By now you’ve heard about Google Plus, the newest social network, and the only one that people are actually clamoring over. Eric wrote up a piece on it, and I’m here to share my thoughts.
When I first got my G+ invite, I was pretty excited. I mean, I’m a geek. Why not get my panties in a twist over something that Google does? The excitement quickly wore off when I realized I only had one friend, and I closed that tab and vowed to return later. A few hours later, I had notifications out the wazoo from people adding me to their circles.
After adding them to my own circles, I saw how nifty G+ can be. The chatter flows easily and quickly, like Twitter (although, without the mandated 140 character limit [even though most posts are well under that] ) but with the link previews of Facebook. You can also upload and view pictures in-line.
The +1 that Google unveiled earlier this year is carried into G+ in the same vein as the Facebook “like” but your +1’d search results are not posted to your feed (I suspect this will be implemented later). You can +1 your friends posts, and they get a happy feeling inside that someone loved their post.
That ugly black bar that Google stuck on top of all their sites remains, but it now carries a link to Google + which is nice for when you need to scratch that social itch. The left side of the bar carries your notifications, which turn from grey to red when you’ve got some interaction.
But how do you use it? Well, any way you please. The one thing that stands out from both Facebook and Google is that you can post text, pictures, private messages and targeted posts from a single interface, all by tweaking Circles/sharing options and Reshare options from the home page.
Circles allow you to share your information with only certain groups of folks, or even a single person. Say I want to toss an idea out to only Noisecast peeps: I just add my Noisecast circle to the share settings. All of them are also in my Whitenoise circle, so they get my useless random posts as well (lucky them!)
But what about Private messages, Chris? That’s easy, Reader! Just type the name of the person you want to share with in the Share box, make sure there aren’t any other names there and send your message, then click the edit button (as seen above) then “Disable Reshare”. This means that only the person (or people) you sent the post to, will be able to see it, and they won’t be able to reshare (the “retweet” of Google +) to other people.
Pictures and Video are easily done via the post box, with options to upload directly, or link to YouTube/imgur/twitpic or whatever third party is holding your cat photo hostage.
But what do you think, Chris? GIVE US YOUR OPINION, WE NEED IT TO MAKE DECISIONS!
Ladies and gentlemen, your worship of me is unnecessary, but appreciated. I think the service is excellent, and with all the geeky people that have already added me, I can tell that switching over will be easy. There was even a tool for importing your Facebook pals to Google +, which was blocked by Facebook (Dick move, Zuckerberg).
But getting my family (who really enjoy Facebook, despite any flaws that may arise) to switch over won’t be easy. Google + is easy to learn, but telling someone that they should learn a new social network when all they want to do is see adorable pictures of my daughter and occasionally post pictures of their own is not a task that I wish to undertake. It is this entrenched user base, the “I barely get Facebook, don’t make me learn something else” group will keep Google + from outpacing the big FB.
For more tips on how to use Google Plus, check the PC World link below.
Source: PC World
I’m kinda hoping that the features Google+ has that Facebook doesn’t will be what gets people to migrate. The hangout feature, while probably only useful to a minority of people, is a serious hook. I keep hoping they’ll also integrate Google Calendar functions, which would be a huge boost as well. Right now events on Facebook are ok, but not great. What if you could use your availability (part of Google Calendar) to automatically block unwanted invites? Or if you could collaborate the scheduling of an event with ten other people by comparing their various calendars?
There’s a lot of Google services that still need to (or at least could be) integrated, and I think that will have a much better chance of drawing people away than anything else.
Integrating with Google Calendar would be huge.
Assuming hangout chat (at least) makes it to all the smartphone apps (except BB – LOL), then I could see that being quite the moneymaker (figuratively). GCal would rock as well.
Cool story, bro.
Yes? Well if you must know, the real reason for Facebook’s popularity is that it lets you fuck off at work instead of working. Now you can sit around and bullshit with all of your friends…play games…anything but work. Why would that not be popular?
I will make the complete migration, as this is what I have waited for since the inception of Google. My family and friends that stay on FB, they will come over eventually or at least be able to contact me old school. The hardest part I think will be this(left-field analagy)- My dad has a gmail account. He created it for online poker, and a few other things. He created it because he didn’t want to get spam in his “regular” Comcast email.
Well, guess what?
Yes, he gets spam in his regular email. And rarely any in his gmail. But he refuses to make the transition based on the belief that since he pays for Comcast, it must be better. By the time he discovers the scroll wheel on a mouse, it will have been obsolete for 20 years. I have friends that consistently install 5 or more toolbars on their browser(guess which one) and then longingly admire my clean one. Yet they all refuse to be enlightened. They are the 95% Mac and Windows, we are the 5% Linux.When I joined Facebook, only my ‘tech’ friends were on it, none of my regular, computer illiterate friends or family were there. Some are still not. Now most are, even the ones that complained about putting “all of their stuff” on the internet. They are the worst offenders now it seems. They are also the ones with a magnetic attraction to the OMG! Rollercoaster/Girls Dad videos.I wax poetic about how great G+ is and that it is “the death of blogs.” Maybe I’m a little overboard on that last one, but in my head I can envision how this will really kill how the internet is currently utilized. A lot of this seems like AOL v.31.4, just without all of the restrictions As Google eventually incorporates the rest of it’s line-up into the + facade and adds other features, you will see it become the starting point for several peoples journey down the information highway. It’s up to Google to make G+ a viable destination from meatspace to netSpaaaaaaaaaace, only time will tell if they can pull it off and so far it seems promising.
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