When I first got wind of it, the first thought that raced through my mind was the hype and hoopla around Google Wave that was supposed to reinvent the way email works but had to quickly walk the RIP route because users found it overly complicated (and Google Buzz to name yet another one). Christened Google+, I found it quite disagreeable to my palate partially due to the naming convention, compounded by lack of clarity on the reason for its existence plus the recent flops. Was this supposed to be yet another social network or a new type of sharing service? Where in the scheme of things did the ‘+1’ fit in? Is this service destined to walk the walk of its recent predecessors or can it do better than that?
Google Plus – the persona:
More than a product, it is originally supposed to be a project by itself, through which Google is facilitating the connections and sharing that is rampant in the web in a totally fresh dimension. The “plus” was simply because of the various social products that the project attempts to thread together and Google plus was definitely not meant to take on or replace any existent service or platform in the market as well.
But though it may look like a crow, if it coos like a cuckoo, then it probably has to be a cuckoo?
First looks under the hood indeed give away signals of it being a ‘cuckoo’ indeed. Some of the notable features of the Google plus features like the Circles, Stream, Photos, Chat, for example, definitely give away the real persona.
Circles: Designed tastefully, these are actual circles in to which you can drag and drop friends to form closed groups. A feature that has a close parallel in Facebook in the form of ‘Groups’ and ‘Lists’ which allow you to form groups and selectively message people as well. But the drag-and-drop set up of the Circles definitely looks attractive although this may be a little cumbersome to manage if you have a large number of friends. Google plus is virtually starting from a clean slate in the sense that you can import contacts only from Yahoo & Hotmail (other than Google properties) and there will be no social information linked to those email addresses unless the invitees come. And this, accordingly to me, is definitely a significant hurdle to the ‘adoption and scale up’ rates.
Stream: Not unlike the Facebook Newsfeed, this is very much an area that shows up the posts from your circles. The status update field is also quite like Facebook with photo/video/link upload options although I found one more option via a black navigation bar right at the top called ‘Google One bar’ with a share button on the right side. Although a notable feature which I quite like as well is the ability to see the newsfeed data ‘by your circle definition’
Network Sharing: If your friends are part of any other network and not part of Google Plus, you can still add them in to your circle and share information and the content will be delivered via email to such contacts. If you are big broadcaster, such contacts are sure to nail you for spamming them; a highly probably side effect.
Sparks: Remember indicating ‘interests’ and joining Interest Groups in Facebook? Well, then you should not find it difficult to accustom yourself to this feature whereby you can either join ‘Featured Sparks’ or set up custom ‘interest’ keyword searches based on which news feed will be delivered to you actively.
Hang out: Quite an attractive and sticky feature where up to 10 people can participate in a video chat and it is a non-intrusive ‘spread’ given that when someone activates the chat, a broadcast or feed goes out to give an update to the circles. I haven’t had a chance to use it in all its glory but with the little experience, I am of the opinion that it left a pleasant taste behind.
Of course not to mention the Photo uploads, and chat features which once again underlines the observations above.
Wonder where Google +1 went?
You will find the ‘+1’ tucked away under the posts from your contacts in the stream. You can “+1” any post that you ‘like’ and one does not have to take pains to highlight the similarity and function any further here.
I could find the content that I had ‘+1d’ in a tab under my profile but puzzlingly enough, I couldn’t locate the ‘+1s’ by friends anywhere in the Google Plus world. Even more puzzling was the observation that if you were to ‘+1’ a post by one of your friends, it appears as though there is no overt way by which the friends get notified (like Facebook). Yet another observation is that if you were to click on the number of people who ‘+1’d an article or content, it does not lead you to a page that shows the list of people who did the action, unlike the Twitter button, where you could get the entire Tweet group. And to make a well-rounded list, I also found Google Buzz as a tab alongside the ‘Stream’ within Google Plus for many of my contacts. As if the external streams weren’t enough, how does one cope up with duplicated feeds?
Nevertheless, I would not want to leave out the recent development which signals towards the graduation of the two-month old Google plus - Google has started integrating the Plus results in to the Search results page.
Google Plus or Google Minus?
Honestly as a Facebook user, I do not see a compelling reason for me to become a loyal Google Plus user and I doubt if the populace out there would combust under stress if they do not become part of Google Plus as well. Of course, I am not a trail blazing Facebooker like most of the folks out there are but it would be definitely interesting to watch this space and leave the final destiny in the able hands of time once again!
