I have been playing with Google+ for the last few days, and there are several interesting differences between this new social networking app and Facebook. I will attempt to parse some of the linked and quoted comments first, before I add in my 2cents.

Google+ is still in beta, and as such has suffered with a few bugs (that’s why it is in beta!). With this in mind, I have a hard time understanding why some writer for a tech blog would gripe about something as trivial as this (minus one point for superficial and obvious).

The idea that Google+ is a Facebook or Twitter killer makes for some great headlines, but is only a construct of a few more bored writers at some other techno-blogs. I have seen that there is a more compelling argument to state that is Google+ were to really take off, it would force Facebook to open itself up a lot more (to become interoperable, like most IM clients are now)…

And finally, the idea that Google+ is about to die some sort of crib death (like Google Wave) is only answerable if I were a fortune teller… It is too early to make such broad judgments, unless you only like to hear yourself pontificate and spew some personal (i.e. anecdotal) animus to showcase how world weary you are…sigh.

For me, the obvious things are obvious, that is, Google+ reassembles (superficially) Facebook, but I have found that for me (an older guy…), Google+ is far less annoying to me than Facebook (no inane games and vapid comments). I have a lot of Google tools I use, and Google+ has integrated with my suite of Google apps quite well (simply).

All in all, it has behaved as a beta app probably should (i.e. there are a few bugs and some soon to be fixed fit and finish issues to deal with…). I have enough willing suspension of disbelief to allow this new app top grow, and then I will make some judgments, to do so now is still mostly idiotic.

Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded?
http://singularityhub.com/2011/07/06/google-is-awesome-facebook-maimed-twitter-mortally-wounded

I’ve spent the last week playing with the new Google+, and I´m here to tell you the service is pretty damn awesome. Dozens of Silicon Valley startups, especially social behemoths Facebook and Twitter, must have had some pretty fun meetings over the last several days. The title of the meetings: how the f*ck are we going to defend ourselves against this incredibly daunting offensive from the big G? I´m not sure if they can.

Social Networking Improved?

Google+ is like Facebook. The interface looks almost identical, with the classic three column homepage seen in Facebook. But the differences start to kick in immediately when you try to make friends.

In Facebook, you cannot friend someone unless they friend you back. And once that person does friend you, for the most part they see all of your updates and you see all of their updates. The result is a privacy nightmare and a news feed filled with everybody´s junk. Most of us have not fully appreciated these glaring problems at Facebook because until Google+ came around there was no other game in town to show us how bad they were. Now we know better.

Instead of treating all of your friends as equals, Google lets you put them into different groups, called circles, such as “friends”, “acquaintances”, “family”, “sports fans”, and so on. These circles represent a powerful innovation. They allow us to send more personal updates just to our closest friends instead of forcing us to share with all of our hundreds of acquaintances. This simple task is not easy to do within Facebook. Furthermore, Google+ allows us to chop up our incoming news stream based on what circle they are coming from, so that we can focus on just the updates from our family or just the updates from our coworkers.

The Google+ circles concept is powerful and easy to use. It represents the defining, foundational difference between Google´s and Facebook´s vision for social networking. If this new model takes off with users, then Facebook will find itself in the uncomfortable position of having to replicate these features within its own platform. Unfortunately for Facebook, moving to this new paradigm will not be possible overnight. We are talking about a major architectural overhaul (update: I mean major as in the backend and more importantly the UI. It will probably be hard for Facebook to integrate this model into their UI in a way that is intuitive and widely adopted by users). In the meantime, Google will have a chance to attract significant numbers of users and influence.

Why Facebook and Google+ are the iPad’s ‘Killer Apps’
http://www.cultofmac.com/why-facebook-and-google-are-the-ipads-killer-apps/103940

Remember the old “killer app” concept? The idea is that an application becomes so desirable that it guarantees massive sales of the hardware platform it runs on.

The Wikipedia has the best definition I’ve seen: A killer app is “any computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, gaming console, software, or an operating system. A killer app can substantially increase sales of the platform on which it runs.”

The best examples are VisiCalc on the Apple II and Lotus 1-2-3 for the IBM PC. Don’t laugh. Without those early “killer apps,” you may never have even heard of the Mac or Windows. (“Cult of Commodore,” anyone?)

Right now, everyone thinks the iPad is successful, and it is. But the number of iPad users sill pales in comparison with, say, the number of Windows users or the number of Facebook users (each boasting well over half a billion users). As much as we love our iPads, we must admit that so far the tablet is an optional toy for rich young people. The iPad dominates tablets, but tablets are on the fringe. The iPad, and the tablet, have not yet found their “killer app.”

But they will. And soon. Both Google and Facebook are both about to release their first-ever iPad apps for social networking. And I think the experience will be so compelling that it will drive millions of new users to get iPads, just for social networking.

Of course, the apps will be available for Android tablets as well. But all things being equal (which they actually might not be — more on that below), people will continue to prefer iPad. So, really, the new social networking apps will be “killer apps” for tablets as a platform, and iPad will dominate tablets.

Right now, social networking on tablets sucks. On Facebook, you can access the service only via your tablet’s browser or via some shady third-party app. The web interface is touch-unfriendly, and the whole experience is unappealing.

When you direct your tablet’s browser to Google+, Google’s shiny new “Facebook killer,” you get a custom mobile version. The interface is a little better than Facebook’s, but the functionality is worse. You can’t, for example, reshare posts.

When the Facebook and Google+ apps hit, which could be any day now, they’re going to be truly awesome. The best indication yet of what’s in store for us is the Google+ Android app. Yes, it’s for Android and for cell phones, but at this point it’s all we’ve got to go on. (The iOS version of Google+, which will work on both iPhone and iPad, is awaiting Apple’s approval as we speak.) As you can see from this video, the app looks very appealing to use, and makes good use of the device’s GPS and camera, and offers a superior alternative to texting with easy group chat. This is a beautiful and compelling app — and it’s just the 1.0 version. It’s also worth noting that the online version of Google+ is spectacularly touch-friendly already, with drag-and-drop contact categorization, complete with some minor iOS-like physics.

Facebook is reportedly working on both an iPad-friendly HTML5 site, and also an iPad app. These new apps, combined with the iPad’s incredible user interface, will provide the kind of experience people really crave from social networking. Friends’ activities will pop up instantly, and people will be able to seamlessly switch from status updates to comments to chat to live video calls.

Why Google + social networking = electric wok
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jul/10/google-social-networking-facebook

A specter is haunting the technology industry. It is called "electric wok syndrome" and it mainly afflicts engineers and those who invest in their fantasies. The condition takes its name from the fact that nobody in his or her right mind would want an electric wok. But because it is possible to make such things, they are manufactured, regardless of whether or not there is a need for them. The syndrome is thus characterized by the mantra: "Technology is the answer; now what was that question again?"

The past two weeks have seen a virulent outbreak of the syndrome. It was triggered by Google’s limited release of a new "service" called Google+ which was widely interpreted as the search giant’s first serious foray into social networking. Initially available by invitation only to a select group of geeks and early adopters (which did not at first include this columnist), it has been the source of frenzied speculation in the blogosphere, not least because it implied that Google was finally getting ready to take on the 800lb gorilla of social networking, Facebook.

In its "limited field test" form, Google+ has five components: Circles, Hangouts, Instant Upload, Huddle, and Sparks. The blurb explains that Circles allows you to assign your friends in an arbitrary number of "circles" – family, colleagues, poker buddies etc – "just like real life.” Hangouts bring "the unplanned meet-up to the web for the first time. Let specific buddies (or entire circles) know you’re hanging out and see who drops by for a face-to-face chat". It is, apparently, "the next best thing until teleportation arrives.” (I am not making this up.) Instant Upload means that your pictures and videos upload automatically to a private album, ready for sharing. Huddle is group text-chat, which apparently will be very useful "when you’re trying to get six different people to decide on a movie.” And Sparks is some kind of RSS feed on steroids. "Tell Sparks what you’re into and it will send you stuff it thinks you will like."

To read some of the excited commentary on these innovations you’d think that teleportation had actually arrived. Watching people salivate over Circles and, er, Hangouts helps to explain how the ancient Egyptians came to worship an insect. It also reminds one of the astonishing powers that large corporations possess to create a reality-distortion field around them which, among other things, disables the capacity to believe that these organizations might sometimes do very silly things indeed. There was a time, for example, when Microsoft’s every move was greeted with the hushed reverence with which devout Catholics greet papal utterances. Grown men swoon whenever Steve Jobs appears in public. And it’s not that long ago since Google launched its incomprehensible "Wave" service (now defunct) and an idiotic venture called "Buzz" – things that excited geeks but left the rest of the world unmoved.

So the question du jour is whether Google+ is an electric wok or not. Initial reactions suggest that it is. First of all, it’s engagingly flaky so that even simple tasks such as setting up a user profile are formidably difficult, as my Guardian colleague Charles Arthur reported in his hilarious, and admirably acerbic, review in which he describes his attempts to create a profile and upload a photograph. "If Google were a start-up," he concluded, "it would have lost precisely 99.999% of every would-be joiner. Getting photos uploaded is the most fundamental thing you have to be able to do and every start-up knows it." He’s right: geeks and early adopters revel in difficulty; ordinary users abominate it. They like stuff that just works.

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