Google Plus: Not Just Another Social Network

Finally Google, the search giant of the world wide web, has launched its contender Google Plus in the world of social networking. The Google Plus Project is a powerful answer to the social networking world currently dominated by Facebook and Twitter. The Project aims to make sharing on the web more like sharing in real life. Not only it emphasizes on basic, human way of socializing but also aims in safeguarding the privacy of the user, which was a major issue surrounding Facebook.

Google Plus came out with flying colors and also added some new jargons in our social dictionary. These are Circles, Hurdles, Hangouts and Sparks. Let’s have a look at them individually.

Google+ Circles

This is one of the biggest advantages of Google+ above Facebook. While in Facebook a user was allowed to sort his friend in lists, the functionalities and capabilities of these lists were limited. However in Google, the circles concept make it easier for you to sort your contacts as per your relation with them and also helps to update the stream discretely.

To sort your contacts in Circles all you need to do is drag and drop them on a particular circle at Google Circles. You can also remove a contact by dragging one out of a circle and dropping it any where on the page, except any another circle. The contact are added and deleted from the circle with a fascinating animation.

Note: You can add a contact in more than one circle.

Google+ Hangouts

In simple words, Google+ Hangout is a video conferencing service. This service allows you to start a video conference with your friends on Google+. Once you start a hangout (its private in nature), either you can add individual friends or circles to the user list or make it public depending on your mood.

Each user whom you invite will get notification on their stream. Once they accept the invitation there is nothing that’s stopping you from video calling them. Just make sure you wear your best smile. 🙂

Google+ Sparks

If you are running out of topics to discuss with your friends, no worries. Google+ Spark will help you to strike a conversation. Using Sparks one can get a constantly updated feed of things they really interested in, share it with friends and start a discussion. There are all kinds of topics available and you can add them as interest to get a stream of related stories.

Google+ Huddle

Huddle is a new way for you to easily stay in touch while you’re on the go, as it is available only on smartphone. With Huddle, you can text groups of people or individual friends in Google+ Mobile. So next time you want to decide which movie to go on the coming weekend you don’t need to ping each individual.. just huddle.

The application sends a push notification to your phone as soon as you receive a notification.

My Verdict

To me Google Plus is an umbrella to all the other services like, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Picasa and RSS aggregators. The interface is simple and clean to use and till date there are no ads and spam messages to ruin the party.

If you have not yet tried Google Plus yet, apply for a beta field trial or comment on the post with your email and we will see what we can do.