Facebook and I have fallen into a “married with children” type relationship. We’ve been at it for so long and invested so much time into one another that, despite any real flaws, we’re pretty much content.
Privacy concerns aside, Facebook performs all the necessary functions I could ever want, and even some useful ones that I didn’t know I would use until they were presented to me. It’s a cloud of its own, where all my pictures and even my thoughts are saved. All my friends are on Facebook, as is most of my extended family – for better or worse.
Still, in Internet years, Facebook continues to grow longer in the tooth with each passing year, and I suppose it was inevitable that at some point a legitimate challenger would appear in the guise of colorful letters and a slick, minimalist interface. Just as Xanga and LiveJournal gave way to MySpace, and MySpace eventually gave way to Facebook, it’s time for social media to reach its logical conclusion: Google+.
At first glance, it’s easy to brush off Google+ as nothing but a Facebook clone with an impressive brand name. After all, there is a “Friends” list of sorts, though those people are listed as “in your circles.” The stream looks very familiar, and you can share thoughts and videos and pictures and anything else your heart desires. So why switch?
A friend put it into perspective best: “In like the space of a day, Google+ has made me feel like one of those ape people at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey. If Google+ is fire and civilization, everything I have been using feels like hitting rocks with other rocks.”
That’s a pretty powerful thought considering the ubiquity of Facebook.
There are a few key features that separate Google+ from Facebook and even Twitter, for that matter. Chief among them is the concept of “circles.” Essentially, it works the same way your social circles work in real life: when you befriend someone, you place them into a circle, or a type of category. So if you have inside jokes with your college friends that your high school friends won’t get, simply specify that your post be only seen by your “College Friends” circle. Alternatively, if you’re the type of person who likes to get drunk and swear a lot on Facebook, Google+ can make sure your parents never see it.
Another key feature specific to the mobile app (an app that is Android-only at the moment) is the Huddle. The Huddle is basically a text message chat room: choose a circle, send a message, and everyone in the circle gets the message. When one person replies, everyone gets that message as well, negating the need to relay one person’s text to five other people.
Google+ is, for all intents and purposes, the perfect combination of Facebook and Twitter. It takes the Twitter route when it comes to making connections, i.e. you can add a person to a circle without that person doing the same. Thus, you can create a circle for news outlets and comedians, and much like a Twitter list, you can filter your Stream to show only posts from a specific circle. But whereas Twitter only allows for 140 characters, Google+ lets your share as much as you’d like and even edit a post after it’s already been posted.
Beyond all the cute new features, beyond the Sparks and Hangouts, beyond the appeal of the new and exciting, there is one crucial piece of information, one critical little tidbit that should send social media sites running and users flocking to Google+: Google already makes money.
Yes, I know Facebook technically does too, but hear me out. In the beginning, Facebook didn’t make money. There was no business plan, and outside of advertising dollars there was no revenue. Even today, Facebook has a theoretical value (though they’re filing for an IPO in the near future).
And in the beginning, Facebook had a clean interface devoid of clutter from applications. To help bring in money, Facebook created things like the Marketplace and allowed for all those little games that live off micro transactions – all things that took away from the Facebook experience should you choose not to participate in Farmville.
With Google+, there is no incentive to be anything other than just another Google application. When you sign up for Google+, there’s even a button you can click to opt-out of having your information shared with non-Google websites (which should be an opt-in feature, but we can’t all be perfect).
The scary part is Google+ hasn’t actually gone live yet. There are only a handful of us signed-up, though check Facebook for friends soliciting invitations. Join me, because Google+ is like Facebook, but it’s not Facebook.