Digital Marketing

Google Plus: Review

I love technology and I always have got my hands on every possible tool, gadget and apps as early as I can. All that I was looking out for, from the first week of July was the awesome “Google Plus” invite like millions across.

Finally I managed to get my hands on an elusive Google Plus invite.

All I wanted to know was:

So is it the next big thing? Can it compete with facebook? And most importantly is it better than facebook?

Let’s check it out.

(The Profile pics and names are Blurred to protect their privacy)

• The Welcome Screen

 

As soon as you login you are presented with a very clean looking “Welcome screen” that makes every Google user feel just right at home.

And yes, you do need a Google email login to sign in, that is of-course after you have got your Special Google Plus Invite.

Once you enter the welcome screen, you can watch a video to find out more about the different features like circles, hangouts & sparks or alternatively complete your profile or add get down right to business as in Add Your CONTACTS to the simply superb “circles feature”.  I just loved using the drag and drop feature with Google circles.

The bar at the top gives you easy access to the other google services like gmail, orkut, Google docs etc & also your notifications. Below that you have shortcuts to your Home, Photos, Profile & Circles.

The left panel helps you to navigate easily among your various circles & also has the proprietary google chat.

 The right hand panel has a summary glance of the people in your circles along with the option starting a hangout & sending invites to your contacts.

• Stream

The stream is akin to your facebook news feed. It shows you the various updates by other people. You can comment, share or alternatively ‘+1’ it which is the google + equivalent of a facebook ‘like’. You must this “+1” button next to all Search results on Google offlate.

• Photos

Clicking on Photos takes you to the various pictures uploaded by the people in your circles. You can filter them by selecting photos from your phone, photos of you or your albums.

A small bubble at the top right corner of the picture shows you the number of comments. On clicking on any picture it goes to a theatre mode similar to that of picasa.

We all are aware of the painful scroll function in the Facebook picture viewer, but Google Plus has made it gorgeous.  

And the picture viewer works quite fast too. The comments are shown in the right hand pane. So no more getting bogged down to scroll all the way to see the long list of comments on the thread just to read say “nice pic”.

Also the photos taken from your phone can be uploaded to a private folder. The coolest function in the PICTURE upload section is “you get to upload pictures without the hassle of selecting one file after the other. That’s right, you can drag your mouse over multiple files in your Computer folder, Drag and release them on the “Drag photos here” screen of Google Plus.

Another neat feature is when you move your mouse over any album, it gives you a peek into the album. Sweet! You can link your picasa album here too. Make sure your Picasa settings are moderated from your end.

• Profile

The profile is very similar to the facebook wall. It shows the various posts, the people in your circles, people who have you in their circles & so on. The interesting part is things that you ‘+1’ on the web are shown in a separate section. So that reduces the clutter & you can focus on stuff that people have shared.

• Circles

This is something new. Basically you create a group & add people to it. No, wait, there’s more to it. Now you can have a drink on a weekday you’re your friends or party with your college buddies, post, share it and still keep it away from your Boss who is also part of your Google Plus profile, but not in the circle with whom you have shared the pictures. So, it allows you to share stuff “specifically” with that group only. This is not just limited to keeping your pesky boss at bay, but also for creating like-minded individuals groups internally to have discussions, posts, pictures, links etc too. Like for eg. If you are an Android geek, add all those Android fans to a group called Androids. Now you can share all Android related stuff only with them without exposing your nerdy side to your other friends. Whenever you share stuff in your stream, it asks you which circles you want to share them with or all of them which is basically the ‘public’ mode. And creating circles is simple two step process. Create a circle and drop your friend in it. And you are ready to go!

• Sparks

Sparks basically lets you select any specific interest of yours and allows you to stay updated on it. Like I have added ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ to my sparks list. Now next time instead of searching for it, I just click on my sparks link. Voila! All the latest news with a single mouse click.

• Huddle

Huddle is a mobile app aimed at group chat. For eg: You want to plan a movie with friends tonight, but can’t get them together in one place. You create a huddle and add your friends to it, either from your circles or individually. Once your friends accept the invite they are included in the “huddle” Each can text his availability, you can decide on the movie & even plan on the restaurant to hang out at after the movie!

• Hangouts

Been saving the best for the last! Hangouts is the best & the most awesome feature of Google +. Similar to a huddle but with video involved, you can conference with up to 10 people! The video focuses on whoever speaks the loudest, or if it’s too disorienting you can click on any one user to focus on.

You can open a text chat window at the side, mute any person or even open a youtube video to discuss it.

Facebook did launch a video calling feature recently. I was among the first persons to install the plug in and try it out. Unfortunately when I logged in the next day, it prompted me to install the plugin again. And again. And again. Also you can only have a one on one video chat. Comparatively Google Hangouts requires you to install the google video & voice chat plugin, which most of the features using gtalk already have installed. It only improves upon their earlier version of gtalk & integrates the group calling function into it. This effectively kills the need for skype (ironically which is powering facebook’s video chat).

Conclusion: 

Google Plus is definitely a mighty contender to facebook.

• The only disadvantage I found, being on Google Plus is this: “There are too few users on the site.” But I guess, even that can’t be a legitimate grouse as it is still in beta and I remember how few invites are still being shared across.
• Hopefully when it exits public beta we will have a lot more users embracing it.
• But even then, it will be extremely difficult to topple facebook from the social networking throne simply because of the sheer number of its subscribers.
• Also Google Plus is still in its nascent stage and it isn’t prudent to have such high expectations from it. But this is a good time for social animals as all this competition can only mean many more game changing events in the future.
• The power of Facebook rests mainly in the scores and millions of apps that are part of the superb social site that revolutionized website and social networking globally.
• With Google’s Android, Google Search, YouTube, Picasa, AdWords, Blogger, Gmail and so on, the integration of power apps would be a much easier.

As I let time to decide on which Social site will create more buzz, let me have a blast with both for now as I keep exploring the features from Beta site – Google Plus.

Lots more to come, stay tuned with me here.

Do let me know what you feel about this social networking site from Google – Google Plus.

Would love to hear your experiences and comments too.

Keep sharing, reading and commenting.

 Ravi E

Tweet with me @ snowfire88 

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