Last week, I noticed that a friend of mine was on Google+. Not wanting to feel left out, I asked him if he could send me an invite. Now, at this point I wasn’t sure if Google had stopped invites momentarily. Moments later, there was an email in my inbox saying click the link below and you should be able to join. The link said ‘Learn more about Google+’ so I still wasn’t sure. Upon clicking the link, however, I was greeted with a splash page for Google+ asking me to join. Happy days.
On opening your Google+ account, you are welcomed with a brief explanation as to the main features of Google+ along with a disclaimer to say that you are one of a select few, which is a nice touch. The main features of Google+ are Circles, Hangouts and Sparks.
+Circles
This is an interesting take on the Facebook friends list, except implemented a lot better. Whereas most people on Facebook never knew you could separate your friends into lists, Google have made it a fundamental selling point of Google+. Drag and drop a friend into a chosen circle and when you want to share something on Google+, you have the following options:
Public – visible to everyone and also searchable in Google Search
Extended circles – visible to the people that are in your circles’ circles
Your circles – visible to people just in your circles
Individual circles – visible to the circles you choose
Individual people – visible to the people you choose
This obviously makes it very easy to target your information to the people that you know will be interested, or at least you hope they are. It also gives you greater privacy control. If you want to share all your data you can, if you don’t; only those who it concerns need to know. For example, the shots below show how anyone on the web can see my profile, and how a colleague of mine can see my profile.
Google have even come up with Google Takeout for you to easily take your data away with you if you decide Google+ is not for you, something Facebook aren’t likely to do.
+Hangouts
Google have come up with the idea that we need to have more unplanned meet-ups, and therefore they want you to let your friends know that you’re hanging out so that they can join you. So, if you’re free one evening, just hangout on Google+ and see who drops by to say hello. It’s a novel take on the messaging services out there already. Up to 10 people can join you for a chat.
+Sparks
This is intended to be a new recommendation service for what’s great on the web. I suspect this will be heavily integrated with Google +1, whereby anything you +1 get sent to Google’s algorithms and you receive content based on what you’ve selected before. I imagine your friends interests will also be taken into account.
Google+ Mobile
Google have realised that to get anywhere within the social market, you need to provide a service that never stops, therefore as soon as Google+ was announced and ready to use, so was their mobile service for Google+, which can be found here. It shares the same benefits as above with a couple of added features. These are:
Huddle – Similar to Hangout, except this is text based and is a great way to have a conversation with multiple friends. So if you are planning an event out with your friends, this gets rid of all the complexities of finding out what’s going on.
Instant Upload – Take a picture on your camera, and your picture is ready for you to share on Google+ in mere seconds. It really is that simple and works brilliantly. For instance, those pictures you can see in my profile above were taken from my phone, and then in the app I was able to choose who I wanted to share them with on Google+.
Final Notes
Google+ is a service that is a major effort by Google to enter the social networking market, one that is likely to stick around and become used by a lot of people. Some will just be looking for an alternative to Facebook, which has become a bit fragmented in terms of its appeal and therefore like the simplicity that Google+ brings to the table; others will be excited by the new features that Google have come up with; and others may be entering the social networking market for the first time. Personally, I’m excited for the change and this is a sharp wake up call for Facebook who are to be making a product announcement tomorrow.
To learn more about Google+, take a look at the official documentation.