Is Google+ the Facebook killer?
Google+ started hitting the streets in late June, quickly soaking up press and attention everywhere. Folks had been anticipating a social network from Google for a while, especially since Google's Buzz service seemed to lack the full development and attention Google lavishes on the rest of its products. Google+ was immediately hailed as the social network to kill Facebook.
This kind of feedback isn't really a surprise. Facebook has always struggled with privacy issues, PR scandals, and legal battles. These are exactly the kinds of problems that become a recipe for internet disgruntlement, and by comparison, Google is frequently hailed as the "do no evil" white-hat among big companies. It makes sense that so many internet denizens would leap at the opportunity to abandon Facebook in favor of Google+.
But how do the services actually compare? What are the benefits of Google+ versus Facebook? Let's break down some of the biggest differences.
Circles are a big part of Google+
The key difference between Google+ and Facebook is the concept of Circles. Essentially, you categorize and add all of your Google+ friends by placing them into one or more Circles. Each Circle represents a group of people in your life: friends, family, coworkers, schoolmates, and so on. Then, when you look at your friends' posts, you can simply tell Google+ you want to read the posts from a single Circle at a time.
This answers a problem that many folks struggle with in Facebook and Twitter: How do you keep up with all that traffic? Facebook and Twitter both offer limited tools for mitigating the infinite chatter found in a huge diaspora of friends, but Google+ has made the control central to its service.
The people you classify into Circles know you follow them, but they don't know the name of the Circle in which you've placed them. As a result, you control exactly who you see on your inbound Google+ traffic and who you do not.
The downside of Circles is that they involve some work to set up. After all, if you're socially networked with a few hundred people, it's going to take time to neatly classify them all into appropriate groups. Once you get that done, though, Circles are truly a blessing.
A fresh approach to privacy
It's no accident that Tecca provides a guide to finding and setting up your privacy options for Facebook. Finding those options independently on Facebook can be a little frustrating, and they definitely feel incomplete. For example, Facebook has no option to disallow your friends from resharing your content. It's always felt like the social network giant plays a little fast and loose with its users' information, and the experience leaves most veteran Facebookers at least a little wary when it comes to the subject.
Google+ makes controlling your privacy options easy. While your basic Google Profile must be public, you can control virtually every other aspect of your account's public availability. You can control whether other people can see your friends, your posts, and even choose whether your friends can reshare your own posts. Every time you post to Google+, you choose which of your Circles can see that post, so you always control how public your posts will be. Google obviously takes privacy very seriously in its burgeoning social network. Hangouts make video chat easy
Another huge part of Google+ is its Hangout system. You simply choose to start a Hangout and share that with whichever Circles (or individuals) you wish. Folks click to join you in your Hangout, and you're all instantly put into a video chat conference.
Hangouts are hardly the first video conference system on the internet, but Google's version is smooth, easy to use, and streamlined. It even has a built-in YouTube function that lets you share your favorite videos onscreen with your friends. The Hangout system supplements Google's extant video chat that's part of its Gtalk service.
While Facebook recently introduced video chat in its own messaging system, it's restricted to one-on-one conversations. It seems like Facebook should be able to do very well in this arena, but Google+'s system still seems smoother, bigger, and cleaner.
Where are the apps and games?
One of the fun things about Facebook is its wide variety of apps and games. Sure, it's a nuisance when your friends spam your news feed with invites and game updates, but the ability to play games with friends is a big draw for the social network. As of right now, Google+ has nothing similar. We can probably expect something like these games to hit Google+ eventually, but there's not been any word so far.
In Google's defense, however, Google Docs and its associated suite of apps have proven incredibly powerful over the years. So while Google+ doesn't feature a huge list of games, it wouldn't be accurate to say Google doesn't offer any apps or other utility at all.
Which is better?
Google+ is coming out of the gate incredibly strong. The two places it most lags behind Facebook is in providing social games like FarmVille and of course in existing users. Google+ is still in limited beta, so not everyone can join the network at their whim. If enough people do jump ship from Facebook, though, you may find yourself using Google+ instead of Facebook.
It's very early to say that Google+ will end up being a "Facebook killer," but it certainly seems like a smoother, more trustworthy social media experience than Facebook so far.
Post by Michael Gray
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