Google Plus
Google’s answer to the social media market
For years Facebook has stormed the social media scene, had a film made about it and its owners have been in court case after court case over the ownership of the website. Facebook wiped the floor with the likes of Myspace and Bebo and advertisers flocked to Facebook to rack in the revenue.
But with the number of users on Facebook declining, is it a sign that people are now looking for more than just a conduit to share news and play online games developed especially for Facebook, like the notorious Mafia Wars?
I am actually very excited by the prospect of Google’s answer to this problem: Google Plus! Aside from the social networking norm, Google plus offers much more than just a social media center to share your latest gossip with all your friends. Google Plus adds more features, which increases exclusivity, adds the concept of friendship groups, also known as “circles”, a tie in with video conferencing and much more.
Google plus is a very exciting prospect and, if enough people get to grips with it, could be the rival to Facebook that has the potential to become another social media giant.
Lets look at some of the new features Google Plus offers:
Circles
The concept of circles is much like the one of ‘Circles of Trust’. Except instead of only allowing a certain number of people into your circle of trust, you can set up numerous circles in which you can place certain friends, and friends can transverse multiple circles. You then get to decide what you share with the circles.
This comes in very handy when you only want to share information with certain people, which plays on Facebooks sharing with Everyone, Friends, Friends of Friends or Family capabilities but extends it into a much more powerful social tool.
Hangouts
Don’t get the wrong idea about this concept. Far from the image of gangs hanging out, this is actually quite a powerful tool which incorporates video conferencing, which at this point I can only assume will be using the Google Video chat tool.
The concept behind this aspect of Google Plus is the ability to video conference with many friends at once, dropping in and out of conversations as you wish, while the thread remains open. This is a very cool tool, and one which I am looking forward to exploiting in my own freelance work.
Instant Upload
Instant upload is a very cool feature of Google Plus. This integrates with your smart phone so that photos are instantly uploaded to your account to share with your circles.
I am anticipating that this will also tie in with the google maps side of things, where you can post your location and add a photo to your map, much like how Facebook signs you into places, this geo–tagging system is a very cool way of keeping up with your friends movements through the day and brings the world that much closer.
Sparks
The idea behind this concept is you tell Google what you like, things that interest you and you want to keep up to date with, a little like google reader.
Google will then send you links and snippets related to the stuff you like, although this area is a little vague right now, it is something I think we’ll have to keep an eye on, and I get the feeling it is something google will tie in with advertisers to make revenue out of their social platform.
Huddle
This is one of my favourite bits of functionality added in to Google Plus. Based on a conversation thread you can have a conversation with several friends about a simple subject, such as “what should we see at the cinema”.
Based around the instant messaging concept, you can add as many friends in your networks as you like into threads, and have short snippets of conversations. From images on Google’s website, this looks like it will tie into your smart phone so you can have the conversations on the go!
The Final Word
Overall this new platform sounds like a really good idea, with some very inspiring and innovative ideas, Google Plus is something that can integrate all aspects of instant messaging, video conferencing and social flittering into one, allowing you to access all the information through your smart phone.
Can’t wait to get your mitts on this new platform? At the moment it is on an invite only basis, but as with all of Google’s products, once it is tried and tested it will be open to the masses!