Google has a new icon for Google+ notifications. The notification is now a small bell. But they didn’t shed the red square completely. It’s become that universal symbol indicating you have something going on. The red square is now simply smaller, counting your notifications for you.
The notification box puts Google in-line with Facebook and LinkedIn, who also updated their icon a few weeks ago to look like this:
Is emulating others good? On one hand the red certainly stands out. Facebook has always had multiple notifications. They have the globe for status updates, the word balloons for messages and the people for friend requests. Each has a red box with a number for your notifications.
Linked in just recently added a universal header making it more like Facebook. Again, with multiple icons for multiple notifications: messages, profile updates and new connection requests, respectively.
The Google+ notification is seen across all Google properties when you’re signed in. Does changing the gian red square to a bell with a little red box for counting notifications mean that we may possibly see more items for which Google may notify you? Will there be a new Gmail message counter coming? Will they break out Circle requests from the general Google+ notifications? Is there something else with other Google services? Inquiring minds want to know…