Google Plus – a breath of fresh air?

For years websites like MSN and Facebook have been growing in numbers. Many rivals, less efficient and less popular social networking website, have died out as they are crushed by the giants. But Facebook seems immune from the possibility of extinction, with a growing number of users currently at over 640 million users!

MSN had a golden period and enjoyed strong competition with Facebook. But the Microsoft owned site has 120 million users and falling. It looks like MSN will be joining the likes of Bebo, Digg and Myspace.  I myself deleted my Myspace account when I decided to hop onto the Facebook bandwagon.

But for years it seemed that Facebook would never be challenged, and that was the case, until, now! A company which has 15 times the amount of revenue is stepping up to the plate. Google. The internet giant is taking over world computing. With 85% of the world using Google as their search engine, 15% of internet browsers in the world are Google Chrome – but this is fast growing – and now the $30 billion company is preparing to take on Facebook with its own social network – Google+.

In its two month infancy it is showing similar trends to Chrome and is rapidly growing in usage with 20 million worldwide users at the moment. Although this may seem puny, bear in mind it isn’t open to the world public entirely just yet.  At the moment, Google+ is an invitation only site until it opens fully in a couple of months.

I have put my name down to use it on its somewhat large waiting list. But what is all the hype?

Key Feature:

  • Circles – This allows me to group my friends, so for example:
    • Music pals – Joe, Tom, Abby…
    • School pals – Michael, Adam…
    • Work Colleagues – Jane, Adam, Monica…
  • Hangouts – A 10 people group video chat
  • Sparks – Using Google’s search engine you can search for interests
  • The Stream – Users can see their Circles’ updates – similar to Facebook’s wall
  • +1 – Allowing people to recommend items and websites

These are just some of the functions available to use on +.  But is it what we are looking for?

The Google+ ProjectIn my opinion yes, just like Google Chrome did with Internet Explorer it will provide a breath of fresh air to the social networking industry and I think will be a very realistic competitor to Facebook.

It seems like it is made with much more quality and with far more enhanced features than Facebook, which has many problems, technically and pragmatically.

So I for one am really looking forward to joining it and setting up my profile when it becomes open to the public.

15 thoughts on “Google Plus – a breath of fresh air?

  1. Christopher (admin team)

    I will be very excited to see whether Google does have the power to overthrow Facebook. The figures you quote suggest that it’s got a chance, but then again, what if it’s like Google Buzz, or Google Wave, and never really takes off?

    BTW, Bhattman, just a question, but are you a Googlite?

  2. Yes, it is some fresh air in the social networking and this is a real challenge to Facebook and other social networks. Let’s see the further actions of other social networks and Facebook in particular.

    • Christopher (admin team)

      I will try to remember to check you out when I get my account 🙂

      Loads of people have been saying that Facebook is effectively a ‘dead man walking’ – but who really knows what will happen?

  3. I had been using Google+ for like weeks and I feel it is has quite a nice GUI. The drag and drop HTML5 thing is totally cool. I can’t say Facebook browsing is slow, because Facebook is already quite fast to me, but Google+ has the fantastic effect and it can still cope with the fast response time. However, it still down to how many users can Google+ attract from Facebook. It will be useless for me alone to be using Google+ ^^.

    P/S: If any of you who are looking for a Google+ account, check out my post on how to get Google+ invitation from me. Sorry for the link posting here, Christopher. If you feel it is appropriate to remove it, I’m totally cool with it :):
    http://www.itscolumn.com/2011/07/get-your-google-invitation-pass-in-4-simple-steps/

    • Christopher (admin team)

      You are most welcome to post relevant links Alan 🙂

      Really busy at the moment, but hopefully soon I will ask for assistance with getting an account!

      Thanks for the offer 🙂
      Christopher – Admin Team

  4. Hello there, really wonderful article i loved it. its just like sooner there is going to be a cold war between facebook and google plus. well google plus is far more batter than facebook and with all new features and new looks. i m simply a google plus fan. anyway nice video that u have upload.
    cheers

  5. The only reason Facebook was doing so good is because it had virtually no competition.
    Now i doubt they ever thought Google would step in for the challenge, i believe they’re pretty surprised since we haven’t seen any counter attack yet.

    • Christopher (admin team)

      “The only reason Facebook was doing so good is because it had virtually no competition.” – Close, however I would have said it had virtually no good competition in it’s niche. Twitter is good, but it’s microblogging not social media (really) and then there is currently a lack of good alternatives to FB, agreed.

      Most people use Google and it’s products, and I can foresee (as a techie) that by next Christmas it won’t be Facebook that’s the market leader, but Google+.

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