I would theorize that the giant uptake and buy-in for Google and Google+ is grounded on the principle that everyone is already using Google services and products. The Google tool bar across their sites is genius as it’s integration with their social product makes it a breeze for the user to stay  current with their circles of friends and acquaintances. Posting a quick comment to one of your followers while you are also digesting your email from within Gmail just makes sense. You always have your email open, after all. Even non-Gmail users perform dozens of Google searches a day; where there is another opportunity for your social interaction.

Nevertheless, as awesome as the integration is today, we aren’t always on Google to receive them. In that instance, by default, Google resorts to email notifications – something I think no one particularly enjoys. Thankfully, a third solution involves a desktop application, aptly titled G+ Notifier.

G+ Notifier is a free desktop utility for Windows that provides Google+ notifications from the system tray via a pop-up bubble and also more permanently with a custom icon representing the number of items.

In a near future version, clicking the icon or notification bubble returns a list of all recent notifications, both read and unread, in a similar fashion to the Google tool bar notification system. From there, notifications can be dealt with with a subsequent click which then loads Google+ in your default browser.

Download G+ Notifier