Google+ – A Home run from Google – but will it win the game?

On Tuesday June 28th, 2011, Google took its biggest leap yet onto Facebook’s turf, introducing a social networking service called the Google+ project— which happens to look kinda like Facebook. The service, which was initially available only to a select group of Google users, will let people share and discuss status updates, photos and links.

But the Google+ will be different from Facebook in one significant way, which Google hopes will be enough to convince people to use yet another social networking service. It is designed for sharing with small groups — like colleagues, college roommates or hiking friends — instead of with all of a user’s friends or the entire Web. It also offers group text messaging and video chat.

At stake is Google’s status as the most popular entry point to the Web. When people post on Facebook, which is mostly off-limits to search engines, Google loses valuable information that could benefit its Web search, advertising and other products.

So how does it work?

Google+ users will start by selecting people they know from their Gmail contacts (and from other services, once Google strikes deals with them). They can drag and drop friends’ names into different groups, or circles, and give the circles titles, like “Gamer Peeps” or “Game Makers” (to name two from my own). Then they can share with these groups or with all of their friends.

Unlike on Facebook, people do not have to agree to be friends with one another. They can receive someone’s updates without sharing their own.

When users visit their Google+ home page, they see three columns and a stream of status updates in the middle that looks a bit like Facebook. But Google said that besides an easier way to share with select groups, Google+ has several other features that distinguish it from competitors.

It offers group video chats, called Hangouts, that other members of a group can join as it is happening. Users can search a section called Sparks to see articles and videos from across the Web on certain topics, like recipes or ailments, and share them with relevant groups of friends.

And on the Google+ mobile app for Android phones and iPhones, people can chat with groups using a feature called Huddle. Photos and videos shot with cellphones are automatically uploaded to a private album, so Google+ users can quickly view and post them from their phones or later on a computer.

What do I think?

Thanks to an invite by the amazing Michael of Stargazer’s World, I joined on July 1st, and was one of the first in my Twitter group to get in. This is what I think:

Is it like Facebook?

It’s a lot like Facebook – but more so. To explain, it is an entirely different front end and back end than Facebook. So while it looks at first glance to be pretty much the same thing, it really isn’t. It is a totally new redesign that almost shocks you with how clean it is. And there aren’t constant invites to play some stupid gladiator game or help someone out on their farm.

I’ve read the inevitable Facebook comparisons, and they just don’t hold up. Just like when Twitter opened their doors… it wasn’t anything completely new as far as ideas go. People had been using chat services like MSN or ICQ for a very long time. Twitter just made them better. And in the case of Google+, that is what they did.

What sucks?

I can find something bad with anything. It is what I do. So here’s the things I aren’t too sure about.

The +1 button. Okay – I use it, but that doesn’t mean I get it. It is going to be their Facebook “Like” button. That, I understand. When people click it, it improves the page’s search ranking for logged-in Google users with social connections. It doesn’t really mean you agree with or even like what you’re +1-ing.

Privacy. Regardless of whether you have a Google Plus account or not, your Google profile will automatically become public after July 31st. If your Google profile is set to “Private”, you would have to change it’s visibility to “Public” before July 31st. All private Google profiles will be deleted after July 31st, as reported in a help document page of Google Profiles.

Here is what the help page reads:

The purpose of Google Profiles is to enable you to manage your online identity. Today, nearly all Google Profiles are public. We believe that using Google Profiles to help people find and connect with you online is how the product is best used. Private profiles don’t allow this, so we have decided to require all profiles to be public.

I don’t make any secret about what my real name is. It has been entirely impossible for anyone to be anonymous online for years. In fact, people who use a “net name” like they are a brand (like Pepsi, for example) irritate the shit out of me.

But still – for the tinfoil hat crowd – I do understand why some people would be upset and wouldn’t see it as being worth it.

What’s awesome?

It’s not Facebook. Don’t discount how much some people loathe FB as a company, and (in my opinion) rightfully so! They’ve made a business out of tricking users into accidentally over-sharing, they’ve engaged in some pretty stunning acts of censorship, and keep changing the UI in drastic steps that shock their existing userbase.

In G+, privacy controls are manifest and obvious. There’s little functionality in this realm that FB doesn’t also offer, but it’s not actively hidden from users on G+, but rather promoted to a primary feature of the UI.

The other thing that I think G+ does right is to get away from the “one-size-fits-all” model, under which every contact is a “friend”. When you hear people saying “they’re my Facebook friend, but not a real friend,” it’s clear that FB has flubbed it. G+, like Twitter and other such social media networks, allows for asymmetric contacts, which really lets the user control how they want to use the site.

Will it win?

Google+ is the only possible competitor to Facebook in today’s market. I wholeheartedly recommend signing up for it, and using it. So what if you’re already using Facebook and Twitter?

Add in what else Google offers – the best email platform, obviously the best search engine and the super-convenient Google Docs – and you’re seeing the constant evolution of the only truly dominant force in cyber networking. In social media, a small differentiation can be the deciding factor. MySpace allowed you to connect on the web. Facebook allowed you to do that only with the people you chose, and it killed MySpace. Google+ allows you to group contacts, so that your friends from church don’t see the comments of your old fraternity buddies. I think that will be the differentiator in the long run.

That’s all I’m going to say.

So anyway, if you want to join one of my circles – feel free to hit me up here. And if you can’t get in and don’t have an invite yet – leave me a message below.