A few weeks ago, I finally received an invitation to a network that had eluded me for a while — that of Google+. I'd read about it, followed the hype that surrounded it, and signed up for an invitation on its website that promised to inform me once its beta testing was over and it opened up to the public. A few weeks later, a friend sent me an invitation that allowed me to take a peak into its world and see for myself what the fuss was about. My first reaction to the service, in a word? Confusing. My current response? Promising.

On logging into Google+ I was greeted with different "circles" which I guessed I was supposed to filter my contacts into, although I wasn't sure quite what it's purpose was back then.

My entire address book from Gmail was presented to me, and as I continued to add people, so were contacts from their address books. I filtered people into different groups, sometimes adding randomly, and when I was done I stared at my computer screen wondering, Now what? I logged out and haven't logged back since.

For the purpose of writing this article I chatted with a few of my friends who are quite active on social networks to find out their thoughts on the service. A friend who has almost 100 contacts in his "circles" (as opposed to my 15) said he, like me, had filtered his contacts into different groups, and like me, hadn't logged back since.

A few echoed similar sentiments, a few who were using it said it looked promising but it was too early to tell, while the rest said they were quite happy with Facebook and Twitter and didn't see the need to log onto a "me too" service till it promised something different. On doing a bit of research I found out exactly what Google+ IS offering to make them stand out from the crowd - privacy and integration.

Google+, unlike Facebook, has made privacy the central theme around it's purpose, which is why the "circles" exist in the first place. By separating your contacts into groups of people, you're able to, each time you post a picture, thought, video or information, specify who gets to see the post.

Integrated services

Thoughts that are shared with or by your family are not available to your friends and co-workers and vice versa. All those who have been burnt by posting or being tagged in pictures from a wild night out will appreciate this feature. Also, by integrating all of Google's services into its social network, you're able to easily post pictures from your phone that directly get uploaded to Picassa, as well as have an option for all the information to be synced directly with your computer.

Since it also integrates into Google Talk, not only does it utilise the already existing feature of video chat, but also lets up to 10 people chat at the same time via "Hangout," a brand new feature that is comparable with multi-chat in Skype. Although Skype and Facebook recently announced a partnership in the video conferencing aspect of the network, it does not yet allow group conferences, making Google+ have first mover advantage in this area.

Google seems to have got the model right this time around, with a product that isn't too unfamiliar to the public like Google Buzz and Google Wave were, and is similar enough to Facebook. Yet it manages to differentiate itself enough, just enough to be relevant, and as I said earlier, promising.

Google has also proven with other ventures as seen in the mobile arena with its Android OS, that it can eventually succeed even when all bets were against them. Its most recent purchase of Motorola shows they won't be backing down to either Microsoft or Apple in the battle of the smartphone operating systems and now presumably, mobile handsets anytime soon. I would expect the same of them in the social networking battle between Facebook and Twitter.

So why is the jury still out on Google+? Well, I personally don't think it has differentiated itself much in terms of its use. While I mainly use Facebook to reconnect with old friends and keep in touch with daily lives of existing ones, I use Twitter mainly to keep abreast with minute to minute news, stalk my favourite celebrities, get updates and tips from my favourite bloggers, all while tweeting details of my own life and communicating with my blog readers (Follow me on "kchhabria"!)

Although I guess Google+ has tried to get at the problem of output of information by its concept of circles, I don't think it's figured out a way to do dual communication like Twitter allows, which means millions of people won't be sending their thoughts of Kim Kardashian to Kim Kardashian on Google+ anytime soon.

 

Kiran Chhabria is the Director of Jumbo Electronics and a local blogger who writes at www.kiranscorner.com.