My Review of Google+

Unless you were living under a rock, most of you know that I searched high and low for a Google+ invite!  I was finally able to get one and since I have been using it for about a week now, I figured I would let you know my thoughts.

The first feature I really like is call Circles.  This is just what it sounds like.   You can add your friends to circles you create.  What’s the point you ask?  Well when you post something to your wall, you can choose what Circles will see your post. 

You want to post something that you know all your friends in your Work Circle will love but your Family Circle would care less about, this is the answer!  I love this feature.  I know my work peeps, for the most part, could care less about pics I post of Lex that are really meant for my family and close friends.  You can also add multiple people to multiple circles.

You can share your content with specific Circles, all your Circles or you can make your content public and anyone on the Internet can see it.  Very simple concept.

Now finding friends is still pretty difficult since Google+ is still in Beta.  Not nearly as many people are on here as on Facebook, but give it time.  For the most part, most people have anywhere between 5 and 30 friends in their circles.  Obviously people like Mark Cuban have a few more.  This will get better with time.

The next feature is the Stream.  Think your Facebook wall.  Ciricles are integrated here too, so if you only want to see posts from your Work Circle, you can.  Easy to use and very simplistic.  You can +1 something to “like” it and comment just like you would on FB. 

Adding video and pictures is extremely easy.  You can drag and drop your pictures and adding your YouTube videos is probably the easiest thing I have ever done.  Now I know you are thinking that adding videos on FB with YouTube “share” button is easy…but what if you didn’t have to go to YouTube to find your video?  That is what Google+ does!  You can search YouTube videos from within Google+!

Two features with good potential that I think will go under used until there are more people on Google+ are Sparks and Hangouts.

Sparks are like keyword searches about your interests.  So if you are interested in Social Media, you can “Spark It” and you get a news feed with Social Media articles.  Interesting concept to incorporate into your social media.  I could see this morphing into an actual news/sports/entertainment feed. 

Hangouts are group video chats.  The main issue that there is right now with this is that there are not many people on here yet and some of those people don’t have webcams to take advantage of it.  But when it works, you and 9 of your friends can “Hangout” and chat.  Cool idea, will take some time to get some traction.

A few other quick thoughts…I really like the integrated “tool bar” within Gmail.  You can see if you have any Google+ notifications and even post to Google+ from Gmail!  Very handy to use without even having to go into Google+.

Currently the only mobile app is the Android app, naturally.   The iPhone app is in development, so hopefully I can get my hands on it soon.  However, I have heard good things about the Android app and the ease of use.  I hear the picture feature is especially cool!  Cant wait. 

Probably the biggest plus for me (not sure if this is plus or minus for you) is there are no apps in Google+, which means no stupid Farmville or Mafia Wars or anything of the like.  Personally I hope this stays this way.  It makes things much cleaner.  Plus I don’t have people asking me for a pig farm.

Overall I am very pleased with Google+.  I still have no idea where this fits in with my Facebook and Twitter usage.  I don’t see myself leaving Facebook or Twitter and I don’t see myself using 3 mediums for Social Media.  And will people really care if I post the same thing in 3 different places?

I think it has some cool features and I really appreciate the easy of use, but more than anything I hope Facebook is paying attention and incorporates some of the bigger features (like Circles) into their application.

So tell me what you think.  Will Google+ replace Facebook?  Will you use it along with Facebook?  Any features you would like to see?

If you read this and want to know what all the fuss is about, let me know and I will send you an invitation to join the madness!