I’ve been playing around on Google+ for almost a week now and wanted to add my list of opinions to the millions that have already been thrown around the web so far. If you haven’t checked it out, I will say that it is NOT a Facebook, nor a Twitter killer. Here are my top takeaways from toying with the service:
1 – Seamless integration with your Google Account. I see Google+ as being a killer app when it comes to social media for teams or small businesses. The ability to share content within small circles as well as jump between group video chats and have your Google Docs at your finger tips is very cool. I’m sure Google is counting on the adoption not just to grow the + network but also to get more people to switch to Google Apps.
2 – Making you put your connections in a container as you connect is helpful. Bigtime. I feel like Facebook for me has turned into me sharing content with a large network of people, whom I know in very different capacities. Some people might love the Social Media content, others may hate it. And I know I can put friends into Groups on Facebook – it’s just too much work for me at this point. With Google+, you have to add friends to a circle (friends, aquaintences, work, etc) as you connect, making sharing and grouping much more manageable.
3 – Google hangouts has smoked Facebook video chat. The client is super light, easy to use and though we may not use group video chat much, I think more and more people will use Hangouts as an easy way to do video conferencing on the cheap. iChat was the best experience I’ve had so far, but now you’re removing the requirement to have a mac.
4 – No one is here. It’s nice to not be bombarded with brands or businesses or tons of people who want to connect at the moment. I feel like I’m very much in control of my network. We’re still defining the follow etiquette here but I don’t feel at all compelled to follow everyone back that adds me, especially if I don’t know them. Or, you can always add people you don’t know into a separate circle and share only what’s appropriate.
5 – Conversation: For whatever reason there’s a ton of interaction here. Way more than Facebook or Twitter from what I can see so far. Being able to see all the comments on a post makes it easier to jump in to the conversation instead of using @replies where you only see the pieces you’re involved with. Very cool so far, but will it last?
What Sucks.
1 – The population of Google+ right now seems to be almost all techies and marketers. Makes sense though since we love anything shiny and new, so we’ll move first but that has some major downsides right now. There’s a lot of noise. I see a lot of duplicate posts throughtout the day – way more so that on Twitter or Facebook and it’s distracting
2 – Conversation: No threaded comments make popular posts from folks like Robert Scoble and Chris Brogan eat my feed and take up real estate several screens deep. I wish we could see some threaded comments soon, or that the system would recognize that if more than 3 people have shared a post that are in my network, I only need to see it once.
3 – Lack of a Filter: I do like the idea of circles and the way following works on Google+. I can follow whomever I want and they decide whether to follow me back or which circle to put me in. However, what would be awesome would be some sort of application process where I could filter content from certain people. For instance, I wish we could create tags for each post we share (generic tags, but that were available to those who are in our circles). That way, the people following us could choose only the topics or tags that they want to follow, instead of getting a firehose of content and comments.
4 – Search: I don’t feel like there is a good discovery engine for meeting new people or jumping into topical conversations yet. Twitter is certainly the best at this (or at least they were until searches became filled with brands trying to sell things based on keywords). Maybe I’ve missed it but I haven’t found a good way to meet NEW people yet on Google+.
5 – The pace: I’m still in love with Twitter’s ulta fast pace of information and being forced to get your point across in 140 characters. It’s super easy to meet new people, share content and interact publicly – which is especially key for businesses to show that they can do online customer service. Google+ seems like it’s easy to follow people but not as simple to jump into a conversation then get out. That may change as more people get onto the service and start tailoring content to different circles, but for me I’m stil a Twitter diehard.
Bottom line? I like it. I think it has real promise, especially for both business networking and tailoring content towards certain groups. It’s great way to keep your personal separate from your professional (if that’s what you want), while maintaining different levels of connections – but on the same network. Honestly, I’ve already started using Facebook a little less (not giving it up yet though). I’m also very curious to see what the opportunities for brands are going to be.
So what do you think? Are you on Google+ yet and what are your first impressions. How do you use it differently than Facebook or Twitter? And what’s the thing you like the most and hate the most about it so far? Fire away in the comments!
i completely agree with you! i’m just starting to fall for twitter, and google+ does have a lot of great qualities, but there is some areas that are lacking as well. one thing i really dislike is the stream and how there is no way to organize the posts by time. it seems very random and disorganized.
at this point, i wouldn’t say it’s a facebook or twitter killer either, but i can see them refining this in such a way to give facebook a real run for its money. i don’t know if anything will be able to catch up with twitter anytime soon.
Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment, Jen. I’m getting to feel like Twitter is still my main network of choice, but if Google can refine some of the stream issues I could see myself using it much more than Facebook. It seems like I could have more luck with conversation on Google+ since I can control what I’m sharing with whom.
Who knows…I think we’ll have to wait and see as things grow to critical mass and when it’s not just populated by first movers and techies (not that it’s a bad thing – I just don’t think we’ve seen how it will scale yet).
Ryan, I generally concur.
Regarding meeting new people via Google+, I just did a post about “talking to strangers”. Beyond doing a Google search (“site:plus.google.com topic” for others posting interesting topics, I think we’ll see some good 3rd party solutions (including one I may end up collaborating on) for meeting new people via Google Hangouts. An early system I’ve found out there is at http://www.gphangouts.com, where you can post a “public” hangout with a time and topic, so people can find it. Not scalable, but for now it’s a start. I made a couple of top-notch contacts via GPHangouts on Sunday night, in fact.
This hasn’t changed my Facebook use at all – just added one more place to check and participate in. I have maybe 600 friends on facebook. Of those, perhaps 10 or 20 (max) are on Google+. However we end up defining Google+, the key will be whether it can make that leap to critical mass. There are a lot of people with huge investments in establishing connections and loading content in Facebook, and even though this is the next shiny thing for techies and markets, moving away from Facebook is justifiably a tough sell.
I personally see this as a great evolution from Twitter (given the non-reciprocal nature of the connections). It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Awesome thoughts, Chris! And thanks for the insight into gphangouts – I’ll def give that a whirl. I agree that some third parties will show (hopefully) to make the experience that much better. Do you know if Google+ has an API yet?
If you think of it, post a link to your ‘Talking to Strangers’ post – would love to give it a read. Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Ryan, I have the feeling that like many new and flexible tools, (IF it gathers that necessary momentum) it will really be Google+ users that define what exactly what it is, and how it can best be used.
Don’t believe there is a public Google+ API yet.
Talking to strangers: the post was on Facebook, not a blog. It referred back to a study done at Berkeley. Take a look here… my blog didn’t add much other than to point out that Google+ (and especially Hangouts) does a nice job of making the “talking to strangers” piece of the equation possible. Here’s the link!
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/raising_happiness/post/talking_to_strangers_and_other_things_that_bring_luck/
Thanks for the Google+ add. Really appreciate your article. Biggest issue is there aren’t alot of people here yet. Did you see that William Shatner got booted off for violating standards on Google+?
Any experience with Evernote? I just started using it and found some new stuff I really like.