Google Plus

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Google+

Well.. There was a huge hype created when people came to know a few months back that google was going to give a tough competition and a run for the money to the well settled famous social network : Facebook.

Suprisingly , Google has again entered the social networking game with new strategies. Google + released itself with what you can say as trial mode – it was testing itself with a limited numbers of users and always recommended people to give their e-mail Id so that they can be posted when it enters itself from trial to real mode. I think that was a new strategy implemented by google which develops an urge in people to join it. So from the first day onwards Google + ( or better say Google ) was ready for creating the news.

Just to remind you incase you have forgotten (most probably), Google entered into the Social networking arena with Orkut which then was well appreciated and joined by many users. But then came Facebook which thrashed the whole idea of Orkut and we saw the greatest migration (from Orkut to facebook) ever known to the human kind. Now Orkut has been ignored almost by many and it does not have any potential to grow. Forget Orkut. I think even google has forgotten it now.

Facebook is the most successful social network in the internet history, unlike the other social networks facebook’s growth is solid and it keeps the platform changing frequently so as to give the people something new and keeping them busy with them so that they will not feel bored and think of going outside facebook (not for all but for the majority it works).Though google is still the largest Internet company, it has been affected a lot by the growth of facebook.

Well.. Yesterday I got an invitation from one of my friends and I entered into the much hyped Social network and after exploring it I think Google Plus is here to stay.

Google + Surprises:

Starting off with the Friends list. As it is the most important reason for which a social network is used. As in facebook you can manage your friends into different groups like Friends , Family etc. . Google + also has the same thing but they are implemented in different way. First of all these groups are referred to as ‘ Circles ‘. By default it has four groups already made – Friends , Family , Acquaintances , Following (just as in twitter). And they also give you an option to create a new circle which is useful incase if you want to have your Bussiness Partners group or College friends group and many more. When you add someone on the Google + , at the same time it asks you in which circle do you want to add that person. Google plus invites people by their e-mail id incase those people are not in your gmail contacts.

Second, status thing ( What’s on your mind ?) as in facebook , Google + also has the same thing ( share). But Google + has brought it to a next level. Whenever you are going to share something it always asks which circles you want your status ( I am using the word ‘status’ as I am used to it now) to be visible. This is a better idea as you can have your profession related news only be visible to the concerned people (just incase if you have created a ‘Profession’ named circle). And similarly you can have your private news like a reunion party plan only visible to the circle created for close friends.

Well as we know ‘ Wall ‘ in facebook , in Google + it is known as Stream. And it has also been categorised with the circles. So in case if you want to know what was the topic talked about by the people in your Profession group then you have to select the Profession option under the Stream Category.

There is no Likes button as in facebook, instead it has +1 button for the same purpose (wonder people will write “ thanks for +1s guys “) .

Google Plus has added Orkut in the options so whenever you think like ( with a little chance) to visit it ,just to see whether it is there even or someday when we click on it we get the statement “ It has not been accessed by anyone for a quite time so Google has decided to deactivate it ”.

It also has several other options like gmail, calender, documents, Photos ( which are dealt with Picasa Web Albums), Web (incase if you want to search something then there is always readily available - the best search engine ‘Google’) and even more.

Talking about some advantages as compared to facebook :

Google + also implements chat in a new way. You can list the people you want to chat with. For the time being Google plus does not have any annoying applications like in facebook.Google plus uses google talk (or google chat) for chatting purpose. It is much better than the facebook chat ( The current facebook chat has come into a lot of criticism as many users infact more than 80% has disliked the new chat ). Google Hangout is far better than the facebook video chat.

Now for some disadvantages :

Google plus may seem quite tedious and complex when you are new to it. It is not as simple as Facebook.Google+ does not have anything special for a typical Facebook freak who does not care much about privacy. Google+ does not have an own powerful branding as a social network (It’s a sub-product of google and not a mere social network brand like “facebook”) However, this is how it could be released because a unique branding is too weaker to compete facebook.

Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg and then some companies also joined and came into existence what we know as the present facebook. A film (The Social Network) also being created has helped facebook to gain publicity.

Google + has been created by well known brains of Google company.

As for now I can say only these things as it has only been a day I have joined Google +. At this stage it’s very hard to predict if the Google plus vs Facebook competition will make sense. Because, social networking is a market that closely works on peoples’ psychology giving them a virtual world with an environment that they want.

I Hope Google + gives a tough competition to the facebook (which is now having more than 750 million users and is on the verge of declared as a continent) and give many more surprises to us so that we can also say we are G+ addicts.

Now let me sign out of facebook for the day.