More details are also available in our developer docs: developers.google.com/+/features/recommendations.

Of course: we've got lots more planned for Google+ content recommendations, and Google+ Sign-In more generally, so we’re looking forward to having over 50 companies who have integrated Google+ Sign In share their stories (examples below) this week from Google I/O.

"Google+ Sign-In is the most popular social sign-in method on our Android application, measuring 41% of overall social sign-in users”

- Tom Grinstead, Product Manager, Guardian News 

"We're thrilled with the initial results of our Google+ Sign-In integration. Our analytics show tremendous sign-in conversion from Google, besting other popular social networks across web, Android and even iOS. Because of this success, we're considering removing other sign-in sources to give more prominence to this new growth channel."

- Haisoo Shin, Director of Engineering, Fancy

Google+ partners at Google I/O include: 

Air New Zealand, AllTheCooks, Banjo, Branchout, Business Insider, Colopla, Community Factory, Contacts+, Dealflicks, Deezer, Editora Globo, eHow, Fandango, Flixster, Forbes, Funny or Die, Glamour, Go SMS Pro, HRS.com, Huffington Post, ibotta, Jolicloud , Kabam, KickSend, KLM, Magisto, Mashable, mon.ki, n24, NDTV, NPR, Owners.com, Pixiv, Polygon, RebelMouse, Restalo.es, SB Nation, SkillPages, Slacker, Softonic, Songza, SoundCloud, Speakingtree, Synacor, Tamindir, Terra, The Fancy, The Guardian, The Verge, Trovit, TuneIn, Vasily, Verbling, and Voxy. 

See them all here.

Posted by Mario Anima, Product Manager, Google+

When users search for your app, they often want to go deeper and see what in-app content fellow users find interesting. Today we're making this possible by bringing app activity to Google search results.

Aggregate app activity for SoundCloud in Google Search.

Soon, if you search for a site or app on Google.com (and that app has integrated with Google+ Sign-In app activities), you'll see popular and aggregate user activity to the right of search results. Searching for Fandango, for example, will show the top movies among Google users. And when you click on a movie, you’ll go directly to its page on Fandango.

The current Google Search results page for Fandango (left) and the Google Search page results with app activities (right).

We're rolling out this feature in desktop Search over the next few weeks, starting with a limited number of music and movie apps — including Deezer, Fandango, Flixster, Slacker Radio, Songza, SoundCloud and TuneIn — but we'll be adding more apps over time.

We've got lots more improvements planned, so stay tuned for more updates.


Posted by Seth Sternberg, Director of Product Management, Google+

With Google+ Sign-In, users can sign in to your Android, iOS and web apps using their existing Google credentials, and bring along their Google+ info for an upgraded experience. We already provide APKs and APIs that you can build directly into your apps. And today we're adding even more integration options.

Hundreds of thousands of developers already use the user management and social infrastructure platforms Janrain and Gigya to manage their sign-in systems. Today we're happy to announce that both companies are including Google+ Sign-In as part of their product suites! This means that their customers will be able to:

• Add trusted authentication to their apps and sites 
• Allow web users to automatically download their Android app 
• Customize their app experience using Google+ profile info 
• Enable users to share interactive posts with friends 
• Write app activities that only appear when they're relevant 

To get started, simply visit Janrain's and Gigya's getting started guides. You can also stop by some of their customer’s sites, who are already starting to launch their Google+ Sign-In integrations, including:

Janrain: NPR, Universal Music Group sites (which includes over 100 music artist and industry sites like ladygaga.com, justinbiebermusic.com, imaginedragonsmusic.com, eminem.com, and interscope.com), and HSN.

Gigya: American Idol (a Fox Broadcasting Company) and Food Network UK

Posted by Seth Sternberg, Director of Product Management, Google+

Since our launch of Google+ Sign-In with trusted authentication, over-the-air installs, app customization, interactive posts, and app activities on February 26th, we have received huge interest from the developer community about integrating the new features. The interest was so significant, in fact, that we thought a better way to enable as many developers as possible would be a series of Google+ Sign-In bootcamps.

These bootcamps are a unique opportunity for you, your engineers, and your product managers to work side-by-side with Google engineers over the course of five days, while building the next generation of web and mobile applications with Google+ Sign-In. Google engineers will provide design advice and best practices, help with any implementation issues, and give suggestions on how to get the greatest number of signed-in users. It’s also a great opportunity to connect with other talented developers from a wide range of apps, companies, and technologies. This being Google, of course food and snacks will be provided! A specific agenda will follow for each location.

Bootcamp Cities & Dates:

• Mountain View, CA - March 11th - March 15th 
• London, U.K - March 11th - March 15th 
• New York, NY - March 18th - 22nd 
• Berlin, Germany - March 18th - March 22nd 
• Bangalore, India - April 1st - April 5th 
• Sao Paolo, Brazil - April 1st - April 5th 
• Sydney, Australia - April 8th - April 12th 
• Seoul, Korea - April 8th - April 12th

If you’d like to attend a bootcamp, please apply here. There is limited space, but we prefer two engineers from your company (or anyone that is critical to the integration) to attend each day. If you are accepted, you will receive a confirmation email with additional details after registration closes. Hope to see you there!

Posted by Kinnari Jhaveri, Google+ Product Partnerships

Today we’re adding a new feature to the Google+ platform: application sign-in. Whether you’re building an app for Android, iOS or the web, users can now sign in to your app with Google, and bring along their Google+ info for an upgraded experience. It’s simple, it’s secure, and it prohibits social spam. And we’re just getting started.



In this initial release, we've focused on four key principles to make things awesome for users:

1. Simplicity and security come first 
If you sign in to Gmail, YouTube or any other Google service, you can now use your existing credentials to sign in to apps outside of Google. Just review the Google+ permissions screen (outlining the data you're sharing with the app, and the people who can see your activity), and you're all set. Google+ Sign-In also comes with the protections and safeguards you’ve come to expect from your Google account (like 2-step verification), so you can always sign in with confidence.

Managing your signed-in apps is easy too: visit plus.google.com/apps at any time, or open the new Google Settings app on Android.

2. Desktop and mobile are better together 
Many developers offer web and mobile versions of their app, yet setting things up across a browser, phone and tablet is still a major hassle. Starting today, when you sign in to a website with Google, you can install its mobile app on your Android device with a single click.

3. Sharing is selective; spraying is just spam 
Sometimes you want to share something with the world (like a high score), but other times you want to keep things to yourself (like fitness goals). With Google+ Sign-In and circles you decide who to share with, if at all. In addition: Google+ doesn’t let apps spray “frictionless” updates all over the stream, so app activity will only appear when it’s relevant (like when you’re actually looking for it).

4. Sharing is for doing, not just viewing 
Pictures and videos are great for viewing, but sometimes you actually want to do stuff online. That's why, when you share from an app that uses Google+ Sign-In, your friends will see a new kind of "interactive" post in their Google+ stream. Clicking will take them inside the app, where they can buy, listen to, or review (for instance) exactly what you shared.

If you’re building an app for Android, iOS or the web, and you’d like to include Google+ Sign-In, simply dive into our developer docs and start checking stats once your integration is live. Android apps will require the latest version of Google Play Services, which is rolling out to all devices in the next day or so.

To see what other developers are doing with Google+ Sign-In, just visit any of the following sites, and look for the new "Sign in with Google" button (also rolling out gradually):

• Banjo 
• Beautylish 
• Fancy 
• Fitbit 
• Flixster 

• The Guardian 
• OpenTable 
• Shazam 
• TuneIn
• USA Today

Posted by Seth Sternberg, Director of Product Management, Google+

Hello Android and iOS mobile developers. Now when a user shares a favorite song or news story from your app to Google+, their stream post can include a deep link to that piece of content. Clicking the link either:

• Opens your app, and goes directly to the news story (for instance), or 
• Redirects to Google Play or the App Store to encourage download

Using the Google+ mobile SDKs, you can integrate the Share dialog and embed a deep-link ID with your post. The deep-link ID may be a URI or an identifier that your app can use across its supported platforms, to identify the correct context to launch in your app.

Here are some examples of deep link sharing on Android from Pulse News:

You can also download Pulse News from Google Play to see deep links in action.

Check out our developer docs to learn more about today's launch of deep links on Android and iOS and follow the conversation on Google+.


Posted by Francis Ma, Product Manager, Google+.