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This is the 500th photo that I’ve posted to Google+. I like celebrating milestones and so I thought I’d post a screenshot of one of my favorite features on Google+, the Google Photos page where you can see your photos in one big long infinite scroll. Here is a link to mine.

I joined Google+ on the very first day that it was open for field testing with the general public. Thanks to +Brian Rose for my day 1 invite. Since then I’ve watched the network explode in the best possible way. I’ve watched photographers flock here and build what is the best community of photographers that I’ve ever seen on the internet anywhere.

Every single day I watch as photographers share the most spectacular work. I +1, I comment and we interact. It’s amazing.

One thing that I especially like at Google+ is that photographers seem to put their best work forward there. I’m on a quest to publish 1,000,000 photos before I die, but I feel like I am saving my very best work to showcase specifically at Google+. I’m proud of every single photo I’ve posted here and I think more carefully about each photograph that I post and how it will fit into this large (now 500 photo) mosaic that I’m building on the site with my “photos from posts” album.

I post 5 photos a day most of the time to Google+ — and I spread them out during the day. This pace feels about right for me here. It feels like it’s enough for me to get a good variety of my work in front of others but not too much to overwhelm them.

The two things I’m most excited about at Google+ are the people and the people.

What I mean by this is that first there is the community. Never have my photos received so much engagement, but this is not just what community is.

Things like Google Hangouts and photowalks have allowed me to get to know so many photographers so much better than I would have otherwise. I’m totally not going to name names because I KNOW I’ll forget someone and then we’ll both feel bad — but you know who you are — and you know we’re stronger friends than we were 90 days ago.

What I mean secondly by the people, are the people who work for Google. Never have I seen a company so engaged with a social product like this. Never have I seen a more excited, passionate group of people building out something with such enthusiasm. The innovation and almost daily feature rollouts blow me away. These people really care about this product — and not just because it could prove financially lucrative to Google, but because they genuinely like using it themselves and as a greater theme see it as a tool for making the world a better place.

The people who work for Google interact on here with us, they share their lives with us, and they share these high points too where this technology is doing amazing things — things like the +Dalai Lama and +Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu hangout, things like doctors using hangouts to talk to each other in Africa.

Anyways, all of this say thank you to everyone on Google+. I’ve enjoyed all of the interaction from the smallest touches to the deepest new friendships. I’m looking forward to what the next six months bring and happy that we’re all enjoying this as much as we are.

If you want to add me as a contact on Google+ you can do that here.

Thomas Hawk Digital Connection