Google Joins Social Networking With Google+

By Blog & 1 more

Google have announced today (finally!) their latest (first?) attempt at getting a foothold in the Social Networking arena, and it would appear they have Facebook firmly in their sights.

Google+ - Social Networking Platform

Google+ - Facebook Worrier?

For more information read the Original Detailed Blog From HubSpot

But in summary it would appear to offer very different functionality:

  • Firstly it contains “Circles” – (something I blogged about a while back when I was speculating on their entrance into the Social Networking Marketing) – this is the foundation of Google+, whereby it allows you to categorise your friends into different “groups” of friends. When you think about how you have your friends at the moment (e.g. on Facebook) – everyone just sits there…as a friend. No shared interests, no shared locations. At the most of facebook you might join a group, but this doesn’t really “categorise” your friends. Even on Twitter, the most you can do with people you follow is to put them into “lists” and listen. That’s it! Circles+ allows you place friends into groups – for example football mad, family, geeks etc.
  • Secondly, Google+ Sparks – create a “spark” (i.e. a subject) and Google will collect information for you on this relevant topic and pull this through to your “spark”.
  • Thirdly, A Separate Video & Photo section – allowing users to edit images, create photo effects and share this info with their friends (not sure about this to be honest, but I suppose we will wait and see!). There will also be “hangouts” which will allow people to video chat (in groups) which sounds like a good idea.

Unfortunately for us mere mortals this is still in beta – and invites would appear to be hard to come by (heck you can’t even join the waiting list the last time I clicked!!).

So what do people think – does this sound exciting or just another platform to get your head around?