For those of you who don’t know, Google+ is quickly becoming the network of choice for many social media users. Google+ puts quite a few things on the table that Facebook doesn’t offer including Circles, Hangouts, Instant Uploads, and the all inclusive +1’s.
With Google+ you have the option of placing people in different circles. What this does is allow you to control the flow of your content to select people. Say for instance you have the following circles: friends, co-workers, and family. You’ve had a really bad day at work and you want to voice your opinion about your boss, your co-workers or just about the company in general. Unlike Facebook you have the option of choosing which circle your message goes to. Don’t want the people at work to really know how you feel? No problem – just post the update to where your friends and family are the only ones to see it.
Google+ also allows you to filter what you view in your stream. If you want to stop paying attention to what your friends are saying just click over from that stream to your family stream. Another nifty feature that Google+ boasts is the ability to search for and add suggested users based on categories/keywords. Even if people aren’t actually your friends or family you can use the default circle labeled “following” to stay up-to-date with all of your favorite celebrities and bloggers. For those of you who have an Android phone, Google+ allows for you to instantly upload any picture that you take to a private online album.
While Facebook has the “like” feature it doesn’t do much outside of the Facebook platform. Google+ on the other hand has the “+1’s”, which does so much with just the simple click of a button. So what does this +1 feature offer?
- The +1 button is a way to publicly give something your stamp of approval.
- By +1’ing something you help the people within your circles find content on the web based on what you have given a +1 to. This greatly impacts the way people will search for things within the Google search engine!
With Google tying in their social network features into their actual search engine they are taking a huge leap over Facebook. Google continually has new features and projects underway and linking them together gives them a huge advantage over the Facebook platform. This leads me to then wonder where Facebook will be in the next 5 years. Although Facebook has officially made every account switch over to the new Timeline layout, it is still lacking in comparison to Google+.
What do you think? Will Facebook become the MySpace of social networks in the future?
