I don't spend my whole day in Gmail or other Google sites, but I like the idea of checking in on Google+ occasionally. Until G+ comes up with a standalone client, I'm installing it as a menubar application on my Mac using Fluid, a trick I use for Pivotal as well, inspired by the article on how to do the same with Basecamp.

Might be a temporary solution, but the result looks like this on my Mac.

Here's the instructions for doing this yourself if you have Plus.

Prepare

1. Download and launch Fluid from here: http://fluidapp.com/
2. Download a Google+ icon in PNG format. I found this one on Premium Pixels to be good.

Create App

1. URL: https://plus.google.com/
2. Name: Google+
3. Location: Applications
4. Icon: Select other and browse to the icon you saved above.
5. Click Create.
6. Success dialog window appears. Cick "Launch Now."
7. Sign in.
8. Select the menu: Google+ > Convert to Menu Extra SSB, and click OK in the dialog window.

Google+ icon should now appear in your menubar and you can click it to open Google+ in a drop down window. Drag the grippie in the corner to change the window size. Use two-finger scrolling to move in the window, because window scrollbars will be suppressed.