There has been a lot of speculation on the web in the past couple of days about the new product from Google, Google +.
What is Google +? Well, in short, it’s Google’s offering to the massive social networking market. Some have labelled it “The Facebook Killer” but I think we’ll have to wait and see on that one!
That said, after it’s launch on Tuesday of last week, Google has to stop taking request’s to test the service due to such high demand, saying that testing needed to be done carefully and in a controlled manner.
Google + is very similar to Facebook in it offers a central page where posts and item friends share stream up in really time. It has the signature tool bar across the top like the one found above the search page and many other Google products.
Also, Google has created what they call friend circles. Basically, instead of having all your friends in a big list like Facebook, you manage them into circles! These can be labelled anything you like but the obvious ones are family, work colleagues, school friends etc etc. This I think could be a winner as managing 30 odd friends on Facebook is fine, but start increasing that to say 100, 200, 500, then the task becomes very complicated and you could lose touch.
Another good item is Sparks, how it actually works I’m not sure yet, but I works out what it thinks you would like or be interesting in and creates a list of items that it thinks you will like. Always some thing to watch or read when you get five minutes!!
But my favourite by far is the ‘Hangout’ and ‘Huddles’ features. Hangouts are just that, you hang out. Any friends that are then online can see your hanging out and pop by for a chat if they so wish. It’s all done in one window so there’s no jumping from on to the other and all participants of the hangout can see what each other is doing. Huddles are very similar but I believe it is private and invites must be made.
All in all at worst, I think Google + will compliment other social networking mediums, however, if they get it right Google + could well do to Facebook, what Facebook done to MySpace.
So, is Google Plus a Facebook killer? We’ll have to wait and see….