Google+ Invites - How To Invite Your Friends To Google Plus

Are you on Google+ and feeling a bit lonely? Even with over 500,000 estimated users many of your close contacts may not be on the service yet. You can follow these simple steps to invite your friends even with the official invitation service being closed. Try not to send them unsolicited; find out who wants in and invite them by doing the below. Google certainly knows of this method so it is not a huge secret and they are still controlling the rate of new sign-ups so you may have to do these steps again a few hours later if it does not work the first time around.

FIRST: Before going through the bellow steps check to see if the official invite method is open. If it is, the link "Invite people to join Google+" will show up under the Go Mobile on the right hand side.

1. Go to your Stream and click to "Share what's new..." to create a new post.
2. Type "Inviting you to Google+" or something similar.
3. Remove any Circles it may be shared with; click the little x to the right of Public, Friend, etc. All that should remain to is "+ Add circles or people to share with...".
4. Click on "+ Add circle or people to share with..." and you will see the cursor blinking in the white area. Type an email address(es) of people you want to invite in there separated by commas.
5. Finally click Share. Your invited people will get an email letting them know you shared a post with them.

(Another thing you can do is create a Circle of people you want to invite and add that in step 4 instead.)

UPDATE: I just read from another blog that the notification emails may not be going out. If your friend does not receive one they may still be able to get in by going to plus.google.com if they have a Gmail account; although the email didn't go out the invite still registered.

UPDATE 2: Most notification emails are going out, but Google is not allowing the users to complete the sign-up process because they are at capacity for the limited test. They are allowing people in at a slow pace, so if you get invited try again the next day to sign-up.

Have fun and be sure to use some of the extensions available for Chrome!