Google Plus is apparently Google’s attempt to out-social Facebook. Will they succeed? Let’s take a look at what it offers before trying to answer that question:
- Circles – With this feature you can create “circles” of friends. Instead of having one big pile of friends like in Facebook, you can choose to selectively share what you’re doing with circles of friends you create and manage.
- Hangouts — A “hangout” is a place you can go hangout. Like, duh. But really, it’s a virtual space where you can let specific friends or circles know that you are available for a face-to-face chat, should they wish to do so. Kind of like in real life, when you go hang at the local coffee shop.
- Instant uploads — This feature allows you to automatically upload photos and videos to a private space where you can decide who to share them with.
- Sparks — This a current awareness service. Tell sparks what you’re into (e.g., fashion, music, etc.) and it will gather things it thinks you might be interested in for looking at whenever you have time.
- Huddle — Huddle is a group chat. Kind of like an impromptu IRC channel.
I haven’t actually tried any of these features yet, since it is still in development and requires an invitation (anyone have one? ;-) ), but based on the brief descriptions on the web site, I think it has a great deal of promise. It feels very much like taking social networking to the next level by making specific social needs both easier and more in your personal control.
So is Google Plus a Facebook killer? I don’t know — yet. But I suspect it might just be, if enough people find the above feature set as compelling as it sounds at first read. But don’t count Facebook out yet — they still have massive penetration and it isn’t trivial to jump from one social networking platform to another. Plus, Facbeook isn’t exactly sitting still.
I don’t know who will come out on top, but given the size of the competitors this is like a fight between Godzilla and Mothra, where all us puny Earthlings can do is wait to see who will be our new social networking overlord.
About Roy Tennant
Hi Roy,
As far as I can tell, the field trial for Google+ is a closed one, so even those who have gotten invitations are unable to invite others in (not ideal for a social tool, I think, but whatever). Here’s a brief FAQ doc that includes a place to write in to be notified when the trial opens up to a larger audience:
https://sites.google.com/a/pressatgoogle.com/google-plus/field-trial
One feature of Google+ that I think holds much promise is that it is included in the initial launch of Google Takeout, which is a tool that allows users to export their Google data for use with non-Google applications. It just got released also, so I can’t comment on how well it serves that purpose, but given the complaints about how difficult it is to extract yourself and your data from FB, that is a potential differentiator. Here’s a link to the press release:
http://www.extremetech.com/internet/88554-google-takeout-lets-you-easily-export-your-data-from-circles
Hope this helps…
Hi Roy,
Just a minor correction regarding:
“Instead of having one big pile of friends like in Facebook, you can choose to selectively share what you’re doing with circles of friends you create and manage”
Facebook does allow you to create named groups of friends, and allows you to share posts, etc. with groups, networks, and particular people. Of course you need to know how to find and tweak that but it is possible.
-Mike
Yes, Facebook has groups but also has lists available for you to easily limit what folks can or can’t see of your profile. This is one of its most useful features, as far as privacy is concerned.
I have business contacts and certain acquaintances in a “Limited Profile” list; they can only see my Info page and friends(I’ve thought about restricting their view of my friends as well). I have an “Unlimited Profile” list for actual, close friends, who can see everything, and a “Can’t See Nothing” list, which I should probably delete. (I made this when I was playing games early on, so my game buddies could only see my name and picture, but no friends, no Info, no wall or photos, etc.) Every time I accept a friend request, I just make sure to place the new person in the right list, and voila!
I think ease of use will be key in the upcoming battle between google+ & facebook. If all these cool new features offered by google+ are simple & intuitive then Facebook will need to do a lot tp stop its users migrating.
Just like Myspace, Facebook will soon fall. It’s only a matter of time. Even the Roman empire soon fell.
To me, Google+ is in no way a facebook killer. It seems that the techie crowd has really taken a liking to Google+ but all in all, Facebook has kept the bulk of its users and they aren’t going anywhere fast.