Sunday, August 14, 2011

Google+

I joined Google Plus a short while ago and found myself flummoxed- What do I do with this thing? Unlike Facebook, it had no buttons or suggestions for what to do after adding people to my circles.
So now, fast forward two weeks and I'm just loving G+.

G+ is really fun to use, once you get the hang of it. To me it's like having one dashboard from where I can tweet my findings without the 140 character limitation of twitter, as well as share personal comments, findings etc with my acquaintances, true friends, or family, or those people that I classify according to my own personal classification system. So it saves me jumping back and forth from twitter to FB. Since I don't spend much time on FB however, I can predict that my personal posts may see in increase, as it's so easy to send off- the- cuff comments to my close friends and family because I happen to be on G+.
What I appreciate is that I can direct different messages to different groups of people. So I have separated friends from acquaintances, from business contacts, for example. And according to G+, these people don't know which groups or circles, I have put them into. That's the nice thing- how I choose to classify the people I know is my personal affair. Now I am trusting that G+ is right about this!
The +1 feature is useful as it allows you to share webpages publicly (ie to the world- not just to the people in your circles). It's not yet available on most webpages however, so it's use is limited at present.

So that's just a preliminary comment on  G+. More to come as features improve. Knowing Google's track record in keeping in touch with user's needs, I look forward to more innovation while they strive to lure more FB users to cross the floor. (Not working with my family though, who are firmly resisting my calls to join the new network).