First Impressions of Google+

PR Log - Global Press Release Distribution
First Impressions of Google+
By battery
Dated: Jun 29, 2011
Google has just unveiled Google+, its ambitious answer to Facebook. It turns all of Google into one giant
social network, thanks to a core group of social products and a new navigation bar that integrates sharing
into every single Google product.
Google has just unveiled Google+, its ambitious answer to Facebook. It turns all of Google into one giant
social network, thanks to a core group of social products and a new navigation bar that integrates sharing
into every single Google product.

I spent much of Monday testing Google+'s features. Some first impressions:

Design: Aesthetically, it's all Google -- minimalist with plenty of white space. Nobody is going to
complain about the design, but nobody is going to cheer about it, either.

Usability: Google+ isn't overwhelmed by its many features. It's easy to navigate and its icons speak for
themselves. After a few minutes of exploring, I quickly got the hang of it.
Google+ Stream: The core of Google+ is the Stream, which doesn't bring anything new to the table. It's a
lot like Google Buzz or the Facebook News Feed.

Google+ Circles: Circles is well-implemented. It's far easier than creating a Twitter List or a Facebook
Friend List. The drag-and-drop functionality is a welcome addition, and the cute animations that appear
when you perform actions give the product personality. That doesn't necessarily mean users will take the
time to create friend groups.

Google+ Profiles: Google+ Profiles essentially port the existing data on your Google Profile. There's
nothing particularly special about Google+ Profiles, yet. One of the nice things is that it includes a Tabs
feature, where users can add content from their Google Buzz or their Google +1s. This feature already
exists on Google Profiles, but we bet developers will be able to add tabs to Google Profiles in the future,
customizing and personalizing profiles.

Google+ Hangouts: Hangouts is one of the more innovative concepts of Google+, and we think it's a cool
approach to getting users to accept group video chat. The camera switching feature (it changes who's on
camera based on who's talking) is far superior to having multiple video feeds open at the same time. That
said, it will require users checking their Google+ streams every day for potential chats to join. If Google+
gains traction, Hangouts will be a killer feature.

Google+ Sparks: Sparks may end up being Google+'s most underrated feature. The company has
essentially created a recommendation engine without calling it one. It's designed to augment Google+, and
if it works as Google designed it, it will create winners and losers in the publishing world, making Google
+1 buttons actually matter. Before that becomes a reality though, it needs traction and it should consider
acquiring advanced content recommendation technology from a company like Trapit or my6sense.

Google+ Photos: The photo editor is essentially Facebook photos but with a photo editor. It's quick and
well-organized, making it a welcome addition to Google+. It should take a cue from Instagram and create
simple ways to make photos more "artistic" and personalized.

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PR Log - Global Press Release Distribution
Mobile: The mobile version of Google+ is really simple, which is fine for a first release. It only has two
unique features: instant photo uploads and Google+ Huddle. Instant photo uploads is a cool idea, but we
worry about auto-uploading all of our photos for privacy reasons. We can see some users not being happy
about auto-uploads, even if the albums they're uploaded to are private. This could potentially create a lot of
"garbage."
Google+ Huddle: Huddle is basically a group-texting feature for the Circles you create. It makes sense as a
product, but it isn't terribly exciting. I'm going to stick with GroupMe for now.

Conclusion: Google+ is a bold and dramatic attempt at social. There's a reason why Google calls this a
"project" rather than a "product" -- they don't want people to think of this as the final product, but as a
constantly-evolving entity that permeates every corner of the Google empire.

Overall, Google+ is solid. But I'm not going to call it a Facebook killer or a game-changer. The last
Google product I said that about was the ill-fated Google Buzz. Perhaps that's why Google's rolling this out
slowly via invites, the same style Gmail used to release itself to the world.

If Google can persuade users to come back every day, it has a winner. But the company will have to do
even more to provide a truly compelling alternative to Facebook. At the moment, Google+ cannot compete
with the king of social, but Google doesn't seem to be in a hurry to take on Mark Zuckerberg's giant quite
yet.

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