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Google Plus (Google+)

June 30, 2011 | Posted by: admin | News | 6 Comments

Google’s long expected second shot at taking on Facebook in the social networking space has arrived in the form of the Google+ Project. It has some interesting twists on the social networking model but is far from a Facebook-killer.

The heart of Google Plus is something called “Circles” (no pun intended). You pull together your contacts into distinct circles—family, poker buddies, fellow bike geeks, etc. You can then message them—there’s the equivalent of a Facebook Wall—comment on their activities, and generally do a lot of the things you do on your Facebook page.

Google blogspot

Among the most basic of human needs is the need to connect with others. With a smile, a laugh, a whisper or a cheer, we connect with others every single day.

Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online. Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools.

In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.

We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests. And so begins the Google+ project

Google+ , which the company released selectively on Tuesday, is meant to be more private, smarter, and at the same time more pervasive than other social networking sites. It could also be integrated with your mail, search and news functions.

Google said it is all kosher – just a nice way to be in touch. “With a smile, a laugh, a whisper or a cheer, we connect with others every single day,” said Vic Gundotra, Google’s senior vice president, engineering.

Circles

Most important, Google+ is a social network of your friends, family and other contacts, a way to connect to these people, just like Facebook.

Unlike Facebook, Google+ is built from the ground up around the concept of sharing material with groups of people, called “Circles.”

The idea is that you can easily drag-and-drop people into different types of Circles, which you can then use for sharing different types of things.

For example, you can create a “Family” circle where you might chose to share things only with family members in it, while another “Friends” circle might contain Friends who only see what you share to that.