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Already using Google+? Follow Mashable’s Pete Cashmore for the latest about the platform’s new features, tips and tricks as well as social media and technology updates.

It’s not just Facebook users having all the fun with photographic profile hacks, we are delighted to report that Google+ users are getting in on the action too.

Because the shiny new social networking service displays some of your photos at the top of your profile, you can tweak your scrapbook photo album for a more creative photographic display.

From landscapes to portraits via pop art, take a look through the photo gallery below for the brilliant examples we’ve come across so far. Link us in the comments to any of your Google+ profile hacks — we might just add them to the list!

1. Brian Rose

We'd expect the Google+ photos community manager to know his way round the new service, but we still can't help be impressed with his clever and creative concept.

2. Felipe Apostol

Felipe Apostol's monotone collage is very effective.

3. Francois Bacconnet

Francois Bacconnet has a message for us -- written in appropriately Google-flavored colors.

4. Brenda Anderson

Brenda Anderson's lovely landscape offers a window on the world.

5. Michel Plungjan

There's more typographical-themed fun to be had from Michel Plungjan.

6. Dariusz Majgier

Dariusz Majgier's eyes make for a striking profile page.

7. Greg Schmigel

A street scene adds some urban chic to Greg Schmigel's profile page.

8. Leo G

Leo G's Irish landscape works well.

9. Mohd Sufian Othman

An jaunty angle and the two faces sharing the same box add interest to Mohd Sufian Othman's creation.

10. Roger Thornton Brown

Roger Thornton Brown has gone all Andy Warhol over on his profile page.

11. Joe Murphy

Photographer Joe Murphy's Iowa landscape offers a calm view with lovely light captured beautifully.

12. John Yates

John Yates levitates above his G+ profile.

13. Pepper Ferguson

Meanwhile, Pepper Ferguson wants to know how you are!

14. Matt Davis

A doodle makes Matt Davis' profile unique.

15. Dan Moyle

Dan Moyle also sticks with the typography theme with his creation.

16. Lynda Giddens

Lynda Gidden's close-up on her eyes offers an arresting overall first impression.

17. Matthew Stone

Matthew Stone has done some clever photo editing to neutralize the gaps between the photos.

18. Paul Spoerry

Neil Patrick Harris' famous quote brings the awesome to Paul Spoerry's profile.

19. Nicci Moon

Tech lover Nicci Moon adds media controls to her profile page.

20. Sara Mays

Sara Mays gets pretty with a floral selection.

21. Max Power

Uh-oh, Max Power's gone to the dark side.

22. Dan Hannon

Do we think Dan Hannon might be a sports fan?

23. Ben Hofstetter

Ben Hofstetter's effort is a little, er, corny.

24. Larson Sanderfer

There's more stadium action from Larson Sanderfer.

25. Mohamed M Jimale

Mohamed M Jimale gives us a silhouette in prayer against a beautiful sky.

26. Nicolas Chenet

Nicolas Chenet takes a playful approach to the photo windows.

27. Jessica Milanesa

Nyan Cat is the star of the show over at Jessica Milanesa's profile page.

28. Marin Treselj

Marin Treselj's cool symbols inform the viewer about his interests.

29. Cyril Bosselut

On first glance Cyril Bosselut's hack doesn't look too co-ordinated, but when you realize he has added photos in the Google Plus palette, you get it!

30. Phouthong Luong

One of our very favorite designs, Phouthong Luong's friendly cartoon avatar and clever use of the photo windows and gaps looks ace. And in case you were wondering, "Futchibow" is his artist name. Look him up!

More About: gallery, Google, Google Plus, hacks, List, Lists, Photos, tips and tricks, trending

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As Independence Day makes its way to a close around the U.S., the skies have lit up with images of the celebrations. And, naturally, Twitter has lit up too.

We’ve culled together some of those images of fireworks from displays around the country. Did you share images of fireworks on your social channels?

New York City Fireworks

The spectacular Macy's 4th of July fireworks - as seen from our balcony! - @simrananand

New York City Fireworks

#4thofJuly #fireworks from NYC at 28th Street. Thank you Macy's! Happy Independence Day, America! - @EricaSwallow

Atlanta Fireworks

All I see is fireworks!! @ Union City Atlanta,GA - @CamOfaKind

Washington, D.C. Fireworks

#happy4thofjuly from the White House. Watch the celebration @ 8:15 ET on www.wh.gov/live. Don't miss this - @WhiteHouse

Washington, D.C. Fireworks

Watching fireworks in DC from @Smithsonian roof. Happy 4th of July!! - @SteveCase

New Orleans Fireworks

Fireworks on the levee in New Orleans. - @dogfishjones

Grand Rapids Fireworks

Fireworks just started in downtown #GrandRapids - @dverwolf

Chicago Fireworks

Fireworks on Evanston beach. Chicago skyline in the background. - @elisebutler

Denver Fireworks

Happy 4th of July! Great photo from fireworks @ Invesco Field last night. Pumped 4 Broncos football #endthelockout - @carlinrobin

Dallas-Fort Worth Fireworks

Right from my backyard. Yeah, baby. :) #fireworks - @Susan_Wilkinson

More About: 4th of july, fire works, fireworks, fourth of July, New York City fireworks, twitpic, twitter

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The Digital Photo and Film Series is supported by Adobe® Photoshop® Elements. To connect with the product team, find creative tutorials, tips and information, join them on Facebook and Twitter.

With smartphones projected to take over feature phones in the United States this year, there are a lot of people walking around with cameras in their pockets.

And so, an abundance of apps has launched recently to cater to all the smartphone owners who might want to snap a quick shot as they roam the city streets. It’s now easier to take, tweak, share and display photos than it ever was in the pre-app world. These are some of our favorites.

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Snap and Share

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Instagram and Picplz have virtually identical functionality for adding effects to photos and sharing them with friends. Both allow you to add filters after you take photos, share them to Facebook and Twitter, view popular photos from other users, and follow friends to see their photos from a news feed. Even the interfaces of the two apps are so similar that at first glance you might mistake them for each other.

The biggest difference between the two free photo sharing services is that PicPlz has an Android app while Instagram does not (neither has a BlackBerry app). Picplz also gives its users slightly more control of camera settings in its Android app than Instagram does in its iPhone app, and it recently added a “collection” feature that easily adds photos to a group file (Instagram accomplishes this function via hashtag).

If you’re an iPhone user and have the option to choose between the two (Android users, also check out Vignette), the best way to decide between them comes down to which network most of your friends use. You can scope out the situation on each app by connecting your Twitter and/or Facebook profiles to the photo app.

Hipstamatic, $1.99, is another similar option for iPhone. While its more expansive filter collection produces beautiful effects, it doesn’t integrate social sharing like Instagram and PicPlz do.

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Share Selectively

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Chances are that all 600 of your Facebook friends are not interested in seeing your life documented. Nor are you probably interested in sharing all of those photos. But for a close group of friends, access to your photo diary is an interesting way to stay in touch.

Path, which launched in November, aims to personalize photo sharing. The app asks you to create a network of fewer than 50 people. Each time you take a photo using the app, you have an option to tag it with three simple things: people, places and things. Each photo can be shared to just your Path friends, individual friends, or your Facebook wall.

If your Path friends have push notifications set, they’ll get a message when you share it with them, and your photo posts will also show up on their Facebook newsfeeds (only visible to friends who you’ve selected).

As you take and share photos, you create a timeline or “path” of your life. As of March, you can alter shots with Instagram-like photo lenses. There’s also an option to add 10-second video clips to this timeline.

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Sort and Display

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Using multiple photo apps can easily result in photo overload, but there are several apps that address this very problem by organizing and streamlining your pics.

Browser app Memolane takes social media activity, including photos from Instagram and Facebook, and automatically plots it in a searchable scrapbook. When you want to remember, let’s say, a vacation, you can search for that point in the timeline to see Foursquare checkins, photos, videos and updates you made during that time period.

Gramframe, a $1.99 iPad app, uses Instagram’s public API to create iPad photo gallery screensavers for its users. If you want to put your friend’s photos into the mix, Pixable’s Photofeed iPad app has a slideshow feature that can accomplish something similar with friend’s Facebook photos, though the iPad will still go black after its normal sleep time.

Photofeed browser, iPhone and iPad apps also allow you to follow photo updates from specific Facebook friends and sorts photos into categories like “most popular,” “family updates” and “new profile photos.”

If you want to bring things into the physical world, you have your pick of services for creating albums from digital photos — SnapFish, Shutterfly, MyPublisher and Apple’s photo book service are some of the most popular. Then there’s Instaprint, which prints Instagram photos with a retro Polaroid camera look.

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Series Supported by Adobe Photoshop Elements

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The Digital Photo and Film Series is supported by the Adobe® Photoshop® Elements product team. Adobe’s® photo-editing software delivers powerful options that make it easy to create extraordinary photos, unique print creations, quickly share memories in online albums, and automatically organize and help protect your photos. Download a free trial of Adobe® Photoshop® Elements® 9 to try it out!

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More Photography Resources from Mashable:

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- iPhotography: 10 Pro Tips for Snapping Perfect iPhone Photos
- 15 Incredible iPhone Dog Photographs
- 7 Superb Short Films Shot With Cellphones
- 10 Essential Websites for iPhone Photographers
- 10 Incredible iPhone Portrait Photographs

More About: Digital Photo and Film Series, gramframe, hipstamatic, instagram, iphotography, memolane, Path, photo apps, Photos, picplz, Pixable

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The Digital Photo and Film Series is supported by Adobe® Photoshop® Elements. To connect with the product team, find creative tutorials, tips and information, join them on Facebook and Twitter.

We’ve got three fascinating Facebook photo facts for you. Of the 500 million people on Facebook, 99% of them have uploaded at least one photo. More than 100 million photos are uploaded every single day. Facebook currently hosts more than 60 billion images.

Facebook is clearly a major player in the online photo sharing space, but are you getting the most photo functionality out of the network? The social networking site recently has improved the image experience greatly, but there are still some handy apps that can help you get even more out of your Facebook photos.

We’ve found five apps that we think bring something to the Facebook photo experience including editing, exploring, creating, managing and sharing. Take a look through the gallery for our choices and let us know any photo apps you use on Facebook in the comments below.

1. EDIT - Picnik

Did you know you can use Google's easy-to-use, capable photo editing software from within Facebook?

This means you can edit your pics -- Picnik-style -- after you have uploaded them. This is handy for quick mobile snaps, as well as older albums you might want to go back and re-edit.

2. MANAGE - Fotolink

Fotolink might not be the best looking Facebook app, but it makes uploading and managing your pics a cinch.

Using Fotolink, you can easily move photos between albums and copy your pics from certain other photo sharing sites.

One really useful function is the ability to copy photos from your friend's Facebook albums into yours using a folder-based drag-and-drop system.

3. CREATE - Animoto

Animoto offers another slideshow option, creating funky little 30-second animations that typically use between 10 and 15 pics.

There's the ability to mix and match and hand-pick photos from among all of your Facebook images - mobile uploads, profile pics, albums and more.

You can then select music from a wide variety (on the whole, they're of decent quality) and publish to your wall when you're done.

4. EXPLORE - Cooliris

As with the desktop and mobile versions, Cooliris for Facebook presents images on a spacey "infinite 3D wall" that lets you browse through your own photos in a super-fast, super-cool and super-fun way.

If any of your friends are using Cooliris, you can also explore their Facebook photo uploads. And if they're not, go ahead and invite them - you can post a link and message about Cooliris on your Facebook wall from within the app.

5. SHARE - TripAdvisor TripWow

A great way to share your travel experiences quickly and easily via Facebook is via TripAdvisor's TripWow app.

It automatically scans your photos for travel-related albums and creates a slideshow within seconds that you can post to your wall. Your friends will appreciate it, since they won't have to click through all your albums pic by pic.

There are customization options, but we've found the default settings make for pretty decent results.

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Series Supported by Adobe Photoshop Elements

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The Digital Photo and Film Series is supported by the Adobe® Photoshop® Elements product team. Adobe’s® photo-editing software delivers powerful options that make it easy to create extraordinary photos, unique print creations, quickly share memories in online albums, and automatically organize and help protect your photos. Download a free trial of Adobe® Photoshop® Elements® 9 to try it out!

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More Facebook Resources from Mashable:

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- 4 Ways to Set Up a Storefront on Facebook
- HOW TO: Add Social Sharing Buttons to Your Website
- The Future of Social Search
- 5 Creative Facebook Places Marketing Campaigns
- HOW TO: Avoid and Prevent Facebook Spam

Image courtesy of Flickr, Dan Taylor

More About: Digital Photo and Film Series, facebook, facebook apps, features, List, Lists, photo sharing, photo sharing apps, Photos

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We had so much fun pulling together the gallery of new Facebook profile photo hacks (not to mention a great reader response), we decided to follow up the original collection with 10 more creations.This time around we've sourced all the images from the marvelous Mashable readership, either your own profiles you've shared or ones you have highlighted as particularly impressive.So if you enjoyed the first 10, see below for 10 more creative uses of the new Facebook profile page layout and please keep on sharing your own designs in the comments!

1. Rob McCann

Rob McCann's train works so well with Facebook's design, it's a shame it's doomed!

2. Katie Sokoler

Katie Sokoler says a colorful hello on her new profile page.

3. Luke Kingma

Luke Kingma has gotten into the festive spirit with his fun hack for Christmas.

4. Cyril Boggs Serrano

A lovely landscape and some arty photo panels make Cy Serrano's profile stand out.

5. Imran Latheef

A twist on the many frontal face shots, Imran Latheef offers his profile for his new profile page.

6. Hajann Man

Abstract and arty is how Hajann Man's played it, making for a very effective page.

7. Airport Nurnberg by Simon Schlerf

Simon Schlerf has given the German flughafen's Facebook profile a bang-on-trend makeover, showing that companies and brands can join in the fun.

8. Marc Laurent-Atthalin

Marc Laurent-Atthalin had us at "shark" with this playful take on the medium.

9. Tobias Hanika

Pretty, simple, yet effective. Tobias Hanika has decorated his page with daisies for a fresh, floral look.

10. Holly Knowlman

Holly Knowlman is enjoying some typographical fun with a cheeky "yeah?"

BONUS: Prashish Rajbhandari

Finally, using the same principles as the profile page trick, Prashish Rajbhandari has wowed us with an entire album hack.

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More Social Media Resources from Mashable:

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- 10 Cool Facebook Status Tips and Tricks - 6 Reasons Why Social Games Are the Next Advertising Frontier - 3 Things Brands Must Do to Reach Millennials Online - How Social Media Can Help With Your Long Distance Job Search - 4 Awesome Photo Sharing Alternatives to Flickr and Facebook

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Reviews: Facebook, Mashable

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Just because you sit behind a laptop all-day doesn’t mean you don’t know fashion when you see it. How can you show the world you are Internet-savy and proud?

Wear your passion for tech on your sleeve with this awesome, quirky, geek-chic gear.

With reporting by Zachary Sniderman

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For more entertainment coverage, follow Mashable Entertainment on TwitterTwitter or become a fan on FacebookFacebook

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More entertainment resources from Mashable:

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- 5 Matching iPhone and iPad Cases
- 9 Fantastic Facebook Pages for Fashion
- 9 Ways to Geek Out Your T-Shirt Collection
- 10 Awesome Apple iPad Cases
- Super Fly T-Shirt Displays How Much E-Mail You Have [VIDEO]

Behind every great website is a great mascot. While the Internet has been flooded with cute social media icons, only 10 of the very best made our list.

Whether it’s the sharp colors of Twitter’s “Fail Whale,” the simple lines of the Reddit Alien, or the lush, orange FirefoxFirefox, each of these mascots are special in their own way.

Click through to find out some little known facts about our favorites (“twitter” refers to a sperm whale?) or add your own in the comments.

With reporting by Stephanie Marcus

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More Resources from Mashable:

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- Fail Whale in Pop Culture
- Fail Whale Artist’s Newest Icon: Win Penguins
- 20 Icon & Graphics Generators
- 20 Great Online Image Editors
- 5 Ways to Share Images on Twitter

Nashville and other parts of Tennessee were hit by the region’s greatest rainfall in recorded history this weekend, resulting in a severe flood that has devastated the region and even swept away buildings and cars.

The 20 inches of rain have turned interstate highways into veritable rivers, submerged neighborhoods and broken dams. Power outages have affected 36,000 homes. Thankfully, the casualties haven’t been as ubiquitous as the damage. The flood has been ongoing for two days, and so far eleven deaths have been confirmed.

Check out these videos and photos that YouTubeYouTube and TwitterTwitter users have shared from their experiences. You’ll see some eye-opening images of damage to buildings, cars and roads. As was the case with earthquakes and other disasters in the past, social media has provided the quickest and most elaborate picture of the situation at ground level.

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Videos From YouTube

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Photos From Twitter

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[img credit: TonyYoungBlood]

[img credit: christnemaddela]

[img credit: tandemracer]

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A magnitude-7.2 earthquake shook Baja California on the afternoon of Sunday, April 4. It was felt from San Diego to Mexicali to Phoenix. There was some damage, but thankfully, casualties were low.

We turned to TwitterTwitter for a closer look at the earthquake’s impact on the communities along the Pacific. These photos of the damage in Mexicali and other locales were shared via Twitter and TwitPicTwitpic this afternoon by people who experienced the earthquake first-hand.

We saw it (perhaps more aptly) after the Chile earthquake, too: Social media can make personal experiences universal. Twitter advocates like to talk about how much more quickly news and images can get out through the service, but that’s not the only thing that’s changed in today’s world as a result of social media.

[via r13639]

[via Cimarron98]

[via La_Cherry]

[via elbetOe]

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Evacuating Disneyland

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[via ms_kristin]

Have you found any compelling photos of the quake on Twitter or Facebook today? If so, feel free to share them in the comments.

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