The first time I heard about Google Plus, invariably a question popped up – another social network? Aren’t we already going through enough information overloads? Often I suffer from conversation overload. Don’t know if you do as well. So many platforms where we share and interact, each of them demand attention and time. (Of course, you set priorities!) I have even found out that many people share links on Twitter and Facebook even without reading the complete details (Few will admit!). And NOW Google Plus! But, it wasn’t too long when I figured out what’s new. Firstly, Google Plus is NOT here to kill anyone (anything). Come on, it is very different from Facebook or Twitter or any other social network, and how could someone leave his already existing influence and connections earned on other social platforms?
What Google Plus IS
Google has always given priority to content, and it continues to do so. The ease of content sharing in various forms, such as texts, audio, video, images (all common extns.) and links is absolutely amazing in Google Plus.
As a search engine, Google has been smart to roll out their social media platform. There have always been speculations and experiments to figure out the correlation between social media popularity and Google ranking. And the results definitely proved that likes and shares influenced search rankings to a great extent (Here is an article by Randfish you might like to read in this context.) However, Google needed to extract social signals from Facebook, Twitter and other platforms to justify the search rankings. Now Google has its own social platform to get enough social signals from a user-base of 20 million.
Comments on Google Plus are good, but comments could be a mess at times, if too many. Yes, the comment interface needs some serious tweaking. Ideally, if an update gets too many comments, the most popular ones or may be the most recent ones should be visible and the rest should collapse to give it a cleaner look.
What Google Plus is NOT
Google Plus is NOT like any other social platform, and it is distinguishable in a zillion ways. Particularly, “Circle” is something I find really useful. Sharing should be relevant. If you have great interest in forex and you share articles and updates regularly, it might upset your connections who don’t share the love even remotely. So, why not create a circle of those forex lovers among your connections and then share your stuff? It’s simple, yet neat!
Google Plus doesn’t have the tree model in comments, nor does Facebook have it yet. A simple comment tree makes interactions and sharing more clear and crisp.
No junk posts. If you are on Twitter, in a small window of 10 mins, you can observe a flow of automated posts which might have been reshared the umpteenth time. However, Google plus does not have an option for automating posts as yet (thankfully!), so you don’t find automated updates.
Google Plus still does not support business profiles. However, Google might soon launch analytical products that could support business activities and marketing on Google Plus.
It is too early to say if Google Plus will kill Facebook or not. Since its inception, Facebook has been compiling a colossal data depository and today it can successfully predict individual behavior patterns. I came across an article a month ago on this matter, which is quite relevant in this context. However, survey results from TNW say a different story. On the other hand, I can never get enough of Twitter. Its simplicity and neatness makes it so unique! I often like to hangout in the Tweetverse, even without active tweeting. I would love to see the Twitter-like search feature on Google Plus. Search on this social platform could give it a new dimension. What do you think?
asocialme 
July 28th, 2011 at 4:28 pm
G+ is revolutionary in the sense it tries to bring order in chaos. You are right we would use all the networks at the same time and not leave one for the other. After all who would want to leave daily diet for desserts 😀 My thoughts on G+ are here. http://headlinesindia.mapsofindia.com/social-networking/google-plus/google-a-users-perspective-86279.html
July 28th, 2011 at 4:33 pm
Hey Shilpa, good to see your view on G+. Yes indeed. each platform has its own flavor and utility. So, lets keep sharing! 🙂
July 28th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
Being myself a social media fanatic I would love to taste the juice of relevant platforms that must suit to my need and objectives. Since the inception of Google+ I’ve noticed many major breakthroughs happening all around Google+ over various vertices of social media as well as other marketing channels.What I have experience till now on Google+ is that it has added more value to SEO prospective with its “Spark” like weight features. With ‘Spark’ like fascinating feature you can subscribe the interesting topics instead of going to ‘Google Reader’. It adds more value to increase the traffic rank of a site too as because one can share the blog post links and gain awesome traffic. I like the ‘stream’, ‘sparks’ & ‘circle’ features most. Very soon they are going to lunch the business pages also which will add a high level of importance to the brand promotion & reputation management. What’s your say…guys? Connect me on Google+ at https://plus.google.com/u/0/115548209068068764740.
Hope you all put me in the right G+ ‘Circle’ & begin a +1 revolution with me soon 🙂
July 28th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Thanks so much for sharing your views Sauvagya. Very pertinent!
Lets learn , share and discover more on G+ 🙂
November 23rd, 2011 at 5:41 pm
Google Plus is really very awsome. It offers unmatched privacy settings in the arena of social networks with a super user-friendly interface and concept.