If you haven’t heard, Google+ is Google’s foray into social networking. It was released on June 28, 2011 and is still in an invite-only phase.
My history on social networking:
Friendster: I don’t have any emotional attachment to a site that has become the go-to joke about anachronistic social media. I remember adding people as friends, putting pictures up, but not much beyond that. It was funny to me hearing about people that got married via that site, because I just don’t have anything close to a fond Friendster memory.
Myspace: I was fairly active, even blogging on there for a bit. Messages to my friends, photos, etc. Boy, that site has/had a lot of spam, though.
Facebook: I’ve been on since 2005, when you still needed a college e-mail address to get on. Not long into my time on FB, I was convinced that there wouldn’t be something that would be “a better version of Facebook” that would upturn the original. I maintain that opinion.
Twitter: I signed up for an account a year before I ever used it. I considered it “public Facebook status updates”. Nope, that’s not what it really is, at least not in its entirety. Now, I help run #TTOT.
Foursquare: I only started getting involved in droves when I saw that they’d soon be adding it to Klout. I’m still not comfortable checking in at the same place too often, esp. multiple times in a day, which is stupid, as that’s the whole point.
This brings us to Google+.
A lot of techies have been waiting for a while for Google to throw themselves into social media in a non-Buzz sort of way. I dunno if I’m a techie, and I’ve been content with Facebook and Twitter, so I wasn’t looking for it.
The thing that I repeatedly hear people talking about regarding Google+ are the Circles. Circles are a way to pick who gets to see what. It’s that old, “Oh no! My mom is on Facebook!” problem. They even did an SNL skit about said conundrum.
With Circles, you put people into little groups and then choose what you want people to see based on which group(s) you publish your post to. And people don’t know what Circle they are in, until they hear about a post that they didn’t get to see, a situation I’ve already been seeing on my limited interactions on G+.
I don’t drink and do crazy things that I don’t remember and wish weren’t online. I don’t have things that I keep from some of my contacts, but not others. If this is really a problem that a lot of people have on Facebook, then yeah, Google+ might take off.
Other than that, I’m not seeing what’s so special. It’s a cross between Facebook and Twitter, sort of. On Google sites, such as Gmail or Search, you have a bar up that has notifications and some things you can do with G+.
It doesn’t seem like it will fail as wildly as Wave or Buzz. Wave, people didn’t get. Buzz started off with privacy problems and didn’t seem like anything but Google Twitter.
It takes a bit for me to find my bearings, but there’s a limit to how much time any of us have in a day. People, including myself, are pretty settled on Facebook, so I’m not clear what time in the day will be taken from other social media to put time in on G+. As I told Leslie (and she posted on her post about Google+), it’s a toy for now, we’ll see if there’s any longevity.
If you want a Google+ invite, put your e-mail addy in the comments or e-mail me directly.
Do you have a different take on G+? Are you more excited than I am? Are there features that I’m missing that make it oh-so-awesome?
For my second post complaining about G+, head to Enough With Google+, Already.
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