The Google+ team has been extremely busy it seems. This morning they hosted “A Morning with Google+” where they live streamed the launch of a ton of important new features for Google+ and their companion apps. They also snuck out another major update this afternoon that all Google+ users are sure to love. HINT: We’re now getting custom Google+ URLs for everyone! So what updates did the Google+ team have in store for us during the event? You'll find the full video embedded at the bottom of this post.

First they started with a pretty large update to Hangouts, which replaced Google+ Messenger. Hangouts for Android is getting location sharing, support for animated gifs, and SMS support. The best new feature of these has to be the SMS support, where it’s speculated that Hangouts may become the default messaging service for the soon to be announced Android 4.4 Kitkat OS. Not stopping there, they also have added more control features for Hangouts on Air, allowing you to schedule them, promote a dedicated event page for them, and then more granular control of the Hangout as it’s live. Last but not least, the Google+ team has improved video calls with hangouts; adding full screen capabilities for both the mobile and desktop versions, while also adding some auto-enhancement features to improve webcam lighting.

Next Vic Gundotra demo’d some huge updates to photos and videos. Google+ has always tried to cater to photographers and the photography-minded, and they only continue that with these new updates. First, they’re adding full size backups and background syncing of photos/videos for Google+ on iOS, (Android has had this for awhile.) The team has also added over a thousand new search objects that Google+ algorithms apply against your personal photos and those of your circles to deliver contextual results. They’ve also updated Auto-Enhance, now with a normal and high mode which you can choose from, or you can opt-out of Auto-Enhance entirely. The also added some new effects to the Snapseed mobile app and to the Nik Collection.

They’ve also added three new Auto Awesome techniques: Action, Eraser, and Movie. Action stitches together action shots to create a nice action strobe image; I don’t really know how to explain it but I know that it is a cool feature that will make for a lot of creative images. Eraser is another great addition, as anyone who’s ever tried to take photos in a crowd knows how frustrating is to try to get a perfect shot with the world continuing to move around you. Eraser uses fancy computer algorithms to erase everything that you don’t want while hopefully leaving you with a great photo. Movie is exactly what it sounds like, create highlight reel style movies from your photos and videos. There are going to be some awesome creations using Movie.

Last but not least, Google+ announced that they’re expanding custom URLs. Finally! This has been a long time coming and I know it will be happily received by just about everyone. So long Google+ URLs with the insanely long Google+ IDs; hello beautiful short URLs that are easy to remember and are actually shareable. The best thing about this is that almost all Google+ users should now qualify for the short URLs, whether for a personal or business page. For personal pages you’ll need a profile photo, 10 or more followers and an account that is at least 30 days old; while brands and businesses will qualify if they have successfully linked their website or have verified their business. Google+ has started notifying some that their custom URL is ready, while others will probably see this showing up soon. You can now check us out at plus.google.com/OPUSfidelis!

There you have the gist of the today’s Google+ event and other announcements. They’ve vastly expanded custom URLs, updated Hangouts, and added some great new features for photos and videos. The hard work that the Google+ team is putting in is certain to be noticed by the 540 million plus users of Google+. We can’t wait to see how Google+ continues to grow.