YOUR SEARCH ENGINE IS YOUR SOCIAL NETWORK
After a little more time with Google Plus this week I have to say I am really starting to warm to it. I have not played with every feature in great detail but some of the basic improvements are certainly making me enjoy Social Media again, which had become a bit of a chore to wade through the junk to find the good stuff.
Ripples
As I have started to add a bunch of my friends, family, acquaintances and to ‘follow’ a load of industry people the circles and streams features have made checking out the content that I want to see at the time that I want to see it far easier. If I am in work mode then I can quickly view my Industry People stream to see what is going on in the SEO landscape. If I am in the mood for a bit of fun I can quickly see what my friends are up to and likewise.
Likewise, I can post back to these people, all from one interface and without worrying about gags with friends being seen by people that follow me when I am wearing my business hat or that I will upset my mother with some rude words.
The ability to have people in multiple Circles as well and the way this is integral to the addition of a new person almost forces you to organise people from the off which can only be a good thing.
Your Search Engine is Your Social Network
The next feature that is really grabbing me is the social notifications right there in the new google.co.uk (& .com etc) header bar.
This is really cute and seems like an area where google can really get one over on Facebook as surely, a big chunk of us have our search engine as our home page rather than our social network and to have those notifications right there – it’s perfect.
To have search and my social notifications in the same place is, well, it’s just pretty damn cool.
Twitter Plus, Facebook Plus Google
The other area that I like and see potential in is the way that it seems to combine the ways that I use Twitter and Facebook with all of the aforementioned features layered on top. I can follow people like I would on twitter and get rich content right there in the stream as you can on Facebook for liked pages.
I can also interact and banter with my friends much as I would on Facebook but again, the streams and circles just improve this making it so easy to see just what my friends are up to, what industry people are up to, what’s going on in the world of video games.
Ultimately, it’s Twitter and Facebook all rolled into one and then integrated right into Google where I spend so much time anyway in Gmail, Google Docs, the Calendar and much more.
I like it
Well, I am going out on a limb there and as a self-professed Google fanboy that may not mean much yet but I can certainly see this having some legs on it. Whether the masses will move from Facebook is yet to be seen but Google Plus certainly gets my vote (+1).
