Google+

[Mikuro]

Is anyone using Google+ yet? I have an account, but haven't messed around with it too much yet. If anyone wants an invite, just PM me your email. I'm not 100% sure, but I think it needs to be a gmail address. Edit: Looks like I can't invite more people for now. Not sure why. *shrug*

Personally, I'm not thrilled with the idea of Google getting even more information about me, but....well, as long as Google keeps making the best products in their field, I'm probably going to keep using them. (Never thought I'd be using Chrome, but I am, and I'm no longer a two-browser man.)

Plus, its not like Facebook has my best interests at heart, either. It looks like Google is actually focusing on privacy here. Facebook keeps on changing the rules and making people, wittingly or not, share things with the whole world. Technically, Google+'s circles don't offer anything you CAN'T already do in Facebook, but in Facebook the relevant features are clumsy and not obvious, so nobody actually uses them that way. With Google+ I'd be less reluctant to add, for example, people I only know online, because I can just drop them in a circle and not share everything with them.

So, what do you think? Will Google+ be the new Facebook? Is Facebook already the new MySpace? Or perhaps the new AOL?

 

[angelacat]

I like to try new thing, especially new site to make mre friends and experience different functions and merits I can get from a social community online. If Google+ has become a popular and commonly used by more and more people, I'd like to involve/

 

[Rhisiart]

If Google+ has become a popular and commonly used by more and more people, I'd like to involve/

Well there lies the rub as Bill Shakespeare would say. Facebook seems so well established I can't see Google taking people away from it, even if potentially it's a superior product.

Am I wrong, but has MySpace become mainly a site for bands, musicians, artists etc.?

 

[Giaguara]

If anyone still wants/needs an invite, send me a PM with the email address you want to use.

 

[voice-]

I am puzzled at how everyone seems to jump the gun and declare Facebook dead. I have about 100 friends on Facebook, two of them have made accounts on g+, neither very active and neither have closed their FB accounts. At the moment I like g+, I want to use it, but I have no one to talk to over there.

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Google+ is still in a closed beta release, and is not open to the general public (so new people cannot sign up unless someone invites them, and invites are limited).

Wait until Google+ is actually open and "in the wild" to gauge success of the service.

Edit: Actually, I'm receiving conflicting information. Some places claim that it's still in a closed beta form by invite only, others are claiming that Google+ is open to anyone with an existing Google account (gmail, etc.). So, there's that, for what it's worth.

 

[Giaguara]

It's still closed, and it's still a beta. A few days ago they limited the amount of invites per person to 150 (before I did not see an number for that).

It's not going to be a mass exodus from Facebook (unless or even if FB did something incredibly stupid). Hey, anyone knows what happened to these guys? All the medias were marketing their site as the next big Facebook thing, and as far as I remember they did get plenty of donations for it.

Anyway, there are a few things that it does differently that give it some new uses (and limitations).
- you follow people, whether they follow you or not. Sort of like twitter, without the 140 char limit. This is great for anyone who thinks they are great, like all the Guy Kawasaki wannabes and wannabe famous photographers
- the circles. Umm, you decide which groups see which posts. This google marketed as radically different from how Facebook works. Are people really not using filters or creating their own friend lists in Facebook then? Apart of the few that still insist posting everything in an exotic language and who assume everyone understands them, or who think everyone loves to see the pictures of their hen night or offspring. Use the friend lists, people, especially when you share things that not everyone is going to care about. And you can do this equally well in Facebook.
- the best part of google+ so far: no zynga games. No farmville, fishville, prisonville, margaritaville... no nike+ notifications about the friends who have just run 0.1 miles and have the urge to share that with everyone (hopefully all those apps will not migrate to g+), no notifications about someone asking you to join some cause to do something/some random action request if an arbitrary number of people does something.
- some g+ evangelist's points and tips: http://www.marismith.com/whats-so-exciting-about-google-plus-overview/
- and on the negative side, there are some idiotic suggestions all over why everyone should follow the same famous people in their circles. Sort of like why everyone should follow some famous people in twitter, in their FB page etc. Why should I care what Tom, the "Tom is your friend" from the fallen Myspace, or Mark Zuckerberg does?

In the social media type I'd probably put it somewhere around tumblr with a Facebook twist.
By the way, you can create your g+ a vanity URL with http://gplus.to