I heard a lot of buzz around Google's new try in social network. After Google Pulse and Google Wave, Google has never really been to catch up its delay on main social websites like Facebook or Twitter. It is quite surprising though as it seems that whatever Google is touching is turning to gold:
- It remains the best search engine in the market by far (sorry Bing!)
- Its Android operating system is great and equips some of the best smartphones right now.
- Its Internet browser is really good, the Google Chrome, which I use everyday.
- Gmail is to me still the best email service I know, and thanks to its new way to range emails (even though it needs some improvements), it is improving.
So, why wouldn't Google succeed in the competition of social network? I recently received an invitation to try Google +, the new version of Google's social network. And I must say I am quite impressed.
- The "circle concept" works amazingly. I believe this is a great idea to range people in circles instead of having them in one single feed like Facebook for example, which creates a lot of noise around.
- I can connect easilly to the different social network I am already part of to my profile (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Plaxo), which is cool because it is always great to get all the feed together. One is missing though... Foursquare, one of my favorite!
- One of the huge advantage of Circles is that it connects you right away with people which owns a gmail account, meaning a vast majority of my contacts. That gives a great lift to the service, which already has a strong base of "prospects".
- Also, a great point, even though now it is a bummer: They have created some mobile applications or the main smartphones service: Iphone, Android and Blackberry.
- The tutorial is pretty good, it explains you well the different features of Google+. Also, I like the videos which are very clear about how it works.
- The places lived feature is pretty cool: You just type in the name of the towns you lived, and it automatically locate them thanks to Google Maps.
Now here are some of the things I would have liked to see:
- On peoples page, I would have liked to have been able to leave them an email. I can comment some of their activity, but yet I did not find how to send them an email (private).
- Foursquare is missing in the social network I can add to my social network feed... It is deceiving as I really like this service.
- It could have been cool If I would not have had to fill in my profile: Whenever you register to a new social media, you need to fill in your profile, whereas you have already done it several times. I would have liked a kind of blend between LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles.
In overall, my first impression of Google+ is great. I believe that it brings up some real innovations, and I can't wait to see more people that I know using it to see what will be the real use of it, and how it may fit versus Facebook in the market.
