Google+ is a new social networking site. Yes, new social networking sites come out every other week. Yes, no-one cares. Yes, Google has tried to get into the social networking field before, and failed. This might be different. Most social networking sites are intended to be additional to whatever social networks you already use. Hell, many even have buttons to share stuff from them to Facebook or Twitter.
Google+ is different. The message of Google+ is that it does everything Facebook does, and more, but also lets you control your privacy and sharing better than Facebook. The goal of Google+ is nothing short of consigning Facebook to the dustbin of history, alongside MySpace.
Randall Monroe has concisely summed up the #1 argument that Google+ has going for it in the comic strip that heads this column. Google+: it’s Facebook, but run by Google instead of by Facebook. Google of 2011 with its shades of grey rather than the “don’t be evil” happy sunshine Google of 2008, but still: not Facebook. From now on, every time Facebook has another of its anti-privacy snafus or “features”, Google+ will be there to say “Why don’t you come across here? And bring all your friends.” For some people, that alone will be enough of a reason to switch. Is it enough for you?
If not, Google+ also brings a couple of new features that Facebook currently does not have and hopes these will lure you across.
First up is the most important new feature: “Circles”. Everyone who’s been on Facebook for any length of time has grappled with the question of whether to friend parents, relatives, Sunday School friends etc alongside the debauched souls who make up your regular entourage. We compartmentalize in our lives. We are not equally close to everyone. We do not tell everything to everyone. Facebook acts as though we do. Google+ knows we don’t, and provides a way to do something about it.
“Circles” lets you have all of these people as friends, connected with you for when you want to socialise with them, but control who sees what. Family in the Family Circle (just follow the dotted line). Workmates in the Work Circle. Friends in the Friends Circle. Friends who can safely be told about you and that hot guy from the mailroom in the Circle of Trust. And so on. You can create new Circles as convenient, and share content with everyone or with one or more Circles as you wish. For some reason, there is a separate feature called Huddle which is used to send messages to everyone in a particular Circle, but it beats me as to why it has a separate name, and since there’s a lawsuit in the offing over the name Huddle they may drop it soon anyway.
The second new feature is the Hangout. Which is basically a mashup of Facebook Chat and Skype video-conferencing. As someone who doesn’t own a webcam, I can’t test it personally and I don’t care about seeing the person I’m chatting with, but it seems like an idea that would attract Teh Youngz. Apparently there is also some YouTube integration, even allowing people to watch the same video in sync and record commentaries, which could be fun.
Third is “Sparks”, which is a glorifed RSS feed. A glorified RSS feed using Google’s +1 button, their version of Facebook’s Like button, and buttons to share stuff to your Circles, but a glorified RSS feed nonetheless.
The +1 button is also worth a mention because it has one thing going for it that Facebook’s like button doesn’t have, and that’s the link to Google search. If you like something on Facebook, it doesn’t help Google tailor your searches more to your interests. If you like something in Google+, on the other hand, it will affect Google’s search results. This integration is probably the number 1 reason Google is doing this: to give it a further edge in search. No surprise there, since that’s the number 1 reason for everything Google does.
But for all this new stuff, there is one huge downside for Google+ to confront: Facebook has 750 million active users. Everyone you know is there. Google+ has nobody, yet. Unless you convince all your friends to go with you, you’ll have no reason to use Google+ at all. The challenge for Google+ will be to convince early adopters to go over anyway and persuade their friends to make the jump with them en masse, and stay long enough to build critical mass so that a Google+ account starts to become almost as socially necessary as Facebook. It won’t be easy.
At this stage, Google+ is still in beta and you need an invite to get in while they sand off the rough edges. A number of Crasstalk regulars are already in, and can probably get you in if you ask in the comments. In the meantime, at least Facebook has competition now, and incentive to play nice and to innovate. That’s got to be a good thing.
(image: xkcd)
