Google+ First Impressions

Google+ is Google's brand new social networking service and it neatly fills a niche left wide open by Facebook for too long. The service is only a few days old and invitations have been disabled for now, but I managed to get in before the cutoff. I've been poking around and getting the hang of it. If you're on the outside looking in, or are not quite sure what to make of it yet, I'll try to explain how it works in practical terms:

Google+ works like a mix of Facebook, Twitter and, to a lesser extent, Tumblr. But it also incorporates a few invaluable ideas that fuze all 3 together and improve on them simultaneously. To start, it looks and works a lot like Facebook and Twitter; it has a wall/stream that shows you all the updates from the people you are friends with/follow. You post status updates that can contain a link or a picture, or a video or a location. You have a profile that divulges intimate details about you, too. The difference is that on Google+, you get to decide who can see what with a precision that you cannot find with Facebook and certainly not Twitter.

Circles are the stand-out feature for Google+; they are, perhaps, the main reason someone would give for making the switch from Facebook. First, you don't "befriend" people on Google+ and wait for them to approve your request, you simply find them and add them to a circle. The circle can be of anyone you choose. Google provides some initial examples of circles: Friends, Family, Acquaintances, and Following. You can create your own with, for example, only the people who you meet for dinner every Sunday evening. Then, when you want to share something, you get to choose which circles get to see it. Though others don't need to approve being in your circles, they will have to add you to their own circles in order to actually see what you share. Additionally, members of your circles do not know which circles you've assigned them to, only that you have assigned them to one.

I have a friend who is a minor celebrity of the kid-friendly type, but who also has an... interesting personal life. For him, Facebook is a no-go because he very clearly does not want to mix these two lives. He doesn't want friends from different circles seeing things that weren't meant for them. On Facebook, a friend of his wants to post an inappropriate reply to a post he made, every one of his friends gets to see it. That won't be the case with Google+, because he can keep all of his fans up to date with his celebrity status, while also entertaining his more private interests without anyone knowing.

That's the story from the perspective of a broadcaster. From a reader's perspective, you can choose to follow anyone you want, just like on Twitter, but you will only see items that the person chooses to share publicly, unless they have added you to one of their circles with which they share more private information.

One less vital, though quite fun, feature that Facebook has also been missing that Google+ has added is group video chat. This manifests itself as "Hangouts" on Google+ and it works similar to the rest of the sharing functionality; you announce that you are hanging out and you choose specific circles that will get the notification and the notification only lasts as long as you're in the Hangout interface. Only members of the circles that you've shared it with can join in the chat. Quality-wise, the video and audio seem to be lacking, but it is serviceable. Google's first order of business should be to make the interface a little more capable, followed by introducing sound filtering similar to how Skype works to prevent mic feedback loops.

For those especially concerned about the information they are showing, Google+ allows you to view your own profile as if you were someone else. You can either choose to mimic an anonymous visitor or you can look at your profile through the eyes of one of your friends. This allows you to carefully calibrate your sharing preferences so that you don't share too much, but you still make sure that the right people see what you want them to.

Some would say that the most important feature that Google brings to the table is Google Takeout; their interface that allows users to completely remove their data from the network. In contrast, Facebook doesn't delete your info when you leave, they store it. Google says that if you click a button, it will delete all of your Google+ data. I will admit to being a bit skeptical about this. It's hard to believe that clicking that button will reach into their backups and remove your information, too. Still, Google makes a bold claim about you owning your own data, so if this feature doesn't work in the absolute they describe, it would be a bold face lie that they can't wiggle out of with creative wording. In other words, they're sticking out their necks by making the claim that it will truly delete all of your data. If this is ever found to be a false claim, I wouldn't be surprised if it resulted in a major backlash of distrust.

I mentioned that there are some elements of Tumblr within Google+, but they're subtle. I suppose the most notable similarity is the allowed length of status updates. You can write long messages without needing to chop words or letters out in order to convey your thoughts.

Currently, Google+ is missing the event scheduling functionality that is quite useful on Facebook, but seeing as Google simultaneously launched a new look for their Calendar service that matches the Google+ scheme, I'm pretty sure that is coming down the pipe.

Our social internet lives are fragmented amongst sites that fill different niches in desired forms of communication. I, for one, am glad that there is finally a service that combines most of them. When I look at Google+'s suite of features as a whole, I can see a lot of potential for my own use in promoting this blog and my other writing. Live video chat sessions, anyone? Barring any revelation of unforeseen loopholes in privacy similar to the open door that brought Google Buzz down, I will be rooting for Google+ to take over in place of Facebook.

(Hey, if you're on Google+, you can add me to your circles. Here's my profile.)