After resisting for two weeks I have decided to write a Google Plus review. This includes both the changed designed parameters, the invite growth features and all of the main sub-items and activities you can do in the G+ Stream, Share, Hang Out, Pictures, Circles.
Since I have 2500 people in my circles and I am in 91 circles
To keep it simple – I have noted the following 6 main sub-points.
1) Content Dissemination-
- Sharing Blog Articles
- Micro-Blogging
- Sharing Pictures
2) Online Professional Networking and 3) Online Personal Socializing
4) Spam Control / Malware /Phishing/Porn Protection
5) Time Cost versus Networking Benefit
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1) Content Dissemination-
Sharing is as simple as Facebook but the design makes it simpler.
Note G+ uses lower number of colors, bigger fonts, slightly bigger icons to reduce the appearance of clutter.
Contrast this
with this-
Interesting to see that G+ has four types of media to share- besides writing the status/micro-blog (unfettered by 140 characters). Note these show icons only with hover text to tell you what the icon stands for.
Photo,Video,URL,Location (which seems to be Twitter like in every share)
Facebook has 5 types of Sharing and note the slightly different order as well the fact that both icon and text make it slightly more cluttered- Status (which is redundant clearly ),Photo,Link,Video,Question
G+ thus lacks polls /questions features. It is much easier to share content on Facebook automatically as of now- but for G+ you need to share the URL privately though. There exist G+ meme-s already thanks to re-sharing in G+ plus which seems to be inspired by Tumblr (?).
In addition Google has made your Google Profile the number one SERP for searching your name, so there seem clear tied in benefits of SEO with content disseminated here.
G+ has sharing in circles whereas Facebook has only Everyone, Friends, Friends of Friends ,Customize. This makes G+ interface slightly better in tweaking the spread of content to targeted audience esp by Bloggers.
- For sharing Photos– G+ goes in for a whole new separate tab (one out of four) whereas Facebook treats photo sharing less prominently.
- Google has lesser white space between photos, (The Facebook way used to be just snap photo by iPhone and send by email to auto-post), and the privacy in sharing photos is much better in G+ as the dropdowns in Facebook are not as granular and neither as nifty in icon design.
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- Also I like the hover and photo grows bigger feature and the auto import from Picassa (but I would like to auto-import into G+ from Flickr just as I can do in Facebook)
- Google Plus also has a much more detailed version for sharing videos than photos as compared to Facebook -upload Photo options
versus
- G+ has much more focus on auto-sharing from mobiles
2) Online Professional Networking and 3) Online Personal Socializing Organizing Contacts in Google Plus and seperate privacy controls make it easier to customize sharing without getting too complex. You can make as many circles and drag and drop very easily instead of manually clicking a dropdown box. Effectively speaking Facebook has just 4 kinds of circles and it does not distinguish between various types of friends which is great from philosophical point of view but not so goodn enforcing separateness between professional and personal networks. Note Facebook privacy settings are overwhelming despite the groovy data viz
4) Spam Control / Malware /Phishing/Porn Protection
Spam Control in Facebook versus in Google Plus- note the different options in Google Plus (including the ability to NOT reshare). I am not aware of more enhanced protection than the ones available for Gmail already. Spam is what really killed off a lot many social networks and the ability to control or reduce spam will be a critical design choice
5) Time Cost versus Networking Benefit
Linkedin has the lowest cost in time spent and networking done. If G+ adds a resume section for jobs, recruiters, and adds in Zynga games, the benefit from G+ will expand. As of now G+ is a minimal social network with minimalism as design ethos.
(Zynga would do well to partner with G+)
DECISION STATS 