Google plus has been out for a few weeks now and after playing around with it, it is clear that this product is a serious offering from Google. Designed by an Ex-Apple Macintosh team mate Andy Hertzfeld, Google + exudes simplicity in every way. The colors are toned down from google's normal ugly color schemes (in fact, they have even changed the look of gmail...you can now customize the theme of gmail to resemble google + like colors--making it look very cool and simple-TRY IT!) and the lay out is remarkably simple...almost Facebook-esque. But it goes further than facebook in something that is really important: control of information. This is, in my opinion, where google has understood the desires of many to limit information to a set of people. Lets say I go out and get smashed with my friends and while I love my parents and other nagging relatives (you know who you are!), I dont want all of my family members to know about my crazy night. In google + , I use circles to overcome sharing my crazy night with everyone that i do not want to share with. I can put up a photo and expose it to only my Friends circle, leaving my family circle completely in the dark about the hangover that I got to experience the next day. How many times have we wanted to separate out contacts from facebook and categorize them in to meaningful groups? Google allows you to do that in a very novel way. Click on the contact and drag him/her in to the circle. If you have friends in Nepal and friends in America, then you can create a circle to distinguish the two groups of friends and then can share some info with select circles. Its so simple and so well integrated into Google +.
I know facebook has a groups feature...but it isnt the same because, it isnt well integrated. You have to create groups from scratch and post to a group wall. In google + the wall (or your thoughts) is integrated into the circles and anything on it is easily shared with everyone or just select circles!
Furthermore, for those of you that are concerned with privacy you can even see how your profile is viewed by someone. Just type in the name of the person and click- you have in front of you what your profile would look like to that person.
What else? Another major plus is integration with all else that is google. GMAIL, TASKS, and all other google offerings is integrated into Google + and easily accessible from the top tabs.
The only downside to the superior experience that is google + is the users! Facebook has millions and millions of users and we are now almost a decade into using it while google plus is far far behind. So it may be a great product ...but it may be a little too late. I for one hope that Google + will pick up steam and will be ubiquitous. I know for sure that it has the potential to become a great social tool!
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